The official Inside Adsense blog has recently announced it is putting a cap on all non-Google product referrals in order to increase the value and quality of the referral network. IMO, that’s almost synonymous to fraudulent referral conversions.
By the way, this isn’t entirely new. AdSense is already limiting referral income to Publishers outside of the US (more specifically Asia). I have already gotten about a dozen conversions from referring Google Pack, Firefox with Google Toolbar and Picasa before but instead of getting the full $1 per referral, I’m only getting $0.10 — ten times below the advertised fee structure.
Now, Google AdSense is extending this rate limitations to other non-Google products too:
For some publishers who display referrals for non-Google products, the earnings you receive for the ad may now be less than the maximum referral value displayed for that ad. This is because our system will initially place a restriction on referral earnings as we monitor click and conversion data to determine that the conversions generated are valid. Once this validation period ends, you’ll begin earning the maximum value of the conversions as displayed in your account.
That means that if you run an Adsense Referrals ad for say “airline tickets” and it’s tagged for $35 per successful conversion, you don’t get the full $35. Who knows much much you’ll end up getting — could be just $5. And we all know it’s much, much harder to get conversions than clicks.
They added that this validation period will be in place indefinitely. Now there’s the rub.
Does this mean AdSense is getting some fraud conversions? Probably so. Well, that could put a brake in Google’s push for the CPA model.
Twitter: acejulian23
says:
same here yuga… at 1st im also wondering why im only getting 0.10 for every conversion ng mga visitors ko… kaya pala.. thanks for the info… kudos!
Twitter: acejulian23
says:
its time for me to remove those Firefox buttons coz im not earning that much.. ouch… hey yuga, wala ka na dn pa lang referral buttons here?
Twitter: mikkogozalo
says:
Hahaha. I’ve removed all my Referrals 2.0. They’re earning nothing!
Anyway, just signed up to Text Link Ads. I hope I’d earn there.
me too, i’ve already removed those referrals.
Twitter: techathand
says:
I was not successful from this Referral Ads..I do not why?
i earned around 57 USD with the referral 2.0.. that was once only. maybe i was just lucky, since then my income was zero.
btw, those firefox/adsense buttons are so vintage. i wonder if anyone of you is still using that now.
I also used to have those referral buttons before, pero mahirap talagang makapagconvert, kaya tinanggal ko na rin to save some space
Referrals don’t not work on my site. I haven’t converted a non-Google product so removed them temporarily until it gets better.
Guys, one of the blogs I handle became redorbit site of the day. Redorbit seems popular on Alexa, but I wonder how this will do us in terms o traffic. Not much coming in at the moment.
I have removed mine too. They are just consuming an otherwise profitable ad space.