The team at Adsense have responded to some of the recent talk about Smart Pricing by writing a post on their blog on the topic. Their main points are:
1. Many factors determine the price of an ad
2. Clickthrough rate doesn’t affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)
3. Google doesn’t make money from ‘smart pricing’
4. Remember the old chestnut: “Content is King”
I think their post is a good step in the right direction – at least they are engaging in the conversation (something I’m pleased to see them doing more and more) and there are some valid points there that are there to stop publishers panicking too much. At the same time there is still a certain vagueness about smart pricing from a publishers end that leaves me feeling a little uneasy.
