Why I hate Google AdSense Part II
Posted on 21. Apr, 2008 by Chad in Online Advertising
OK the long overdue follow up post to my last year’s shit storm post on why I hate Google AdSense:
- The Rich get Richer. Well it’s a joke really that the only ones making any money are the owners of Google. If you are the one actually producing any of the content that they get rich off of, most likely you are still a broke ass. It is the sheer gap of wealth from the amount of money being printed to the actual publishers that makes me the most angry. With a 200 billion market cap, they could pay their top ONE MILLION publishers $100,000 and still have 100 billion left over. No but Google Officers like Doerr are cashing in 43,475 shares for a cool $30,000,000. He must need a new set of rims for his hummer?
- The Poor get Poorer. Yes, you guessed it. If you have been using AdSense as your only source of blog income you now know that AdSense blindness is setting in on your readers and they are clicking less and even if they do click, CPC’s are down. The money you used to buy your daily coffee with is now only paying for the soy milk upgrade.
- Lack of customization. Color palette change, rounded edges. Wow. Some customization. In the gaming world it’s common place to be able to customize your character to look almost identical to you or anyone you like, and this coming from much smaller development companies, let alone a billion dollar behemoth. Too busy counting their money I guess. I mean when the geek sitting in the cube next to you is worth 4 million on paper, why work? He is too busy twittering and checking out his net worth.
- Loyal promoter? We don’t need you. OK so you’ve been doing a money making blog for years and sending tonnes of fish over to the big shark as an affiliate referral. They pay you a bounty and then suck millions out of your referrals, but now depending on where you live, they might not want your krill. edit – (OK they fixed this since I wrote this post a while ago, but now they still don’t accept certain countries.)
- Still only a CPC model. Wherever there is someone paying for a certain call to action there is a way to game the system. Yes, click fraud is alive and well and Google really doesn’t care that much about it, especially since the buzz about it has died off over the years. Why not let the publisher decide what format to charge? CPM, flat rate? Adify.com allows these options for publishers. I’ve always preferred flat rate, and you can’t game a fixed price.
- Follow our rules or else. Want to sell your own text links on YOUR own site. Forget it. Cutt’s will even get you to sell out your own mother down the river for making money on the side. Big G will come down on your ass like a Columbian Coke lord on a cocaine farmer for chewing on leaves…
10 Responses to “Why I hate Google AdSense Part II”
Mark Jaquith
23. Apr, 2008
This seems to be a common complaint — that Google’s policies against SERPs-manipulating paid links have something to do with limiting competition with Adsense. Bollocks. They’re two completely different things, and they don’t compete at all. Google’s objection to SERPs-manipulating paid links is simple: you’re screwing with their search results, and a lot of their value is tied into making sure their search results are good. Paid links make search less useful. Paid links only have value when they destroy value created by search engines. Take away their ability to influence search results, and the paid links market price deflates to match that of a non-SERPs-manipulating campaign.
Chad Randall
23. Apr, 2008
Hi Mark,
Let me ask you this.
If it wasn’t just a counter compete measure then why don’t they just exclude the links as adding any value to search results? You think that with all those scientists and engineers they can’t create a bot that skips over a list of links? Especially ones marked ‘Sponsors’? Sure they can. Your telling me that the Google spider can’t detect a textlinkad.com Javascript and ignore it? Blog rolls are usually much bigger lists of random links with tonnes of irrelevant sites, why don’t they attack sites for using those? If they were really concerned about the value of the search results so much, why don’t they not allow spam blogs to show up in search results? Why? Because they all have AdSense on them and the generate billions from them. Think they can’t create spiders that check to see if content is an exact duplicate of previous created content? Sure they can. They don’t want to.
Bryan
25. Apr, 2008
I 100% agree with you Chad. I’m not sure why anybody would still have Adsense on their site, in my opinion. They pay very low and really don’t have the best product.
As far as Google goes, I personally can’t believe they get away with as much as they do. AT&T tried to do the same things 50 years ago, and the government broke them up. They now own the #1 toolbar, #1 feed reader, #1 search engine, #3 social network, #1 analytics program, #1 advertising firm (debatable – doubleclick), #1 ad syndication network, #1 video site, and they’re looking to get into the ISP arena. That’s a lot of power, and they aren’t doing it because it’s cool. They have a bottom line they need to consistently raise.
Suresh Kumar
27. Apr, 2008
I disagree Chad. i think Google ADsense is the best
Jordan McClements
28. Apr, 2008
I agree, it used to be really good for me – I now need twice the page views just to make the same money I did 7 or 8 months ago…
I am really looking for good alternatives now..
Del Sauzo
28. Apr, 2008
I’ve wondered why google puts the Ads by Google stuff near all there ads. I know that for me , once i see it I dont even bother to take a look at whats around, under or above it.
If the whole idea is to get people to click the links I think there’s a more intelligent way to present the ads and avoid making them look like… well, ads.
Del Sauzo
28. Apr, 2008
What other programs are CLEARLY ahead of google. Their the only ones i use, I’d love something better but i really I’m not ready to go on a testing spree. Its almost like I’m willing to stick with the ‘devil’ I know.
Bryan Reed
08. May, 2008
@ Del:
FTC regulates that advertisers have to declare that ads are ads. That is why Google says “ads by Google”
Not to mention the branding aspect of it.
Adsense Will Rape and Pillage Your Site | Internet Home Business Advice at The Capitalist Guide Blog
14. May, 2008
[...] stumble upon someone who "gets it" with respect to building a business and advertising. Chad’s post talks about how Adsense will pay you maybe 25% of what you’re actually worth as a blog, and [...]
Online Advertising - AdvertiseSpace
19. Jun, 2008
[...] anyone who has read my previous rants on why I hate Google AdSense part I, and part II might be more than a little surprised that I’m writing this [...]