Is it GoogleGift time yet?

Maybe this year?

[RonS]

Will there or won't there be a GoogleGift?
What will the cutoff be?
How many of us will get "stiffed" again?

PLEEEEEEEASE SantaGoogle, send me a GoogleGift! :D

[RonS]

I see that one. The guy is selling it for an additional donation to a specific charity. That's pretty interesting.

I just found another.....

.....in Mountain View, CA!

[spaceylacie]

I was happy when the card came even though it wasn't personalized. I will be watching for a gift as well.

[greatstart]

I haven't seen any gifts or cards this year so far, but I can remember in the past year or two that some people who had received these gifts from Google actually had the nerve to place the items for auction on eBay. No how low can you get?

[ltedesco]

just the card so far. :o(

[dataguy]

I got the USB card and the donation card yesterday.

Prety cool, it made my kids' eyes light up to see Dad getting a gift from Google.

My question: For the USB card, is all the functionality in the little swing-out USB connector? It would be more useful if I could just break it off and use it like that, without the rest of the "credit card", but I don't want to make it not work anymore.

Has anyone tried this?

[dataguy]

It would be more useful if I could just break it off and use it like that, without the rest of the "credit card", but I don't want to make it not work anymore.

Don't do it. I just pulled the Google sticker off and I see that the actual memory is contained in the main part of the card... oh well.

With 13 computers at home, the USB card only fits in 3 of the computers....

[WiseWebDude]

Yup, just got card yesterday printed in every language known on the face of the earth. No gifts though. Oh well, not a big surprise. I'm sure their spending the money on not being "evil." So, that's good.

;)

[RonS]

Still nothing.

Not even an eCard which would be greener and "not evil".

[spaceylacie]

I tried to follow G's example and sent everyone that works for me(about 16 of them) a really nice gift this year... it was very expensive. I thought about that saying, what goes around comes around, but all I got from Google this year was a greeting card with pretty snowflakes and about 12 fat checks. Poor me.

[endomorph1]

17th December and still nothing for either Adwords or Adsense account and both account see large sums of money through them!

[Kimkia]

Has anyone in Canada seen the Google Santa yet?

[fearlessrick]

Wow, some of the comments in this thread really reinforce the idea that Christmas has become the season of greed, rather than giving.

Kudos to those few who aren't griping.

[RonS]

Did you get a card or a gift from G, Rick?

[MsHuggys]

Nice gift and card two years ago. I was ranking #1 for all my major keywords in Google, traffic was terrific and Adsense earnings with the best to that date (to this date too).

Last year, no gift, no card. My Adsense earnings had slumped after the Google Dance that slammed my traffic.

This year I get a card, no gift. My traffic had come back a bit as I was given credit for the longevity factor in search rankings at Google.

Why is when their search engine fiddles with my traffic, resulting in less Adsense revenue, I get double penalization with their parnter gifts?

After all, they are the one who provides 85% of my traffic. My Adsense loss in revenue is directly tied to their meddling with the algo which I can only knee-jerk react to, and only see gains to off-set over time.

[fearlessrick]

Ron, my birthday is Dec. 4, and for the occasion, Google decided to drop the PageRank on my 8-year-old, niche authority site, which ranks #1 for a variety of keyword phrases, from 4 to ZERO. I guess they didn't appreciate the fact that I sold advertising on my site without using their rel=nofollow tag.

So, no, I'm not feeling too cheery regarding the ho, ho holiday antics of the Big G.

I honestly think they're cheezy, sleazy, untrustworthy and arrogant. So, for a big multi-national corporation, nothing new.

I am getting them something for Christmas, though. All new YPN ads on my site (already making almost as much as G on about 1/10th of the pages).

[RonS]

Sorry for your troubles.

[MikeNoLastName]

Google Smart-priced our present!
Just a card this year after 2 years of super gifts. Granted we are currently doing less than 1/3 of the balance we used to due to their smart pricing (not any fewer impressions or clickthrus), but we started off the Q1 great and almost averaged what we did for the previous year overall. Wonder what the cutoff is, if it's higher this year, and if it only applies to Q3 or Q4.
Think we'll take Rick's attitude from here out.

[Malibucreek]

FWIW, just the Christmas card here so far this year. No gift. I've gotten gifts the past three years (the photo frame, the USB kit and the mood radio), with average monthly AS income around mid-four-figures. Average monthly revenue's down a touch this year, but not out of that range.

The gadgets are not that important to me, but it feels nice - it's flattering - to be noticed. So add me as one more datapoint to the board's ongoing (though usually futile) effort to determine Google's M.O. ;-)

The mood radio was my favorite (though it eats batteries like a fat man eats a Vegas buffet...). I guess I prefer silly gifts over the functional.

[MikeNoLastName]

Hmm, they really HAVE raised the standards then this year.
We went 2005-2006 steady in the monthly low 5-figures and got a gift both years. We haven't even truly dropped into the "mid"-4 figures this year (yet) and got only a card. I think I'm right in assuming that you only get one OR the other. Nooone has received both separately yet as I undertand (unlesss they arrive together or one is for adwords and the other for adsense) or should I still be checking the business mailbox? My guess is they order only so many gifts each year and send them to the highest spenders/earners first in highest order as opposed to some pre-determined cutoff or condition. So all those high volume MFA adwords/adsense arbitragers (spend $1000 a day on adwords to make $1010 a day on adsense (and earn Google $2010/day in the process)) must have upped the curve. I really wasn't that excited about the flash drive, but I hoped to get the donation for my friend's school.

[ann]

Thank you Google! My gift came today.

Ann

[RonS]

There's hope!?

[mobilemaverick]

No gift. Despite earning quite a considerable amount on adsense. Maybe us UKers get nout.

[drall]

No gift or card and we have had one every year since the program started.

[ltedesco]

Hey Drall,
At least the card you should have received.

[drall]

Nothing, nada, zip. We got the usb key the first year, mood radio second year, usb kit third year, photo frame last year, nothing this year, not even a card and we still earn respectable numbers.

[MikeNoLastName]

Maybe your postman really liked it :).

[ltedesco]

First year with no gifts too. It is so wierd, first CMP way low and now no gifts... there is something happening.

[scottct1]

Still no gift or card here forme in Connecticut. I earn over $2000 a month. So no idea how they sent these things out or how they picked who would get them.

[Undead Hunter]

No gift here for the first time in 3 years.

We are a mid-5 figure earner, have been for the past 2 years.

All I can think of is that we didn't grow that much this year?

I read in a Google forum elsewhere that a six-figure earner didn't get her gift this year either, after 2 years of gifts.

Is our relationship with Google being taken for granted now?

[drall]

We earn 5 figures a month, this is the first year since the program launched that we didnt get a gift or a card. Very strange stuff indeed.