My last post love letter to AdSense shared some of the latest news to come out of AdSense regarding their referrals program – but there are more changes announced. Let me share them here:
- All publishers may now participate in AdSense referrals regardless of their own location. Now you’ll only earn commission if those you refer come from North America, Latin America and Japan.
- The commission paid will be $100 when the publisher you refer makes $100 in their first 180 days (there is no more $5 or $250 payments and no more $2000 bonus)
- There have been some publishers who can’t see any referral earnings in their reports – this is a glitch and will be fixed
- Publishers using the ‘Google Pack’ referral program will only earn $1 per referral (previously it was $2) as of the third week of February
- Publishers using the Firefox referrals program to China will see reductions in payments (this won’t impact anyone you refer who is from outside of China).
Mixed feelings about this, but I guess change can do some good and bad no matter what. Thanks Darren!
Wow, adsense is really making it difficult to want to stay with them…
Well, that’s an improvement for international bloggers. I can’t say I’m happy they cut commissions, but who is ever happy with that kind of a change?
But really, what’s wrong with some of the countries they’re excluding referral payments for? I could see screening potential publishers more thoroughly from some places, and declining to work with people in places where there have just been too many problems, but are North America, Latin America and Japan the only quality locations? Really?
Thanks for the update Darren. But, it is really sad that we in the Asian countries get less payouts.
I like the flat $100 for finding prospects that convert to $100 earners. Would be better if they switched to a rev share. That would increase affiliate promotions of their program.
Michael
Good.
I like to see Google getting more restrictive. AdSense needs to get tougher with its policies in order to succeed.
Many of us advertisers avoid placing ads on AdSense because of the low quality and potential for click fraud. I think Google realizes this and is taking steps to make the service more valuable to those who pay.
I’m going to have to agree with Nick on this one – they are slowly declining in reliability for advertisers and clickers. Those who were less adapted to the internet clicked on these links more frequently – but have slowly become accustomed to what the Google Ads look like. I’ve come to completely ignore them and read around them.
Aiden
http://www.mycollegewallet.com
too many trying to outdo google may be thats y google keep changing laws here and there sometime really make us difficult to use them nowadays …
Good to know, good to know.
@Darren:
Nice write up, aye. ;)
1. All publishers may now participate in AdSense referrals regardless of their own location. Now you’ll only earn commission if those you refer come from North America, Latin America and Japan.
So I am from Malaysia, and I refer Malaysians into Adsense, I still can get the referral bonus?
2. The commission paid will be $100 when the publisher you refer makes $100 in their first 180 days (there is no more $5 or $250 payments and no more $2000 bonus)
Duh! So this referral thingie only pays off when we refer high traffic sites. Correct?
3. There have been some publishers who can’t see any referral earnings in their reports – this is a glitch and will be fixed
Glad to hear that.
4. Publishers using the ‘Google Pack’ referral program will only earn $1 per referral (previously it was $2) as of the third week of February
What the …. !!! Stingy Big-G!!
5. Publishers using the Firefox referrals program to China will see reductions in payments (this won’t impact anyone you refer who is from outside of China).
Big-G is being racist now? What is wrong with Firefox and China?
So now Big-G is being a whole lot stingy now, and racist?
I’ve canned the referrals on my blog.
http://necrofiles.blogspot.com
My blog is just starting out. I will wait for these changes to settle and consider adding referrals again.
Ah, so AdSense gave in to the pressure from the blogosphere finally…
Thank god they didn’t totally scrap the referrals for non north american or Japanese people…At least I won’t have to remove all the links now. Yes, commissions will be a little low but most of my blog readers are from North America.
Thanks for the update – I was getting pretty confused about the whole thing. Although this isn’t a perfect situation, it’s a lot better than what they announced a few days ago. :)
Thanks for keeping us informed. Always interesting with the McGoogles clan in California.
Hey Darren.
Thanks for writing such a great letter to google. Because of your letter adsense has changed their mind and created a new policy. Thanks for your nice posts. Hope u earn lots of money from your adsense referrals.
Thanks
Azhar
To day i got a mail from adsense, stating that publishers from india will no longer be able to use adsense for referrels starting from Feb1st,2008. Hence i removed adsense referrel units from my blog, anyways adsense for referrel is the least money making unit in my blog from last 9 months. I made just 0.2$ from 9 months, but with adsense for content i made around 1500$ and from adsense for search i made around 460$. Hence it doesnt make much difference for me. Any one got any idea of when adsense for video will be implemented in india.
Thanks for your help on this problem with adsense.
Steve
Great review. I think Google is going down the right road with these new revisions.
Thanks for the update.