Is Google Adsense Dead?

Is Google Adsense Dead? I think not. Google Adsense, like any business is always evolving, and trying to make their service better for those that use it. Titus Hoskins goes through the nightmare many website owners and marketers had when Adsense radically changed their rules. As he said, some seen their four and five figure Adsense income disappear.

Titus Hoskins states that the search side of Google Adsense works better with content. That is true --with search you have your targeted market. But in some cases, it depends upon the type of product that is being presented. When I use Adwords, I usually go for search, but sometimes I've included content if the niche is really small -- just to see where the results lie. In some cases, content produced results.

As to the Junk Adsense Sites, many were glad to see control in that area. But for affiliate marketers that utilized squeeze pages and "affiliate landing pages" he stated that they were penalized. Why?

He states that people with landing pages that had the opt-in list were penalized by Google. This I may have to question, because I have read that many people and some super affiliate marketers who use an opt-in list for list-building were not hurt. Why? Their landing page did not try to sell another product, it matched their Google Ad, and they had no Google Adsense Ads on their landing page. So check your pages, revise.

As with anything, Google Adsense can be a great secondary income -- and maybe for some a primary income depending upon your niche, quality of content, etc. It really depends upon the site, and what direction you want to take your site or sites.

It is a fact, that more and more businesses will be coming online. Why? It can be very lucrative and people are moving toward online shopping. Thus, the niche market will be ever increasing -- and great for anyone wanting to get into affiliate marketing. And with it, new opportunities for Google, for businesses, and for affiliate marketers.

My suggestion, build a quality site and use Google Adsense as one avenue for your income, and never put all your eggs in one basket. Titus Hoskins "The Death of Google Adsense And Other Myths" is an interesting read. If you read carefully, you can pull away from the article some helpful hints and tips.



The Death of Google
Adsense And Other Myths
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006

Recent changes in the Google Adsense program has many online website owners and marketers seriously concerned. Many have seen their Adsense profíts and income flatline... seen their four or five figure monthly Adsense income disappear overnight. For many the Google Adsense bubble has burst.

What happened?

First, Google made a change in its Adsense program, letting advertisers choose between putting their ads in the search results or on the content pages of Adsense publishers. Search won out and started to receive the higher bids. Search results convert better than content ads.

Next, Google has cracked down on Junk Adsense sites, like they should. These sites consisted mainly of software generated re-hashed search engine links and were totally annoying to say the least. But Google also cracked down on 'squeeze pages' or 'affilíate landing pages' - a lucrative source of income for many online marketers, mainly because these pages helped marketers build an opt-ín list or use permission based email.

The results of these changes produced an Adsense meltdown for many online marketers.

Some Internet marketers are speculating recent changes could even mean the death of Adsense. One online marketer, Scott Boulch even published a free report entitled 'The Death of Adsense".

Many affilíate marketers would agree with Boulch on some of his points, especially the obvious fact that using Adsense on your web content is starting on the bottom rung of the online marketing ladder. Instead of receiving pennies per clíck with Adsense, alert marketers and webmasters have already discovered that by using CPA (Cost-Per-Action) and direct affilíate links, they can produce significantly more revenue from their web pages. Why eärn pennies per clíck when you can eärn $5, $10 or OVER $100 per clíck?

But the fine people at Google are catching on...

In the past Google has made its own swing to the Cost-Per-Action direction with its referral system for the Firefox Browser and giving webmasters credít for signing up Adwords and Adsense accounts.

Many online marketers believe Google needs to expand on these baby steps and open their Adsense affilíate program up to third party products/advertisers. In a recent company statement Google offered some hope: "We're always looking for new ways to provide effective and useful features to advertisers, publishers, and users," the company stated "As part of these efforts we are currently testing a cost-per-action (CPA) pricing model to give advertisers more flexibility and provide publishers another way to eärn revenue through AdSense." Basically, in cost-per-action, advertisers pay for leads, purchases or customer acquisition. It would help with the clíck fraud issue and the monetary returns could potentially make Adsense's revenues pale in comparison.

As more and more commerce goes online... acquiring customers for such diverse services as ínsurance, real estate, telephone, marketing, web hostíng, travel, mörtgage loans, cable TV, banking... you name it, almost any service or product sold in the marketplace is now turning to the Internet for customers and lifelong clients.

Enormous sums of monëy will change hands. Perhaps, the most lucrative of these is customer acquisition. Advertisers are turning to the Internet and webmasters/marketers for acquiring these lifelong customers for their respective services and products. Businesses and companies are quickly realizing paying an attractive lead generating fee/commission is smart business. They quickly build a client base for their services or products and quickly recoup their expenses - realizing in the long run these leads will generate huge profíts.

It can also mean huge profíts for the CPA networks like ValueClick's Commission Junction and Rakuten's LinkShare who supply the advertisers with publishers and website marketers to harvest these leads. It can be a lucrative venture for all involved, especially for those online marketers who have cornered the search engines for lucrative niche markets in big ticket items. Even small ticket items pay quite well for those marketers who know how to market online.

Contextual advertising is fine, but CPA (Cost-Per-Action) will offer much better returns for the website owner. Making any profitable site much more profitable. It will and is opening up a whole area of marketing opportunities that nevër existed before we had the Internet. Creating a complex structure of advertisers, publishers and the Affilíate/CPA companies that connect the two.

Of course, cutting out the middle man has always been even a more profitable venture for most marketers. As more and more webmasters realize they can make much more with dealing directly with companies, rather than going through a middle process like Google Adsense or the countless other affilíate/CPA networks ... online marketers can reap even bigger rewards.

For an online marketer when you get a telephone call or email from the CEO or the affilíate manager with a company or service you're promoting with your website - you know you have made it! Dealing directly with a company usually means bigger commissions and special exclusive deals just for you or your sites.

Only fly in the ointment, all that extra paperwork and business wheeling and dealing. Many marketers and website owners like the idea of someone else handling all the tracking, collecting payments, promotional materials... they just like to sit back and build more websites and content. It gives the affilíate marketer a lifestyle that they are looking for on the web. They just like to market and promote with their sites and let someone else worry about the details. Therefore, there will always be a place for contextual ads like Google Adsense... "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

However, could CPA be a better alternative for the current Adsense contextual ads?

Google would be the natural choice for a middleman if there ever was one. Besides, many savvy marketers know the Google brand name is trusted online, any product/service promoted through Google would be an easy sell. Many argue Google already dominates the web, why should it not be the one to handle these CPA transactions through its Adsense program.

On the flip side, over countless updates and changes to its indexing, many webmasters have experienced more than a few negative dealings with Google. Many have won, many have lost in this Google Age, but all have realized riding the Google Search Engine is like running with the bulls at Pamplona, totally thrilling unless you're one of the unfortunate few who get trampled in the process.

About The Author:
The author is a former teacher who now works full-time online operating numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/. For the lastest trade information in your own industry try: http://bizwaremagic.tradepub.com/.2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.


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For beginning information for getting started with Adsense and Adwords check my web pages Adsense Basics and Adwords Basics on My Affiliate Place-and it's free information.