AdSense retracts Referral System

With much surprise and after tons of complaints from AdSense Publishers worldwide, Google has retracted its original announcement of discontinuing the AdSense Referrals program which it announced earlier.

A recent entry in the official AdSense blog says we’ve carefully considered your feedback, and have decided to modify the original plan.

The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You’ll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You’ll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January.

That’s a bit better. However, by this update, Google is saying that only new AdSense Publishers coming from North America, Latin America or Japan are really the only preferred content partners by Google. Any new AdSense Publishings signing up elsewhere aren’t that important to justify a $100 referral fee.

There are also changes for referrals with Google Pack and Firefox:

Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.

Firefox: We’ll also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. Again, this is independent of your location as a publisher.

Yup, China has a really huge and still growing population — in the hundreds of millions.Google can no longer afford to support it’s referral campaign for Firefox. As I see it, referrals coming from outside of the US are already getting only 10% of the maximum referral payout. That is, if you refer someone to download and use Firefox in the US, you get the full $1. If you refer someone from the Philippines, it’s just $0.10.

Still, it’s as wee bit better than the first announcement. See, publishers or content partners, however small or insignificant, don’t need to bow down to Google’s every whim. Remember it’s a partnership, just like any other partnership they have with other big companies and sites. With enough numbers and people voicing out their concerns, Google will listen and reconsider.