Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Anyway, what struck me in the MediaPost publication of the story is this quote:
"Jupiter Research analyst Niki Scevak was lukewarm over any looming Yahoo! Adsense-like offering, explaining that the money at stake is negligible at this stage. "We don't know what it's done for Google because they haven't told us, but I don't think it's much," Scevak said. "
... First, interesting that Google hasn't even informed investors of the role AdSense plays in its revenue stream. I don't follow Google financials, but I thought people had a rough understanding?
Secondly, if it hasn't done much revenue-wise, where does that leave all of us in the near future, and long-term?
Any thoughts?
Hunter
Definitely going to be interesting. Might be best to just hang back and watch for awhile.
Yes, but that's no fun. :-)
Given how automated this all is (and even when you write AdSense customer service, do you often get the impression that they spend more than about 12 seconds answering you?), I don't think dealing with small publishers is that problematic. Yes, there is overhead, but I think it would be a mistake for Yahoo to set minimum traffic level requirements.
If Yahoo wants to avoid Google's QC problems by being more selective, having a minimum traffic level would be a reasonable way to make the pool of applicants more manageable. A minimum of, say, 1,000 daily impressions would reduce overhead by eliminating most of the three-page "My Dog and Me" or "My Personal Blog" sites that people throw together on a whim and never bother to update. Sites with fewer impressions than the minimum wouldn't be told "Go away and never come back"; they'd be told "Come back when you can meet the minimum requirements."
Of course, it's possible that Yahoo might be worried that "My Dog and Me" or "My Personal Blog" could become a huge hit after the rejected publisher joined AdSense. But Yahoo might also figure that, by being more selective, it would be able to attract the "My Dog and Me" or "My Personal Blog" owner when that site had outgrown AdSense and was ready to run with the big dogs.
Disclaimer: (1) We don't know what Yahoo's strategy is, and (2) Google is unlikely to sit still while Yahoo skims the cream from its ad network. AdSense is a first-generation product, and who knows what variants and enhancements are waiting to be released?
The users who view pages of those low-traffic sites are likely to be family and friends of the owner, which means there's a greater chance that "invalid click" alarms will be triggered if users click on more than a few ads.
Come to think of it, maybe Google's lack of a traffic minimum is one reason why we see so many "I've been dumped for invalid clicks" posts. I wonder what percentage of disabled accounts are for publishers who've had a very small pool of users?
If Google wanted to make Adsense something worthwhile, they'd put standards. Instead, they use it to make a few bucks on unsuspecting Adwords users who aren't knowledgeable enough to know to turn off click-fraud match...I mean content match.
I only disagree with the level you are setting on it. 100,000 page views a month is pretty high. Even with 10,000 page views a month we are hardly looking at just friends and family.
Are we assuming that the company (adsense, yahoo or whatever) would just go by stats? How about looking at the site? It's usually pretty obvious if the site is for friends and family or has a broader base of people interested in the topic.
For example someone could have a site devoted to people rock climbing in a small area of a state. A very niche topic like this could bring enthusiasts truly interested in ads about books, climbing equipment, etc but still not have a that many visitors per day.
I only disagree with the level you are setting on it. 100,000 page views a month is pretty high. Even with 10,000 page views a month we are hardly looking at just friends and family.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be 100,000 PVs; it could be whatever number Yahoo thought was appropriate. Or, as I suggested earlier, it could be a combination of factors. My point was simply that Yahoo can avoid some of Google's problems by establishing a minimum traffic level that won't exclude potentially profitable niche sites.
And I repeat that I'd like to see higher standards for ads as well. I am so sick of ebay ads for things that don't even make sense. They are just using up space on my page with nothing that my visitors would be interested in. In fact they must think they are truely wierd.
