Does Adblock Plus hurt Google’s AdSense publishers?

Downloading the Adblock Plus extension for Firefox is easy. It takes under a minute. Activating it takes a few seconds and once the browser has relaunched, Google AdSense ads become a distant memory.

People who install Adblock Plus or similar extensions, in either Firefox or Internet Explorer, do it for a variety of reasons…

some hate advertising, flat out;
some want to protest against Google’s privacy policies, which may be viewed as intrusive;
some never click on the ads, so they see no point in viewing them;
some want a faster browsing experience; and finally
some just follow a mass movement against online advertising.

But when people refuse to view the ads that pay for the free content they’re accessing, it endangers the entire online advertising ecosystem, especially the one involving Google AdSense and its publishers.

By using Adblock Plus when visiting ad supported web destinations, regular visitors become freeloaders. These people take all the free content and leave nothing behind, no even being courteous enough to even tolerate the generally non-intrusive ads accompanying that content.

Given the popularity of Adblock Plus, being the number one extension for Firefox, popularitywise, this means web publishers are going to have to find alternative ways to make money, such as…

relying solely on Google Custom Search (beta) which isn’t currently blocked — and that’s a long shot, to say the least;
switching to alternative advertising service but since they pay roughly 10 to 100 times less than Google, that’s a losing proposition that won’t pay the bills;
ending the universal access to free content, limiting the free stuff to marketing purposes only and charging for memberships to access the previously free content;
syndicating the locally produced and owned content to a larger network which still hasn’t been affected by Adblock Plus, yet.

That’s a lot of trouble to counter a handful of nasty ad blocking extensions but as the web publisher continues to reach new lows, there seems to be little other choice, in order to make ends meet.

Adblock Plus and similar extensions are probably the main reason why publishers see very high stats in their internal counters and much lower counts, according to Google. The difference is likely comprised of all the users that visited with such extensions on.

Keep in mind Adblock Plus —also— kills the Google Analytics code so trying to make sense of the numbers accumulated there isn’t even possible since a large portion of visitors aren’t accounted for. Yikes! So much for analytics…

So with all this in mind, it’s not hard to see that Adblock Plus and similar extensions are hurting web publishers, big time. So much so that an entire nascent online publishing industry is being strangled as it tries to emerge.

It’s like as if somebody sold a system to block all ads when reading newspapers, or watching TV or listening to the radio. It would have devastating consequences but online, it’s even worse since this media is still in its infancy.

People who value liberty, independent opinions and fair use should be enraged that ad blocking extensions even exist. If a web site has too much advertising for one’s taste, go elsewhere. When the web publisher sees his traffic count going down, he’ll get the message and change things to the visitors’ liking. There’s no need to block all the ads… for all sites, at once!

So, is Google also hurting, because of these ad blocking extensions?

Within its web publisher (affiliates) network, yes. Google hurt should follow the same curve as the downfall in revenue web publishers have been seeing for the last few months, especially since September 2008 and even worse, since February 2009.

However, the way Google displays its ads within its own search engine make it immune to ad blockers, there. As such, Google hasn’t been losing one penny from ad blockers, within its own search empire.

Also, everybody knows that the same link clicked in a publisher’s web page will usually bring between 6 and 18 times less money than the exact same link clicked within a Google Customer Search (beta) search results page. The logic behind this is probably that Google values its own web property above all others, even quality independent sites.

So while Google looks as strong as ever, every other AdSense publisher out there seems to be dying. Some slowly. Some, much faster. The smaller publishers being the first to call it quits.

Maybe that’s why Google hasn’t retaliated (legally or otherwise) against Adblock Plus.

They’re still making boatloads of money so why should they care if their web publishers are being driven into financial distress? Seriously, Google being the sole “safe” outlet to publish the pay-per-click ads, they may even be making MORE MONEY because of Adblock Plus.

So, the web publishers need to figure out a way out of this trap, by themselves…

Adblock Plus and similar extensions will likely continue to thrive (until the free web dies); and
Google isn’t moving to help out publishers… even as they’re being driven out of business.

Using scripts to force visitors to deactivate such extensions will likely become the norm because the financial drain is so bad that there’s just no other choice but that’s awful because web publishers are forced to confront their visitors because third party ad blocking extension makers have decided to attack them, head on.

Until such anti-ad blocking scripts are coded, web publishers will continue to feel the punishing crunch in their Google AdSense revenue. As bas as it is, the situation could get a lot worse.

Yes, web publishing was wonderful for a while but Adblock Plus and similar extensions are ruining the entire experience for everyone and accelerating the end of the free web, in the process.

Tags: adblock plus, google adsense, adsense, abblock, ad block, ad blockers, ad blocking, advertising, online ads, deleted ads, ads ripped out, ads not rendered, web publishers, ad revenue, sponsored links, free content, quality content, ad zones, visitors, adsense stats, ecpm, number of visitors, number of clicks, ad conversion, firefox, internet explorer, ie8, extensions, plugins, membership-based access, paid content

Will Adblock Plus kill Google’s AdSense?

Quality online content is freely available, today.

Thanks to revenue generation services like Google’s AdSense, web publishers can concentrate on creating and managing that content while advertisers bid to be seen alongside it. In the process, countless web publishers get monthly checks, from Google, which help pay for it all.

Again, placing ads alongside quality content provides the following advantages…

context-specific advertising space for millions of advertisers, from all over the world;
a relatively stable monthly money stream, for participating web publishers; and
tons of quality free content for all web visitors.

Furthermore, with Google’s AdSense service, visitors are presented with highly targeted ads which closely match their tracked preferences. In other words, a majority of ads presented are relevant.

So while that seems like a logical and straightforward online ecosystem, the people at Adblock Plus don’t see it as such.

In their view, such ads are a bad thing.

So bad, that they give away a plugin for the Firefox browser which basically eliminates all Google AdSense ads from web publisher pages, without Google’s consent or the web publisher even knowing about it.

Because Adblock Plus is a Firefox extension, the ads are basically stripped away from the rendered web pages.

If web publishers don’t read articles such as this one, they may never even know that their economic lifeblood (their ads) are secretly being trashed, by the Adblock Plus extension.

So Google AdSense publishers take thousands of blogs and forums by storm to discuss the recent freefall in the revenue they derive from their ads. And we’re talking about a more than 50% drop, roughly between September 2008 and March of 2009, according to many publishers who have been quite vocal about this spectacular drop in their earnings.

While it was historically possible to pay the rent by adding AdSense ads to content, it’s a lot more difficult now because Adblock Plus, among other things, is the single most downloaded extension for Firefox and on the Internet Explorer front, it’s no better because other similar extensions also attack the ads.

So where is this taking us?

If web publishers can’t make any more money with their Google AdSense ads, the quality and universal accessibility of content is probably going to be suffer, a lot.

Because of Adblock Plus and similar extensions to popular web browsers, expect…

a lot less variety of content;
a lot less free content;
more membership-based content, available for a monthly fee or per-access fee;
alternative ad methods that’ll need to be even more intrusive and less targeted, to make up for the lost revenue.

In other words, what sounded like a good deal for the typical web visitor tired of seeing clueless ads popping up everywhere might pave the way to a somewhat nightmarish web where a limited set of content is available for free and everything else has been forced to migrate to membership-based access rules, to keep up with the bills.

adblocker_064

People who install Adblock Plus most likely don’t realize they’re being converted into digital freeloaders, of sorts.

You see, contextual ads —especially those from Google AdSense— add value to the original content by providing lots of links providing more information or commercial offerings, about any given theme. Visitors who prefer not to click on such ads don’t have to while those who find interesting leads can follow them through. It’s that simple.

By having Adblock Plus and similar extensions installed on so many browsers, at home, at school and at work, the entire revenue model falls apart and risks bringing the beautiful web we know down with it.

As such, any responsible web user should never install such extensions in their browsers.

Case in point, this is what the people behind Adblock Plus say about their creation:

“While nobody profits directly from it, widespread adoption of ad blocking software will make intrusive ads economically inefficient until they become as rare as pop-up windows already are today. And aside of making the internet a better place it is simply good to know that this work is used.”

If “nobody profits directly from it”, it should also be noted that that billions of dollars are likely lost each year by web publishers and that means Adblock Plus is an obstacle to the rightful redistribution of money, in society.

Concerned web publishers are absolutely right when they refer to Adblock Plus as a digital calamity which is causing enormous harm to the web, in general.

More people are coming to realize that the web can’t continue to be free is people keep using Adblock Plus and similar extensions because freeloading destroys most revenue-generating models, especially the one based on Google AdSense.

Adblock Plus is so efficient that it blocks regular Google AdSense ads but that’s not all, even the customized AdSense feeds, like those displayed in the Los Angeles Times, get deleted. In short, anything related to Google’s ads gets pulled from the web pages shown to users. It’s very sad, indeed.

Since the Adblock Plus developers and fans don’t seem too keen on the idea that web publishers need money to operate, a series of retaliation might be needed to save the web as we know it.

Among the measures that are obviously becoming more necessary, Google and web publishers should sue Adblock Plus for, directly or indirectly, stealing them of their revenue stream by empowering users with a tool that blocks all ads by default, instead of letting the user only block the ads he feels are too intrusive, on a case by case basis.

By banning all ads altogether, without any kind of prior notice to the web publishers or advertisers, Adblock Plus might be exposing itself —and those who code and distribute it— to costly civil and criminal suits. Similar extension coders expose themselves as well. By attacking the web’s revenue model and the web publishers, these “ad blockers” paint themselves as targets for the moment when the legal actions start flying around.

Do you think the Los Angeles Times, for instance, will tolerate that over half of their online viewers refuse to even view their ads? Of course not. It’s just a matter of time before another way to generate money is decided upon. Since it will likely be a sort of membership, all readers will pay dearly for those who were too foolish to support the current “all free” content access model.

And in all fairness, the Google AdSense ad zones are usually well located, alongside the content and pose no problem for the visitors. Only a minority of spam-like sites stuff the ads in such a way that it become intrusive. Should all web publishers have to pay for the lack of judgement of a minority of spam-spinners? Of course not. That’s why the very principle of “blocking everything, everywhere”, with Adblock Plus, is so twisted, unfair and unethical, if not downright illegal, in some circumstances.

For the time being, Google has been careful not to talk about extensions like Adblock Plus. However, it’s unlikely that they’ll stay silent much longer as they too must be suffering from the spread of this extension and others like it.

While the power to view ads or not now lies in the hands of visitors, web publishers could choose to show blank pages to them. The pages could also display short messages asking the visitors to turn off their “ad blocking extension” if they wish to view the content. Some visitors might find it supremely frustrating but by activating such an extension, they definitely had it coming.

When enough web publishers refuse access to freeloading visitors, the popularity of such extensions might start to go down. For the time being, the economic nightmare stemming from Adblock plus continues, for countless Google AdSense publishers who can’t make sense of their stats, anymore.

Adblock Plus might sell itself as a “plus” but in the end, it’s a huge “minus”, for everybody. The end of free content online would change our world, for the worse.

AdSense’s low eCPM for web publishers

This financial crisis isn’t good for Google, its AdWords advertisers and its AdSense publishers.

While Google’s 2008 annual report shows a dip in the pay-per-clic advertising revenue model, the situation hasn’t improved since the beginning of 2009. In fact, the eCPM levels many publishers are seeing are hitting what appear to be record lows.

What probably hurts the most is the roller-coaster effect, of sort, between the “banner year-like” revenues of 2008 and the abysmal counterpart, in 2009.

AdSense is still the most lucrative PPC ad program online but countless publishers can’t make ends meet anymore. One publisher saw eCPM metrics shrink threefold. In real life, it’s the difference between making some $75 a day (in 2008) and some $25 a day (in 2009).

While many publishers had quit their day job to build high-quality web destinations, financed through AdSense, in 2007 and 2008, this year’s revenue slide has convinced most to get back on the job market and basically forget (for a while, at least) about their newfound lifestyle, as work-at-home web publishers.

But the more creative web publishers continue to derive enough money from AdSense to hold on tight during these generally harsh financial times.

Here’s what’s being done by some web publishers to “stay in the AdSense game”…

Cater to niche markets (namely to the debt consolidation and troubled assets niches);
Bank on the social networking trend (including “spin marketing” in Facebook groups);
Reduce the number of AdSense “ad zones” to show only the most lucrative ads;
Redesign the looks and add new features to existing web destinations;
Find a way to get more visitors in order to make up for the lost revenues (with the “original” visitor count).

Let’s hope that you’ll get creative too and basically endure the current market downturn. This will likely put you in an enviable position when the market goes back up, again. Assuming that it will. Of course.

So, is it possible to survive even though AdSense’s eCPM levels appear to be lower than ever? Probably, yes. But it’s not going to be a joyride. This time around, AdSense publishers won’t be laughing all the way to bank, like so many were, in 2008, the year AdSense really shined — for Google, the advertisers and the publishers alike.

Mathematically speaking, known and [publicly] unkown factors affect AdSense’s eCPM.

Rather weird situations seem to have wildly unpredictable effects on this particular metric but suffice it to say that for a large group of AdSense publishers, it hasn’t been as good in 2009 as it’s been before.

Given Google’s inherent creativity and leadership, one can safely assume that this particular “revenue decline” issue is being dealt with quite seriously at the search king’s headquartiers, in Mountain View, CA.

In the meantime, web publishers are welcome to get creative in order to beat this financial crisis and prove, once again, that AdSense’s online advertising continues to be a huge bargain, even for cash-strapped advertisers.

Tags: google, adsense, adwords, ecpm, ppc, pay-per-click, ads, advertising, online ads, publicity, web ad zones, adsense publishers, adwords advertisers, revenue down, overall revenue, revenue generation, work-at-home, web publishers, web publishing

Are AdSense publishers’ revenues on a slippery slope, or what?

If you’ve been a Google AdSense publisher for several years, you probably remember the 18th of November, 2007.

That’s the day the clickable zones in Google’s ads were dramatically modified so only the title and the link were clickable, instead of the whole ad, including the description and the surrounding “white space”.

This modification in the way the Google AdSense ads were delivered to publishers’ web pages had desastrous consequences in their revenue — most publishers seeing their click through rate (CTR) drop by over 50%, with revenues plunging accordingly.

The AdWord advertisers were happy but even through this measure should’ve encouraged them to spend more (because of the heightened legitimity of the clicks), it didn’t seem to have any significant effect and publisher revenues have never recovered from that spectacular drop, starting in mid-November of 2007.

Fast forward in March of 2009, with a nasty recession hitting the US and many other “first world” countries, AdSense publishers are being hit by another revenue drop, this time, by the way of free falling effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPMs).

While the eCPM for a business blog might’ve averaged around $15 in January of 2009, something happened in mid-February that has been tanking the eCPM since. Nowadays, in March, the same profile is lucky to get $3 (of eCPM) instead of the usually very stable (over the last year, at least) $15 revenue threshhold.

Because of this, a typical publisher used to getting some $50 a day will likely get 5 times less and with a meager 10$ —for the exact same number of valid clicks— to live by, which obviously isn’t enough.

Most AdSense insiders know Google has taken a bit more than its “fair share”, over the last year but this latest drop in web publisher revenues is probably linked directly to the advertisers themselves… and how little money they now invest in the online advertising campaigns.

But Google isn’t providing web publishers with any sort of insight that would confirm this theory so we’re all forced to speculate to guess what’s causing Google AdSense’s publisher revenues to hit (what appears to be) record lows.

Other long-time web publishers think the global (and domestic) inventory of quality advertising zones has grown exponentially and therefore, advertisers now have access to a nearly unlimited number of online venues to reach their “intended audience”. This is likely to take a (serious) toll of the already battered web publisher revenues.

And there’s another thing…

Yes, it gets worse — Google AdWords now features way to screen out certain type of publishers and as such, an advertiser can decide to spend his money in Google’s own network of sites instead of “spreading the wealth” elsewhere, in the “web publisher network”. The controls allow for more fine-tuning but the stage is set for yet another hit of web publisher revenues. Even for those who create unique, valuable and sought content.

And last but not least, Google’s rules on what constitutes a “valid click” seem to be quite variable, depending on who you ask.

Most web publishers were under the impression that whenever a visitor —an genuine one, that is— clicked on an ad, money was awarded to their account, for that click. Well, it’s not simple, anymore.

It seems Google AdSense’s rules have evolved in such a way that if a visitor doesn’t stay “x” number of minutes of the advertisers’ web site, the click doesn’t count, at all. Speculation about a “one minute minimum” time requirement is rampant in several AdSense-related forums but, as with so many things regarding AdSense, any information of remotely significant value is usually kept —secret— so articles like this one are only going to multiply, all over the web, with all flavors of “requirements” being discussed. Google should really clear the air on all of these matters but if it hasn’t done so in the past so, realistically, there’s little chance things will change, in the future.

So, for the time being, countless web publishers are getting hit head-on by the “financial crisis” and it’s unclear when things will head back up… if ever.

For the hour, what seems to be akin to a tragedy is taking place and web publishers will need to take action, sooner or later, to recoup their lost revenues.

Tags: adsense, google adsense, falling revenues, lower revenues, low ctr, low ecpm, financial crisis, recession, economic downturn, dramatic drop in adsense revenues, advertisers, adwords, google adwords, speculation, speculation about adsense, web publishers, publishers losing money, adsense money, adsense advertising

New features in AdSense for search

AdSense for search - New features Over time, the Google Adsense service has grown into the biggest online advertising service in the world and this isn’t stopping them from innovating, which is all for the best.

The latest round of innovation is making the AdSense for search service even more flexible for the publishers while delivering a more satisfying search results experience for the users.

For those who are not yet too familiar with the AdSense for search service, it’s the “keyword search box” where users are free to enter any query they like, from within the web publisher’s site. It’s a great feature especially since the pay-per-click ads appearing on a given web page may not cover all that a user may be looking for.

As a web publisher, here’s a quick overview of what new tricks AdSense for search can do for you:

Selection of the ad location — You can now decide where to place the ads on the search results page (displayed from Google’s own servers). Choose top, bottom or right side of each page, according to your preferences;
Refining searches with keywords — Depending on the context, search terms can have different meanings but now, you can tune your search results and ads to what your users are interested in;
Improved indexing of your pages — Google indexing technology has recently been improved so AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site (as long as they can be crawled) so your users will see more results from them, in the AdSense for search results;
Site Search — If you’re concerned about the users leaving your site through “web search”, you can now choose to provide just “site search” so your users can find what they’re looking… in -your- site. You can even host the search results on your pages so your users won’t leave your site when they perform a search;
Vertical Search — You may also allow your users to search across multiple sites. Searches may therefore be performed in your “network of sites” or other related sites that you think your users might find useful.

Those who already have their Google AdSense for publishers account set up can get started right away with these new features, by selecting the “AdSense Setup” tab and then choosing “AdSense for search” as the desired product.

Just like with regular PPC ads and referral units, your ad settings will be saved within your account when you create a new search engine. You can then go back at a later time and instantly make any updates that you like to your search settings.

Once you’ve set up your search box, you may wish to explore more advanced features such as site exclusion, labels and collaboration which may both help your users find what they’re looking for while boosting your revenues by laser targeting the returned search results.

Now that you’re “in the know”, have fun with these new AdSense for search features!

Tags: google adsense, adsense for search, search results, keyword search, customization, features, targeting, pay-per-click, ppc, web publishers, web publishing, monetization, make money with adsense

ClickBank gets a makeover

If you’re interested in generating a steady income by marketing mostly online products you don’t have to build, sell or support, then ClickBank might be your answer.

Sporting thousands of rather unique offerings, web publishers (like you, probably) can quickly link to products that match their web site’s theme.

For instance, if you’re an expert in water treatment, perhaps it would be a nice addition to your web site to market someone else’s book on that matter, while getting a fair commission on each sale.

The model is different from the pay-per-click model in that you only get paid when a sale is made. Some find it less profitable than pay-per-click but most web publishers like to mix and match different advertising models, namely the ClickBank offerings.

If you’re not signed up as a web publisher yet, now’s the time to get your own account to add another income stream to your monthly revenue!

Tags: clickbank, e-commerce, affiliates, online sales, web marketing, web publishers, revenue

Yahoo! Search’s Site Explorer gets an update

Yahoo - Site Explorer Beta Yahoo has joined the “beta” bandwagon with an updated release of it’s truly useful (and free) Site Explorer online tool to help publishers (and everyone else) see what links go to and come from any web site.

The neat categories are displayed in such a way that even a “novice netizen” will find Site Explorer fun and rather easy-to-use… ?� la Google, if you will!

Here’s a short list of featured novelties, for this recent upgrade (August 8, 2006):

There��s more information about the sites you own, including “last crawled” date and more.
Feed submissions are much smoother. You can submit RSS, Atom and URL lists, and manage all of them from one place. For authenticated sites, you can also track when they were submitted and processed.
An Update Notification Web Service was added for you to notify Yahoo of feed or site updates, part of the popular Site Explorer API suite. Since these return the same data as the tool, it’s recommended to use them for automated applications.

Yahho - Site Explorer - Results The new interface, in and of itself, is perhaps the masterpiece, within the scope of this update � a lot more information is available through the smart and tasteful use of expandable results which instantly reduce clutter.

Add to that the much requested ability to download more URLs from sites you own (supported by a more robust authentication process) and you see why Site Explorer should be on your “explore-worthy” list of cyber-destinations.

In case you still haven’t tried the Site Explorer tool, go check what kind of results it returns for your web site… and then check your competitors’!

Tags: yahoo, site search, web sites, web crawling, web publishers, site explorer, notifications, api suite