AdSense referrals changed to include a 90-day limit from signup

A new clause in the publisher control panel

[zygomar]

Did a search on webmasterworld but could not find any message about it.

On the Adsense referral control panel, at the bottom of the page, it says:

"An AdSense referral is counted when a publisher, who has never previously enrolled in AdSense, creates an account and earns at least $100.00 within 90 days of sign-up. The referred publisher must be eligible for payment to qualify as a successful referral."

Is it new or what?

I guess I have to remove all the banners and buttons now because it doesn't make sense at all.

[howdyhi]

As a newly signed person, I'm guessing it takes at least 90 days to learn how to make adsense work well. Unless they have an established site, the threshold won't be reached within three months for most of the people you sign up. There is an older post from someone who reported having signed up 150 people without seeing a dime.

[zygomar]

About 30 people signed through my banners and never got anything out of it.
They better close down the referral thing, and actually never started it in the first place.

[a1call]

Hi zygomar,

Thanks for the heads up. I had not seen that fine print before. All buttons are coming off my site. The condition to earn commission on this is astronomically improbable. I would estimate that only a handful of people can ever collect on this program.

[miguelito]

aaww come on guys! don't be mean, let google screw you out of any money by adding the "90 days" clause, hidden at the bottom, i mean they really need the money!

[zygomar]

Yep, not only the clause is annoying but the way to let us know is even worse.
Well may I say that for the last 3 years I trust G as a partner. And may I say what I am thinking about now, no I better not. lol

[zeb]

There is no sense sending Adsense referrals after this 90 days limit was introduced.
Living in a small country, with not so many visitors to websites, I would never get single $ from this program, not even if I referred hundreds of new adsense users!

[Jafo]

I will say this, even when I just threw the google ad's on my sites with no thought to placement, content, etc, I earned $100 in 3 months.

[Monus]

More the 150 sign-up and now come google with a 90 days limit. It's not only that the sign-ups is not that much wort anymore, this sign-ups have also reduce my earnings on the normal ads.

A really bad way to mislead your publishers.

[vincevincevince]

"Ooops! I've taken them down...."

[jetteroheller]

I will say this, even when I just threw the google ad's on my sites with no thought to placement, content, etc, I earned $100 in 3 months.

My oldest site started 1997 is a good example for this. The site is practicall unchanged, new content is published in theme oriented subdomains.

By blending in, better ad placement, AdLinks,
URL filter, the earnings increased with practicall the same traffice 5.4 times more revenues.

[edited by: jetteroheller at 12:24 pm (utc) on Jan. 27, 2006]

[hyperkik]

From an economic standpoint, "$100 over the lifetime of the account" wouldn't make sense for Google. It can certainly be argued whether 90 days is appropriate, but it is not unreasonable for them to impose some time restraint.

[ken_b]

I didn't use this product, but it seems to me that the 90 days/$100.00 requirement has been a part of it from the beginning. It's a perfectly legitimate requirement.

[Jenstar]

This 90 day requirement is definitely new, it was only just added. And none of the support documents even include this 90 days yet, they simply refer to the $100 part required to earn your $100 referral income. The only place this new requirement is actually available to be seen now is at the bottom of the page you get your referral code from.

[ken_b]

>> This 90 day requirement is definitely new

Well, then it's a good addition.

[oddsod]

Of course it's a good addition, good for Google ;)

[Frequent]

I agree that the requirement makes sense. Google shouldn't be expected to track that referral for a year or more that it takes some new publishers to hit the $100 mark.

BUT, it would make even more sense to just drop the commission to $10 or $20 on every approved sign-up regardless of earnings.

Heck, just the info they accumulate from the sign up process is worth more than $20. They have just gotten a quality lead for many publisher oriented services they sell.

I must say that Google has what I would consider a very poor affiliate program. I had put the button on a couple of sites initially but until they get realistic the buttons are gone.
Freq---

[celgins]

I've never used the referral program, but I wouldn't completely ignore it.

The 90-day turnaround time for the $100 referral fee is short, but I think Google is just trying to strengthen the quality of sites being referred.

If they tracked a mediocre website indefinitely, it could mean a $100 referral bonus 3 years from now. If the site is exceptional, it could surely earn you a $100 referral bonus in 90 days.

[a1call]

Being definitely new, begs the question if this would apply to the sign ups accumulated before the prohibitive condition was added or not?
Estimating the percentage of publishers that earn $100 within 90 days (probably very low) and the percentage of the publishers that never reach this limit (probably not that low), I think that the program without the time limit could be profitable for Google.

[Hobbs]

Looks to me like Google found itself in a pickle of a situation, probably got flooded with personal home pages and other low advertising quality sites.
Their natural instinct is to lower the referral fees paid, but the program has been running for months, and to apply a discount on historic transactions would be unacceptable, so they slipped in this clause which I think is the first step in retrenching and pulling out the program later on, before presenting it again - if they ever do - with stronger system that would reward on lead quality basis..

Another theory is that their approval system is 100 automated and has been misfiring and approving applications left and right, registering signups at hopeful publishers reports, and the campaign reached its allotted budget too soon, so they had to slow it down a little..

Probably there is a product or business development manager clearing his drawers at the plex right now.

Like you I feel betrayed to discover the new clause this way, very unlike the Google that I know, the decent thing would have been an email notification, the trust they lost is worth much more than the money saved.

Google, that was not nice at all.

[walrus]

I agree it is not an unreasonable amount, but they should add that if they earn 300.00 in 3 months we might get an additional 50.00 for the referal.

[humblebeginnings]

But what about the existing referrals? I invested time and webspace in these silly referral buttons assuming I would get $ 100,- if the new publisher would earn his first $ 100, regardless of how long it would take. That was the deal. It's OK if they change it, but it should only apply to new referrals, not the existing ones. BTW, I have removed the silly buttons right away. I guess that was the intention of Google.

[balour]

What do you expect from Google? A 100$ bonus
for every referral you sent?

For myself, I reach the 100$ in the first and
every month, since I'm in the AdSense program.

If someone can not reach this goal in the first
3 months period, Adsense is not the place to
stay, and he must do some homework to improve
his site, content and traffic.

Why not giving an hand to improve your "friend" site?

[mm1220]

If someone can not reach this goal in the first
3 months period, Adsense is not the place to
stay, and he must do some homework to improve
his site, content and traffic.

What about someone who wants to put up (using php) an ad every ten pageviews so as not to "commercialise" his/her site too much and whose only motivation is to make the $100 over the course of an entire year to pay for hosting and domain charges?

[Monzilla]

From my side these adsense referrals dont work for me.

But yes I get enough from Firefox Referrals.

[balour]

We dončt have any control on how every referral
run his site. When someone in my downline is
not interesseted in racking all possible revenue
from his website, what can I do.

I can only send him a list of charity who can
use all that money.