Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Ever since Google unofficially changed the corporate slogan from "don't be evil" to "make some money", and invented AdWords and contextual advertizing, the results have been nothing short of phenomenal, resulting in Google being one of the major forces in online economy today.
Being an AdSense publisher from the beginning of the program, I've come to appreciate the predictability and sophistication of the way in which Adsense program has worked. In general, I had the same feeling about Google Search too.
If you did X (e.g. built quality content), you got result Y (e.g. more visitors to your site, and more clicks on AdSense ads). If you doubled your efforts, the result was pretty predictable: 2*X = 2*Y.
The other side of the coin has been that this hard work has resulted in similar increase in revenues/profits for Google from the AdSense program.
Now, lately, it seems that they are making drastic experimentation to both the Google Search as well as Google AdSense algorithms/formula and the old formula where 2*X resulted in 2*Y does not work anymore.
From the publishers point of view, the unpredictability is taking away much of the business side incentive that goes into quality content building.
Also, I as I would guess thousands of other webmasters are now actively thinking of AdSense alternatives, in order to be able to stop wondering what will Google come up with next, and concentrate on creating new content.
Why would Google tweak a system that has been one of the biggest success stories ever? Do their engineers have too much time on their hands to "play around" with the system, just for kicks? There was a good thread somewhere about the recent Google changes titled "No, Google, No!". I second that.
Google, you're a grown-up business now. You gotta leave behind the immature business practice of drastic change, at least when it comes to the core business model.
I've seen no authoritative source that would confirm your statement that Google is “making drastic experimentation to both the Google Search as well as Google AdSense algorithms/formula.” Without such information, it is pure speculation as to what Google is or is not doing.
Obviously no conclusions can be drawn from just one website, but our site is very stable and has been so for over a year (we have been in the program since June 2003). Thus the circumstantial evidence from our site would indicate no “drastic experimentation” on Google’s part.
Why would Google tweak a system that has been one of the biggest success stories ever? Do their engineers have too much time on their hands to "play around" with the system, just for kicks?
No, the obvious goals are to:
1) Deliver higher-quality results with Google Search, as defined by Google;
2) Deliver better value to advertisers (and to Google) with AdSense.
Fact is, the Internet doesn't stand still, and search engines (or ad networks) need to adjust to changing realities. For example:
1) Affiliate marketing was introduced as a form of "shared-risk" advertising. It quickly became an end in itself, and entrepreneurs flooded the Web (and the SERPs) with millions of heavily SEOed boilerplate pages.
2) AdSense was introduced as a way to "earn money from your Web site." It quickly spawned thousands of "made for AdSense" sites (many generated with the aid of bots and scripts), resulting in even more SERP clutter.
In each of these examples, Google and other search engines have been forced to take countermeasures to protect their own core product: search. If they'd simply stood still, they would have risked being put out of business by competitors with better spam filters.
Getting back to the topic of this forum (AdSense), it's important to remember that Google is a data-driven company, and its algorithms will inevitably change as its base of statistical data grows.
Smart pricing is a case in point: It didn't exist when AdSense launched. There was a lot of teeth-gnashing on this forum when it was announced last April, but it was a necessary change because it made it possible for more advertisers to get a positive ROI from the content netwok.
Nine months have gone by since the introduction of smart pricing, and Google probably knows far more about how different types of content convert--and even how individual publishers' sites convert--than it did three-quarters of a year ago.
What's more, some publishers may have contributed to their own declining earnings by taking measures to increase clickthrough rates. Again and again, we see posts that claim "I did this or that, and my clicks went way up." That's fine and good if the additional clicks convert at the same rate for advertisers. In many cases, those additional clicks probably won't convert as well, and the lower conversion rates may lead to higher advertiser discounts and lower EPCs for publishers who boost CTR through design tweaks.
IMHO, if Google is to be faulted for anything, it's in looking the other way while publishers have created "made for AdSense sites" and in offering publisher tools (such as color palettes and multiple ad units) that aren't in the best interests of advertisers.
Also:
Not all topics or types of content perform well with AdSense. This became evident last spring when smart pricing was introduced and some publishers saw their earnings drop by 90%. Now that Google has achieved a commanding market share with AdSense, it be adjusting its smart-pricing scheme, compensation formula, etc. in ways that bring publishers' earnings more in line with their value to advertisers and to Google. (Note that I'm not talking about intrinsic value here; I refer to commercial value, not content.)
What comes next:
The publishers who are most valuable to Google and advertisers are likely to stay; the publishers who leave will be those who are least valuable to Google and to advertisers. To use a fishing analogy, Google gets to keep the salmon, trout, and tuna; the less profitable species get thrown back in the sea, where competitors can fight over them. That analogy may sound harsh, but it could be the reality that publishers face today.
I think AdSense will continue to evolve to make for a better advertiser experience on content sites. Whether it is smart pricing we saw last April, or the increased ad targeting we saw in the Fall, things will continue to change. As publishers, we just need to keep on top of all the tweaks, and counteract them with tweaks of our own, so we can continue to maintain or increase AdSense earnings.
