I just received the same letter. Reading it felt like being hugged after suffering a boo-boo when I was a kid.

Just got one too. Great timing, just when I had spent all my energy struggling over re-thinking my optimizations, re-optimizing, etc., when all along it was a global issue, great, thanks. Hard to see that one without better Adsense control. I really feel discouraged now. Try better communication with your 'partners' if you, 'look forward to partnering with you for the long term, and remain dedicated to helping you succeed.' If we just had an Adsense network barometer to tell us when we have come close to our earning threshold for existing pages, then I wouldn't wast time tweaking too much!

hey, where's mine?

I got mine. I actually had one of my best days yesterday.

I am thinking that during the "recent economic turmoil", they mention -- while consumers may not be buying as much -- I think they're researching and "shoppin' around" a bit more... and clicking a few ads along the way.

It would have been more meaningful if they had given us a way to contact them. I've taken all the adsense ads off of one of my sites. I wanted to write and ask about it and of course the return address is set on no-reply.

Anyone want to make an attempt at reading between the lines?

I never hear from AdSense when they introduce new features, for example, as I find out by accident when logging into my account or reading about it here on WW.

Yet I get this email from AdSense which really doesn't say anything to speak of - no new features, no big announcements, no advice for earning more with AdSense, etc.

But there has to be some reason they decided to communicate now when communication is otherwise poor.

--------

By the way, I'm glad others are getting this same email. I was beginning to get paranoid and thinking Google knew about my experimenting with another PPC program that is outperforming AdSense and they were trying to see if I was still their friend.

FarmBoy

[edited by: farmboy at 8:11 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2008]

I got it to. I was also wondering if this means anything, ie, if there's anything between the lines...

I don't seem to be experiencing many changes in earnings due to the economy either.

there has to be some reason they decided to communicate now when communication is otherwise poor

Financial crisis => People clicking less => Advertisers reducing budgets => Publishers look for alternatives => Google getting worried => Google sends letter

Should have enabled a few more tools instead. A bit more transparency would be good, too. A letter does not help much.

Financial crisis => People clicking less => Advertisers reducing budgets => Publishers look for alternatives => Google getting worried => Google sends letter

If that's true - if Google is getting worried about losing publishers, that could be a good thing. Let 'em worry.

FarmBoy

Isn't it basically saying "Don't leave, things will get better"?

Should we be scared or happy? Maybe lots of people will leave and there will be more money for those of us who stay?

Did the adwords people get a letter too?

Isn't it basically saying "Don't leave, things will get better"?

I don't think they would say that unless they had reason to believe people are about to leave or already have started leaving in numbers.

FarmBoy

I got that letter too and kinda strange to get it without a real purpose. I think bad news is about to hit. That's just the pessimist in me.

I didn't get the letter (email?) yet. Then again last month was a record month and this month was even better so maybe they thought I didn't need it? I dunno. Things are tapering off a bit the last few days.

My take is that they've maybe, possibly, perhaps lost (in other words po'd) enough advertizers that that it's showing up in the $ numbers somewhere and they want us to know they are working on getting them back... or finding others to fill the gap.

But who knows. Strange email.

I didn't get the email either.

I should mention the publisher side of this deal.

If publishers are leaving in any number, it might well be good for the rest of us.

I got the letter too

<snip>Removed Email Quote. See TOS for more info</snip>

I thin k they are trying to keep us form leaving. I've been looking trying to find advertising that is working right now.... Adsense has been dismal!

Any ideas about what's better than Adsense?

[edited by: martinibuster at 12:30 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2008]
[edit reason] [webmasterworld.com...] [/edit]

.. or maybe they sent the letter to every publisher's email address and are going to collect up all the bouncebacks and kill all the spammer scraper sites that don't have correct email addresses.

Any ideas about what's better than Adsense?

Making and selling a product or service has always topped my list.

I did not get the letter but to assume it is, at least in part, to try and stop publishers from leaving does not make any sense.

There is not anything that comes close to AdSense, and the credit crunch and economic turmoil etc will be hitting advertisers across the board not just people/companies that advertise on G.

I am still perfectly happy with GAS, although I do agree improvements could be made in certain areas.

So far (touch wood and anything else that may help) revenues have not been too badly affected by this global mess.

I'm just going to keep my eyes open. We have updated some our Adsense pages with other options, so maybe it looks like our amounts went down quite a bit over the last 3 months and they didn't want those to totally ditch.

I'm guessing it's preparing us for "whatever" happens. If it goes up they can say "see innovation!" and if it goes down they can say "remember the lovely email telling you in advance".

Either way, it was an interesting correspondence and very safe. :)

<quote>Any ideas about what's better than Adsense? </quote>

No advertising program is better than Adsense.

<quote>Making and selling a product or service has always topped my list. </quote>

This is an apples and oranges comparison. It's like saying driving your Porsche 150 mph is better than AdSense. Holding up liquor stores might be better than making and selling a product but neither has anything to do with advertising.

AdSense has its ups and downs but for content-rich sites it pays higher CPMs, pays more promptly and causes less reader aggravation than anything else I have found, and I have tried every advertising program known to humanity, along with quite a few unknowns.

And, hey, I didn't even get the letter or email.

No advertising program is better than Adsense.

In a generic one-size-fits-all sense I agree with that based on my knowledge of other advertising programs.

But I participate in some niche programs, one of them PPC based, that cleans the clock of AdSense when it comes to performance.

I keep following the fundamental advice I learned from Mr. Allan Gardyne many years ago. If you first develop a good useful site, you'll be ready to plug in whatever monetization opportunity that comes along.

I think a lot of people (not all) made mistakes when they built sites for AdSense.

FarmBoy

This is an apples and oranges comparison. It's like saying driving your Porsche 150 mph is better than AdSense. Holding up liquor stores might be better than making and selling a product but neither has anything to do with advertising.

Not only are you dead wrong on this, but if people find your comment credible, it can be limiting, if not damaging.

Here's why. Whether I develop and grow my own products (which I do), or whether I sell others' products, I still have to advertise, to a) get people to my site, and b) get visitors to my sites to purchase.

So, I have x amount of advertising space on content rich sites. It's zero sum. I can apportion that space for adsense, for other programs, or to funnel visitors to purchase, ALL USING THE SAME geography, and space.

For at least two years, we've been shifting from adsense to our own product sales, with great success, and we continue to shift further, so I anticipate we'll be replacing more adsense impressions with our own product reminders, intros, audio clips, etc to encourage sales.

I understand there are many adsense publishers who don't have the ability or talent to create their own products, or who don't have the credibility to sell them, so the option may not be available and they'll always be slaved to affiliate and ad programs.

But if you CAN do it, then do it. You CAN place advertising a la adsense, PLUS sell products online if you know how, and you have content rich sites that do not exist for the purpose of making adsense money.

PS. We didn't get the letter, but I suspect it wouldn't make any difference since I'm planning to remove another ten percent of adsense impressions in the immediate future. We'll keep reducing it since quite honestly, since the CTR drop, adsense ads are clearly not of interest to our visitors, and showing them to everyone on every page view is not in the interests of our customers' experience.

Ironic, ain't it.

I think a lot of people (not all) made mistakes when they built sites for AdSense.

I think a lot of people made a mistake by assuming developing a good useful site will make them rich. Not just topic, but even format can have a negative impact and no amount of lipstick is going to help. A forum can be good and useful and still earn a pittance because there's nothing to sell, thus you get crap ads or ads targeting your niche.

You can raise heritage pork organically but it's still just a pig. Putting lipstick on it (i.e. blocking advertisers and reducing ad units) doesn't change the fundamental problem with certain sites. If one is interested in improving their sites performance then one way (among many other ways) is to try thinking about what works best with AdSense.

Instead of baseball, talk about equipment. Instead of restaurant reviews, talk about hand cured Italian pork cheeks and throw in some affiliate links. Heck talk about the benefit of pasture raised beef, whatever will stimulate a foodie. You can be good and useful AND make money at it, but pick the topics wisely and decrease the likelihood of crappy ads rotating through the site.

I as well got the letter, nervous for a moment, then I thought to check here...fear of them cancelling me due to low impressions, heeh
I'm seeing that some people got it, and some didn't.
Any reason why? Speculation?

I got the same email for all four accounts that I manage. Sheesh. Things must be bad for many publishers -- c'mon, G wouldn't send a message like that without some kind of motivation.

I do note that the close of the emails I received emphasizes the quality of the publishers' sites being a key part of the value proposition -- is that just repeating the well-worn dogma, or, is this an important part of the message they are sending?

[edited by: inactivist at 3:38 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2008]

We probably don't have enough publishers here to draw a valid conclusion, but it would be interesting to know if there was a common thread among those that got the email.

Would there likely be a common thread in things like... Income up/down? Ctr up/down? traffic up/down? Ad views up/down? etc.

(I'm not asking members to post that info, just citing examples)

We probably don't have enough publishers here to draw a valid conclusion, but it would be interesting to know if there was a common thread among those that got the email.

Well, I know that Google knows that I've been experimenting with alternate (competing and complementary) ad systems across my network. I've also experimented with using Google's Ad Manager AND OpenX, just to see what they can do for me. I have to say, one of the alternative ad programs I've tried provided much higher CTR and eCPM than AdSense on the same site. We pulled it after the experimental phase because we felt it was probably annoying our visitors due to the ad presentation. But the money was definitely there -- and Google must know we were using it... Ad Manager knows which ad networks we are using... and they DO analyze our page content, don't they?