See, I told you so. Some of my predictions for 2008 are closely coming to reality. And, it’s not even halfway the month of January. Google’s Inside AdSense Blog has just announced that they will discontinue AdSense Referrals.
It’s practically everywhere. The only regions/country that have been spared by Google AdSense are North America, Latin America and Japan.
If you’re outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.
For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we’ll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We’ve found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. Again, please keep in mind that you can still generate referrals for the other products listed under the ‘Referrals’ section of your AdSense Setup tab.
Likewise, for those remaining publishers that are still qualified, the Referral Rates have been considerably reduced back to it’s old crappy numbers. No more $5 for every new referrals earning $5 in 180 days. No more $2,000 bonus for 25 referrals earning $100 each in 180 days. The only referral bonus left is a $250 bonus for a referral that earns $100 in 180 days. Oh, wait, the $250 has been reduced down to $100 now.
Read their full explanation about these changes.
The changes affects all publishers based in the Philippines. Call it the whole of Asia as well, minus Japan. And Europe too. Middle East, the African Continent, the North Pole and the South Pole.
Why Japan is excluded in the retirement? My guess is that e-commerce is very well alive in that country. So is online advertising. And thus the referrals program could also be making waves.
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oh my golly…
why oh why?
I also have the same blog entry in my blog a while ago after reading the newest blog entry from official adsense blog. TSK! TSK! TSK!
This will surely cause a lot of inconvenience for publishers living outside of the areas mentioned.
TSK TSK TSK!
truly they made lots of difference from the decision that they made… how can those outsiders survive from this… hoping for the best news on the near future… thanks for the post its informative…
oh well, referrals never worked here in the Philippine side of things - one may even think of posting a referral link as spamming, and who wouldnt? a lot of Filipinos capitalize on making a quick buck out of these things only to fail miserably - its also similar to why many people avoid MLM schemes nowadays.
hi..
google start to conquer the net again..haha..btw, since last year i only got 2 downline who got $100 in 180 days..so, i got &500 for both downline..it’s really a huge amount right??
never really tried adsense referals, o well this will affect to those who still earning on referls. and right now my adsense earnings is really going down.
I don’t earn on referrals, so, I’m not affected. Wag lang nilang aalisin ang Adsense program sa Philippines
I am also not affected since.. The referral is not doing any amount from me. I think the affected people here are the famous blog which ussually earn alot from referrals.
i dont remember the last time that i earned from referral, i’m not that affected but that’s a bad news…
I guess I’d have to take down that useless “get a firefox” toolbar ad then. I never got anything out of referral anyways so it sounds like good riddance.
same here, i never earned from referrals so i removed them months ago
Not affected. Not earning either.
Oh well, I even call it adcents!
hi! this is my first time to visit your blog…wonderful and interesting. i will visit more often. i hope i could also join your blog summit next time.
no biggie. as long as PPC is there. haha. their referral program wasn’t really good since it started.
This should be expected.
Normally, businesses uses referral system as a marketing strategy to spread the word about a product or services. Once, the market has reached a tipping point, chances are, they’ll pull out the referral system.
im not affected!
We got the email too, sad , my firefox referrals did bring some trickling income.