great post, I think this is the wave of the future, it is going to get even harder to make even less money going around, we are living in the golden age now, and every month that goes by it will get harder and harder good point you make, I'll change it a bit by saying "don't give up your day job" and "stay in school and work hard to get an education"
I think us webmasters probably never click on ads. I personally have clicked maybe on 2-3 ads in the last 3 years of internet browsing. But there are people that still click on ads. Give a computer to my mom or my grandma and have them go to a website and they will probably click on every ad there..lol.
adsense is not good in the future because Google will give you lower and lower percentage unless if there are 1 or 2 big competitors for him. I think sell products online is much more interesting than just adsense
I too never click on the ads, I do not remember the last time I did. However, today, I had 35%+ CTR, so people still click them, and I do not see it slowing down. You are talking about developing countries? What about here in US - the spam is getting worse and worse because people still click it. Or watch your relative use the computer for 10 minutes - you'll see they're like kids in a candy store when it comes to ads. Free Medical Insurance With Included Dell Laptop? Click ...
There are always more and more users comming online for the first time easily replacing those that stop clicking ads. With the world's population growing, computers and internet becoming cheaper and cheaper, it'll be a long while before things start declining.
In my opinion, Adsense is definitely becoming ineffective...but do you all know why? Take a guess.... In 2007, one of the top downloads on the Web was Firefox, and one of the top downloads in Firefox was....AdBlock.. What does AdBlock do? Guess again.... So is it any surprise? Let me just say this - I'd rather promote Internet Explorer anytime, if Firefox is going to make more people download AdBlock...directly...or indirectly... And the other thing, many people know what Adsense is. I do too. But that doesnt stop me from clicking ads even though I know it makes the other webmaster money. I click if the ad seems enticing, and I'm too lazy to copy the url and open it in a new window. Only loser webmasters do that...IMHO But not everyone shares my point of view. But also, it just means we need to look at other ad networks. Too much dependence on Adsense worries me.
I click an ad when it's relevant. Sometimes I click without even knowing it ^^ I think us webmasters need to stop thinking like webmasters. Of course WE don't click the ads. Out of 1,000 unique visitors per day, I have a CTR of 1%. It's those 10 people clicking my ads that I want to attract, not the 990 that know what they're doing and what "Adsense" is. Interesting? Yes. Easy to implement and easy to make a profit from? No (or at least not as easy as AdSense).
People have been saying that same chicken little madness since '99 or '00. E-commerce is in it's infancy. The way you DO IT, the tactics, technology, may change, but making money online isn't going anywhere. 2 cents
I'm also thinking of Google Adsense's effectiveness as compared to the 'MySpace Generation'. I know MySpace isn't the only publisher out there, but people are subjected to their Ads over and over everyday.......I believe MySpace is now the largest social networking site....and, I believe it gains several 1,000 new members a day......almost everyone I know has a MySpace page......as people are subjected to their ads, in the same position, don't you think they'll start becoming immune to them, eventually? .....I wonder how much MySpace makes a day/month on advertising????.....
If ineffective means people's immunity to clicking advertisements then it is already ineffective. But I think it also depends on how well a person uses the adsense. How he positions it and how he changes it around using php scripts to put it in unexpected places etc. If some one has that skill then I do not think it will every become ineffective.
It's probably because Google made it so that a 'click' won't register unless you directly click on the LINK or the URL........once, it would register if you clicked anywhere on the entire box......it doesn't do that any longer...... i wonder if THIS alone has affected earnings greatly?
Now that Google has made it so that a Click isn't counted unless you click exactly on the link or the URL......(not anywhere on the box, like before...)........I wonder how that has affected the earnings of the MAJOR earners?....
tens of thousands of totally new internet user are coming each day, almost all of the are total noobs Adsense is a long way to become ineffective, it may become more profitable in coming years Adsense will become ineffective if the pool of internet user is stagnant and never grow, because they eventually know about PPC advertising.
there are still many people who do click sometimes i get annoyed that when my sister searches something she clicks on the sponsored links (OF COURSE NOT KNOWING THEY ARE ADS) and usually not finding what she wants but also, there are people that click on google ads thinking those are just somewhere you can find more stuff by google ect.. my friends spend hours clicking on random stuff i just hate it because you can tell they dont know nothing about adsense and webmaster's ect.. so yeah lets leave the clicking to the Non-Webmasters I myself dont click on ads except i want to help out another site when im bored
Before you started making/running/learning more about websites did you know that ads made people money?? I didnt. Considering far less then 1% of computer users even know much about websites i really dont think most of them will know that ads make people money. Just remember that a very small portion of people even make sites.
I don't think so, as you may think so and don't click on the ads as you are a webmaster yourself, but the every day users will click any ad they like without thinking of any thing else
I can see a point where there are too many publishers and the value of ads will go down. It is a basic issue of supply and demand.