Google recently changed the way their Adsense Referral program making it even more unlikely that you’ll actually get any money.
You’ve probably seen the adverts around something like this:
Previously there was no limit, if someone signed up to Adsense under you and made $100, you would also receive $100.
Now Google has imposed a limit of 90 days, so the novice webmaster has to make $100 within 3 months, or you don’t get anything.
That’s pretty unfair, that means someone who is new to Adsense, has to average more than $1 a day in their first 3 months..hardly anyone does that.
Even for experienced people that might be quite difficult, I am making more than $1 a day (just about) on some sites after 4-5 months of learning about Adsense.
You can check the terms and conditions, the new clause is as follows:
An AdSense referral is counted when a publisher, who has never previously enrolled in AdSense, creates an account and earns at least $100.00 within 90 days of sign-up. The referred publisher must be eligible for payment to qualify as a successful referral.
Plus the fact if you aren’t using Adsense already, it’s unlikely that you wouldn’t know about it, and if you didn’t it’s unlikely you’d straight away be able to make $100 within the first 3 months.
I’ve taken the Adsense Referral Adblocks out of all my sites from the static locations and just left the Firefox ones, not to make money but because I support Firefox!
I’ll leave the Referral blocks inside any posts they are in, as they aren’t using up real estate.
Another point is that they didn’t announce this or tell anyone about it, they just kind of silently slipped the new rule in.
What happened to not being evil?
There is also a rumour from a Portuguese user that they have heard the complaints and have increased the time, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Google AdSense Team just sent me a mail message (in Portuguese, otherwise I’d copy/paste it here) saying that Google “take users comments very seriously and so they decided to change the 90 days referral window to 6 months”.
They also mentioned that, as of today, we still see the 90 days message in our referral page, but the decision was taken.
I won’t be putting it back up anyway, I’ve yet to have a sign-up.
Adsense Referral Links are wasting webspaces even without imposing the time limit.
Unless people are having 5 figure of visitors daily I don’t see people joining Adsense from the website, the chance are so slim.
Also Adsense is not something everyone can click and join, people need to have a decent website to do so.
I might remove mine. I’ve been with Adsense for over a year and haven’t received a cent.
I’m a new comer. hope my site will pick up real soon.
Okay now comes the real discussion. What other ad services are worth looking at?
I got 2 sign-ups for the first few day when I first put up the referral button, but I think I will soon take it off due to this new policy.
It’s true, it’s almost impossible for a new Adsense user to reach $100 in 30 days.
Jee: Yeah I agree, for people like problogger.net they might make a few thousand from Referrals, but the rest of us, even without the time limit, it’s unlikely.
Dabido: It’s like that, it’s all or nothing, I had it for about 6 months and earnt about $13USD (February-September 2005). After that I learnt a bit more about, since September I’ve had 2-3 days that have earnt more than $13USD in one day.
bodoh: One tip I’ll give you is, if you have a new site don’t put any adverts on it yet, wait till you have constant traffic from search engines (1000-2000 a day) then slowly put adverts in.
lionel: Yahoo Publisher Network is good, but still BETA, not open to public. It has a higher payment per click, but a lower click through rate as the ads are less relevant. Chitika is good, but not if you have Asian readers, it needs US/EU clicks to make money. Then there is Adbrite, which is ok and Blogads.
Bryan: Yah it’s very difficult, unless you already have high traffic sites without adverts, which at this point in time is VERY unlikely.
I know about Yahoo’s, and am waiting for it to be public. Blogads meanwhile is no longer open to the public.
Hi there!
Is this term apply to AdSense for Content as well? Where can I check if there is such term between me and Google?
I have signed up with AdSense since November 2006, am I affected?
Thank you…….
Jessica: It applies to Adsense Referrals only.
google must be nuts
Adense now Badsense? I hop Google googles this and do something to protect their image.
I wonder whether that Amazon thingie gets money or not.
Swifty: No it doesn’t, I’ve done multiple experiments with the Amazon Associates program and I’ve had sites with serious numbers of book reviews for high priced books with a mostly US/European audience and it still didn’t make money. If you have a huge site like Technorati you may make a little, but other than that, the figures are bleak for Amazon
Wow! 90 days to earn USD 100 is too short.
No Shi*t?! What a load of horsecrap this google here.. and for a while back there, i was kinda looking forward to earning a couple hundred bucks when my reffs hit the 100 mark.. Utter crap!