For the past three years or so I have been a happy AdSense publisher. For two of those three years I was a nickel and dime guy who never saw a check but did see a steadily increasing balance on his account. that all changed a little under a year ago when I started to focus more on blogging.
I soon found myself getting monthly checks from Google and expanding my blogging into other areas. I thought everything was going good until about a month ago when I noticed that my tracking data was no longer even close to Google's tracking data in regards to clicks. Around this same time I began reading articles that showed Google had no idea how much click fraud was going and that they were blindly discounting clicks based on such things as traffic spikes and browser use ratios.
Trouble Begins
Suddenly if you experienced a surge in traffic from a social media site Google would discount those clicks as invalid or fraudulent. Yes, Google began to punish success!
It is no secret that Google is quick to punish its AdSense members when they are suspected of click-fraud or arbitrage. For some reason Google does not like it if you use AdWords to direct traffic to your site in the hopes that the visitors will leave via one of your AdSense blocks. I can understand this when a site is MFA (Made For AdSense) and contains no real content but Google has no problem taking the money from the AdWords side of arbitrage!
The last straw for me came recently when I read an interview with one of Google's higher ups in the AdSense and AdWords programs (two halves of the same whole). In the interview he was bragging about how Google was sending so much "free" traffic to its AdWords members by marking AdSense clicks as invalid or fraudulent. This comment was clearly aimed at appeasing the AdWords members who do not believe Google's click-fraud numbers but I think that comment had an unintended side effect.
AdSense publishers read that comment and began to put two and two together. If Google is not charging the AdWords members for traffic it "thinks" might not be valid should they also not be paying AdSense publishers for that traffic just because of what Google thinks?
My Thoughts
As far as I am concerned if an AdSense publisher sends traffic to an AdWords member site and the traffic is not found to be fraudulent they should be paid. It is not the fault of the AdSense publisher if the site that traffic is going to is a crap site or has lousy conversion numbers. It is also not the problem of the AdSense publisher if Google is failing to serve relevant ads to the AdSense publisher's site.
For example: In the past I have written articles about very specific niche topics only to have AdSense display an ad such as "win a free laptop here" or "are you gay? take the gay test". These ads are clearly not relevant but someone might click them out of curiosity. The AdWords member may then look in their AdWords account, see where the click came from and wonder how in the hell they got traffic from my site!
The above example is not a fault of the AdSense publisher or the AdWords member but is instead a fault of Google. This is even worse on mixed content sites. Before I pulled the Pokemon content off of my site (and gave it its own site) I was constantly seeing ads targeted to the Pokemon keyword showing up on posts that had nothing to do with Pokemon and vice versa. In the case of Google serving mismatched ads I would have to say that Google should not charge the AdWords member but they also should pay the AdSense member for the traffic because it is not their fault that Google failed to serve a contextually relevant ad.
Because of the recent disparity between my AdSense click tracking and Google's I have decided to dump AdSense from my blogs. It is already gone from here and I am not sure what to replace it with yet. No I can't go ad free because I have server fees to pay. I would prefer to have sponsors support me (125x125 buttons, see the advertising page) but I will likely replace the AdSense with AdBrite sometime in the future.
I have been trialing AdBrite on some of my sites and they are performing as well as AdSense once performed. I will provide more details and a full review of the AdBrite experience at a later date.
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Good article Steve, I also stopped with them at my blog (you already know that hehe)
Maybe its really time for YPN to go international!
I have applied to YPN twice now and never heard anything back.
Adbrite? I would definitely push for YPN and figure out why you aren’t being accepted. At the very lest, go for Microsoft’s adCenter. Adbrite should be a last resort.
Hey in my ritualistic search for MORE information on Adsense I found an insane offer. There is this site called Mochila and they are offering $5 bucks for anyone who wants it. All you have to do is sign up post their quality content badge on your site for 30 days and they pay you $5.
I’m not sure what the pay off is for them but I’ve put it on my site already. The new content has improved my page ranking and increased my ctr on my other ads as well. No spam here…..just a good deal I’d like to see other fellow bloggers profit from a killer deal.
Check it out at :
http://www.mochila.com
I’m also having big problems with relevant ads and ads leading to some really crappy sites. To tell you the truth, I fell ashamed when I know what will user see when he clicks on some ads. I wish to do something about it, but I think I don’t have much choice except switching to adCenter or YPN.
[...] post, Saying Goodbye To AdSense, got me thinking and I think the movement to scrap Google is a worthy cause and one that I will be [...]
Your points got me thinking there. I have not seen anyone mentioning it (although I am still new to blogging), but it worries me that if -my- blog starts getting more traffic, and more clicks, Google would not have any qualms about discounting any such clicks, just because they cannot fathom that a new site might have sudden surges of traffic!
Great site here - came over after seeing your exchange with Sitefever.com. :)
I might have been a little over the top in that exchange but he really got under my skin with his comments! I use this site as a staging area for other blogs. Once a category of content becomes popular enough I split it off into a new blog, hence my low traffic numbers and what not.
Nah, don’t ever let other people’s comments get to you. It’ll really leave you wasting time in the subsequent exchanges. If it’s for constructive discussions, great. But I’m sure your time is better spent elsewhere, like your other blogs! :)
Anyway, I’m learning quite a bit here. Need more time to explore! Great stuff, HMTKSteve!
To anyone who thinks Adsense is dead or dieing:
That is completely ridiculous. How the hell do you think Google will allow a multi-BILLION dollar program to demise? Use common sense people. Adsense is still near it’s birth, if anything. If you’re struggling to make money online, it’s YOUR FAULT. Not the advertisers.
AdSense may not be dieing but it is dead to me ;)
Me also I plan to get rid off adsense on my blog area. Often is irelevant to content but that can be explained also thru an complicated algorithm of what to show (on publisher side) based on both content and also some more parameters - traffic, rank, age, clicks/impressions rate etc..
Anyway, I see the adsense on my blog using a third party pc (IP), while in my site is running a small php avoiding to show me (on pcs I use) adsense ads - to avoid the risk of unwanted - “ilegal” clicks :-P
Yet, despite adsense account have barelly few bucks and despite low price I asked to replace that space with a direct ad, I only got offers from unwanted advertisers (gaming, adult), there for, I don`t see it dead, buy hopefully will “die” soon :-)
I just gotta say that I love the graphic :)
Goodbye Adsense!
[...] of hmtk.com recently did something I had already done. He ended up Saying Good Bye to AdSense for his blog advertising. I actually started using it again for my other blog (and that was my [...]
I too gave up on Google Adsense. Their rates are dirt cheap and as you say, they are extremely suspicious of anything out of the ordinary (meaning more than 2-3 clicks per day).
Ridiculous.
[...] increase your AdSense earnings? Not so fast. Steve over at Ramblings of the Marginalized has some pretty solid evidence that Google is discounting any clicks when your site gets a surge in traffic. That’s on top [...]