Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The basic premise is that some blind men visit an elephant at the zoo (this is an old story so I'm not going to say "visually impaired" or use gender-neutral language or wonder how they were allowed to touch the elephant...).
One stands at the front of the elephant, gets ahold of its trunk, and says, "Ah, elephants are long and thin!"
One stands at the side of the elephant and says "Ah, elephants are big, flat, walls!"
And one stands under the tail and says...
Well, you can fill in the rest. AdSense is like that, only more complicated. To some, it's a stable and high-paying program. To others, it's a rollercoaster. And to others, it's a long slippery slope. And I'm not cataloging all the variations.
And all the perceptions are right.
So there you are, a fable for Friday night.
End of :) Say no to smartpricing! we should have a petition fellow smartpriced (i love you all who be in my situation)
I can see the reasons behind it from the point of advertisers and ultimately us (we don't want to start EFV grumbling on forever and dragging the thread away from the topic do we), my real beef with the stupid thing is that it doesn't actually work very well. If they managed to fix it (ha ha), then there would be less grumbling. But don't expect that any time soon.....
I like the fable about the non-pc blind people and elephant, and think it's an accurate analogy. I guess the game we ought to play is "What part of the elephant are you feeling?". I've been standing under the tail recently just after it had eaten a particularly hot curry (thanks a lot RandomPricing(tm) and cpm ads) but I think I'm moving slightly round the side and am starting to feel a bit of arse instead :)
I don't think G are going to take any notice of us standing waving plackards and singing songs outside their offices unfortunately:( RandomPricing(tm) isn't going away.
If only the others would get their act together and finally launch their products globally! That *could* make a difference.
In a way it's strange that Google posts record earnings for Q3, but my revenue is slowly "sliding down the slope" as hunder put it. Is there more to the story than we all know?
And no, I do not appreciate any comments from the Google fancrowd on how great Adsense is. I say it again: I love the idea of the program, but its lack of transparency and tools to control ads is bad.
Spot on, if they remove smartpricing from the whole programme
Look in the YPN group about the alternate method, YPN uses instead of smart pricing.
The YPN alternate method is to terminate an account.
I am again struck by the very differing perceptions we have of AdSense
I think a lot of it has to do with people mistaking data and facts for inferences and conclusions. I'd say easily more than half of the posts I see about adsense/adwords mistake conclusions for proof, and the reality is that conclusions people make about adsense reflect more on the person with the conclusion than how the thing actually works.
People do this kind of thing (confuse data for inferences and facts) more when the situation is ambiguous and there is little real data. In effect they start with a positive or negative conclusion, then seek out "data" to support what they already believe.
The best example is when google reports its revenues or with stock prices. It revs. go up it's a cash grab, and if rev. goes down the same people claim THAT supports whatever perceptions they have. If stock goes up google is "taking a higher percentage" and if stocks go down they're "crashing because of greed".
It's all pointless since it's all simply telling stories without much to support them.
If only the others would get their act together and finally launch their products globally! That *could* make a difference.
Have you visited the YPN Forum lately?
In a way it's strange that Google posts record earnings for Q3, but my revenue is slowly "sliding down the slope" as hunder put it. Is there more to the story than we all know?
It seems pretty obvious: More advertisers + more publishers = more revenue for Google.
That doesn't necessarily mean more revenue for any individual publisher. Let's use a simple analogy: You've got a store that sells widgets. Two other stores selling widgets open on the same street. The widget distributor's earnings go up, because three stores are now promoting widgets to passersby. However, your own earnings go down, because your widget sales are now being cannibalized by your competitors.
And no, I do not appreciate any comments from the Google fancrowd on how great Adsense is.
I'm not aware of any "Google fancrowd" here (being rational doesn't make one a "fan"), and I doubt if any member of this forum would claim that AdSense is perfect. However, just because AdSense isn't perfect doesn't mean that every publisher's problems are all Google's fault.
And no, I do not appreciate any comments from the Google fancrowd on how great Adsense is.
I'm a fan of large sums of free money and if that makes me an AdSense fan, then so be it.
That doesn't necessarily mean more revenue for any individual publisher. Let's use a simple analogy: You've got a store that sells widgets. Two other stores selling widgets open on the same street. The widget distributor's earnings go up, because three stores are now promoting widgets to passersby. However, your own earnings go down, because your widget sales are now being cannibalized by your competitors.Absolutely!
I'm amazed at how many people forget that after they've signed up others are still allowed to sign up. I also seem to see a lot of the people who are often complaining that have set their best days as their standard expectations. Everytime we expand our sites coverage we either create new adwords campaigns to pay for them (not likely) or we take a part of the finite pool already there. If our expansion takes what someone else is already making could their expansion dip into our entitlement?
And this ridiculous myth system that has formed around smart pricing where predictable results become conspiracy theories. (implied rolling eyes smiley) How long until we see smart pricing advisors consulting for a fee on how to remove the curse while losing weight and adding bounce to our hair?
Some of us think that advertisers are happy to see some MFA site spend all their ad budget in an afternoon, advertisers I've talked to have quit when this happens and leave the pool altogether. Slash & burn, cancer and AS. 3 activities that give no consideration to the life of the host organism they feed off of.
Looks like I did another rant :)
The elephant story was nice.
[edited by: Lagamorph at 11:39 pm (utc) on Oct. 21, 2006]
Why do I say that? Since June of 2005, after figuring out what I needed to do to reverse my (fairly mild) smart pricing decling, and after figuring out how to place an adlink on my home page, my AdSense earnings have greatly outperformed the other sources of income for my site, and haven't varied by more than 15% or so from month to month (though with a slight upward trend).
I guess I should have added my own perception of the AdSense elephant: it's big, and hard to climb on top of! Once I did, it's been very stable, and a good ride.
Hang around an elephant long enough, and you're bound to get hosed from time to time. :-)
Elephants never forget, and they're pretty smart, so be sure to treat them well.
I make sure mine gets good-quality food and fresh water, plus plenty of room to roam in.
(But I did chuckle at the bit about just moving out from under the tail: I'm sure my turn there will come along in due course, but I'll *try* to remember not to blame G for my lack of sexual prowess, etc!)
Rgds
Damon
Hello everyone!
AdSense is a large orifice that regularly dumps loads of green.
Thanks, Hobbs--I hadn't thought of it that way, but there you go, it all depends on your point of view....
Actually I'm in Bangkok right now (work, not vacation), I've seen elephants being paraded around the streets for the benefit of tourists, maybe I should go and touch one up (an elephant, I mean). Or even better: start up a package tour service for Adsensers - "Come and ride the AdSense Elephant". I shall employ people to walk behind the elephant, and whenever it performs a click dump they will stick in little blue-framed text notices reading along the lines "Shoes need cleaning? Call here ..." or "Elephant Dung: best offers on eB*y".
[edited by: zCat at 4:07 am (utc) on Oct. 23, 2006]
Ann
I have heard and used the blind men and the elephant proverb applied to the search alogorithm but never yet to AdSense. I think it quite apt and it explains why we will never grasp the true shape of the entire animal (even if it maintained a constant shape, which it doesn't.)
I've been pondering this the last few days and weeks.
I read the I'm down, down, down threads and wonder if we are talking about the same Adsense program.
Could there be two (or more) versions?
One that provides decent income with an almost hands free very low maintenance system, and one that seemingly drains publishers of their very will to live with it's roller coaster ups and downs?
That's probably not it, so then what?
Skill? That can't be it or I'd be broke and living under a bridge.
Niche/topic/approach to either? Maybe this is where the difference is.
I don't have the answer, but I wish I did.
so many variables!
And danimal:
the type of traffic that you feed to adsense can make a huge difference.
Yes, good-quality hay makes all the difference. And the occasional carrot. Give the elephant straw and you will not be happy with the result....
The money for G to make that much profit has to come from somewhere...it can't come from the people that are making more money ... it has to come from the people that are making less.
That just doesn't make sense.... In general, the more we as publishers make, the more google makes.... The more you earn, in general, the more you're making for google...
Ann
