Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Unless it's
1: drawing clicks away from your adsense ads,
and it ....
2: doesn't drop you into the mysterious "Websearch Fees Deducted" category ....
look at it as additional income and cash the check happily.
3) Forbid you from using a very productive, and not directly competitive product like SearchFeed anywhere on your site.
This irritates me, and strikes me as monopolistic. I can see maybe banning competitve search boxes for branding reasons, or maybe, ban similar services on the same page.
But to ban only mildly competitive services on the entire domain? Seems a little heavy handed, and is sure not helping me as a publisher trying to monetize different pages within a large site.
This, combined with extremely low CPC's, and being forbidden to customize the search box to blend into my site, is turing my Websearch experiment into a short one.
Google allows you to easily monitize your pages by allowing you access to THEIR advertiser base and THEIR search index for FREE on your site. Hell they wrote the programs, pay employees, and utilize their own resources to provide this to you.
It is so simple that you don't have to do much of anything but move the code around on your pages a bit and change colors. If you don't like it don't use it. It is not your service, it is GOOGLE'S. Come up with something different that is more in your control. It is your site and your CHOICE.
My comments are: 1) G bans similar services at a domain, not page, level and this bugs me; 2) the EPC's are not particularly compelling for me; 3) the inability to customize is unfortunate.
That's it. Just my experience. And yes I realize that i don't have to use the service.
Search ads have a far higher clickthrough rate, however: about 8 times the CTR of content ads.
As for revenues, content ads win by a huge margin because I get very little internal search traffic on my site. Historically, a lot of my readers use search (and especially Google) to find my site, but they prefer to use internal links and menus after they arrive.
I was commenting about your negativity towards the program. Although it isn't spectacular I have no complaints. All this boo hooing about this and that, we fail to realize that this is virtually free money. We really don't have to do anything for it but do what us publishers do best.
I understand about the search boxes not being the spec size and all -but- remember it took time to see new ad sizes, colors, and channels to appear in the program. Given enough time you will see the search box take new shapes and sizes. Just send an email to Google and ask to change it.
I guess it was your statemts that got to me:
"and is sure not helping me as a publisher trying to monetize different pages within a large site.
This, combined with extremely low CPC's, and being forbidden to customize the search box to blend into my site, is turing my Websearch experiment into a short one."
When you say Google Adsense "is turning you Websearch experiment into a short one" you are placing the cause and blame on them when in fact it is your own doing.
Just be careful of the words/thought process like this. Nothing will come of it and will just drag you down. Take the responsibility and (and by your last post you do):
1. Be patient
2. Be optimistic
3. Ask questions (ask google), be open for opportunity, and learn.
4. If what you do dosen't work then change it.
Don't fall into the rants and raves these other people seem to get into.
BTW - I am seeing pretty close to the same stats that you are seeing. Kinda disappointing but money none the less.
Overall in terms of revenue I'm very happy with WebSearch.
i need to be clearer. i implemented websearch on 200k+ pages.
the websearch tos prevents me from using a provider of sponsored search results on ONE page of my site (the search results page). in no way would any user EVER confuse this service, with the service provided by websearch.
since launch, websearch, implemented on 200K + pages, has yielded about 50% of the total revenues that this other service provider had yielded on ONE page.
so no, it is not free money for me. it is free negative money :)
Note: I love Google. I love AdSense for content. I love the Google search engine. I admire Sergey and Larry. It's just that WebSearch isn't working for me :)
Websearch is more of an add-on, rather than an exact duplicate of Adsense with regards to revenue potential. It works best for those who have not been able to previously monetize their internal search.
i was just trying to make the point that i think this part of websearch is poorly conceived. i would gladly brand google all over my site. put their search box on 200k pages. send them hundreds of searches a day.
and all for a handful of dollars a day.
but, their heavy handed tactics in banning pseudo competitors at a domain, and not a page, level make this impossible for me.
i think that this aspect of the websearch tos is poorly conceived, and not in the best interest of either Google or the publisher.
Yes it was a bizzar post! I hear ya that it is disappointing in the fact that you just took a good pay cut. Have you tried to contact them with your situation?
