2. Adsense has several products under its belt and some are
obviously more popular than others. Web publishers have
been discussing and comparing adsense products such as
referrals and contextual advertising in popular forums
such as Digitalpoint. Apparently, referral products and
even Google search does not appear as popular as
contextual ads. Why is that so?
3. Publishers only benefit from contextual advertising when
visitors click on the ads on the web page. In many
instances, in order to achieve that, ads are optimized to
blend in nicely with the look and feel of the web pages.
When done right, these ads look like relevant links on the
site and if visitors are interested in what is being
advertised, they will click on the ads. Contextual ads are
simple to implement and ads will show on the site within
minutes of copying and pasting some simple Javascript
code.
4. In contrast, it is not easy to generate the same amount of
revenue using other adsense products such as Google
search and referrals. Like contextual ads, implementing
Google search involves copying and pasting some code.
However, unlike contextual ads, publishers do not benefit
when searches are
5. being made. Each search returns a set of relevant results
and if there are ads for those keywords, they will appear
as sponsored results at the top of the page. The publisher
only earns when the visitor clicks on one of those
sponsored ads. So let's recap. The visitor has to key in
some keywords, click on the search submit button, wait
for the results to load, and IF he or she clicks on an ad, the
publisher earns some money. Compare that to contextual
ads, where the visitor simply have to make a simple click
and the money is credited to the publisher's account.
6. It is even more difficult to convert visitors to revenue
using Adsense referral products, although each conversion
generally pays more. For example, refer a publisher to the
Google Adsense program and if the publisher makes $100
within 180 days, another $100 will be credited to the
publisher who sent the referral. That means the visitor has
to visit a site, somehow locate the Adsense referral
button, click on it, read more about the program, sign up
and wait for approval. Upon approval, the publisher will
have to implement the products and make $100 within
180 days. If not, whoever sent
8. Here's another example. The Adsense program pays a
referral fee if a visitor clicks on a button or link, download
and successfully install the Firefox browser. The
publisher's job, will then be trying to convince the visitor
that Firefox is good for him or her, and send the visitor to
the download page. If the visitor downloads the 5.33MB
file and successfully install the browser, the publisher gets
up to a dollar. Needless to say, it is indeed much tougher
for the publisher to earn that dollar, compared to
contextual ads.
9. So where does that leave publishers? Publishers want to
promote the Firefox browser but what if they don't have
any software/webmaster related sites that will convert
nicely? So let's say a publisher have a site about dogs. He
or she could put a download link on the site that says "We
recommend searching more about dogs using the Google
toolbar". The publisher don't get paid for the download
but when the installer uses the toolbar to make a search
and click on an ad, the account gets credited with money.
The concept behind it is similar to Google search, just that
it's on a toolbar. Google could come up with a web-based
control panel (likely within adsense login) for publishers to
generate the download. In the market, there are already
web-based control panel tools that allows users to
customize and generate brandable toolbars for download.
10. Still, there remains one small nagging problem.
Implementing such a product will mean that Google will
have to share search revenues with publishers. Of the
reported $1.098 billion dollars generated from Google
owned sites in the final quarter of 2005, how much is
Google willing to share?