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New Rules For Adsense Referrals

Posted by Paul B | January 9, 2008 .

I’ve just read some news that really pisses me off. Google are changing the rules (how often have you heard me say that recently?) for Adsense referrals. This means for existing Adsense publishers in North America, Latin America and Japan they will go from earning:-

* If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $5 within 180 days you get a payment of $5.
* If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within 180 days you get $250
* If you refer 25 people who make $100 within a 180 day period you get a bonus payment of $2000

to the old way which gives you $100 for each person you refer who makes $100 in Adsense earnings in 180 days. If your referral doesn’t make that money they you get sweet F.A. I just can’t understand this decision, are Google short of money or something?

It gets worse though (much worse), for publishers outside of those regions the Adsense referral program will now cease to exist. Yes it doesn’t matter where the people you refer live, this decision is based entirely on where you live. To date I have referred several hundred new Adsense publishers that make christ only knows how much money for Adsense and this is how they reward me? Nice. Not only will I lose any potential future earnings from Adsense referrals but it also means I have to go through hundreds of web pages removing any Adsense referral code, that is a couple of days work. I just can’t understand the thinking behind this decision, I’m small fry but other people like Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) have referred thousands of new Adsense accounts not to mention the huge exposure he’s always given them (all from his base in Australia). I feel even more gutted for him than myself, to have preached the message of Adsense with such conviction only to be betrayed must be more than a little painful .

This makes me question my whole relationship with Adsense and whether to carry on or not, I haven’t said anything about this but my Adsense earnings in the last month have started to crash. I’m getting the same number of impressions and the same number of clicks (CTR has always been consistent for me) but the amount I’m being paid per click is drastically down. I wonder if this is because of where I live too, if it’s not happening already then how long before Adsense start changing the percentage they give to publishers depending on where they live? This has got me worried, replacing my Adsense earnings is going to be a big job but I guess it’s time to start looking for alternatives.

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3 Comments so far
  1. SEO Optimization ITALY Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 11, 2008 3:58 am

    Even tho I have had one referral (in the whole history of AdSense) but it didn’t convert, and I neither use their referral (Except the FireFox with Google Toolbar) I still think this sux and it looks like a really bad strategy, but maybe they are very well established in the non mentioned country so they need no more exposure from there.

  2. Paul B UNITED KINGDOM Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  January 11, 2008 9:12 am

    I’m going with the theory that they’ve got too many publishers (there is very little screening before signing up) and shrinking numbers of advertisers. I can honestly see them whittly down the number of publishers with various new rules until only the ones who make them big amounts of money are left, a sort of reverse to what Kontera have done.

  3. p INDIA Windows XP Internet Explorer 6.0  January 14, 2008 5:28 pm

    it sucks……google dont have enough money to