Om Malik has an interesting post looking at the record earnings that Google have been reporting (largely due to their earnings from Adwords) but the apparent decreases in payments that they are making to publishers.
‘Intrigued, I looked up some of the SEC filings and discovered that for past four quarters Google has been paying more money every quarter to the affiliates. However, TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues generated by network sites is declining. For instance in quarter ending June 30, 2004, the company had paid out 80% of the revenues generated by its network. In quarter ending Sept 30, 2004, it was down to 79% and now in the December 2004 quarter, that number was down to 77%….’
It is something I have no real opinion about as my statistics over the past 12 months have been so up and down that it is impossible to make any assumptions from it – however if there is truth in them skimming a little more off the top I’d be pretty disappointed in Google.
Read more at Om Malik: Google making more, but dishing out less
A 3% drop may be due to many things – including random variability, seasonal trends and so forth. 3% isn’t something to be worried about – unless the trend continued in that direction for quite a few more quarters.