is this a nono?

I know that Google doesn't want you to solicit clicks on your AdSense ads. The following text appears in a popup when you click "what's this" next to the Sponsored Links on Amazon's website:

"Sponsored Links are advertisements that Amazon.com provides to you. We receive Sponsored Links from Google's AdWords service. When you click on a Sponsored Link, we get revenue. The selection of Sponsored Links that are displayed is based on keywords. For example, if you search for "Bruce Springsteen" or view pages about Bruce Springsteen, the Sponsored Links may point to sites that sell tickets to his concerts or provide information about him. Sponsored Links are always clearly labeled.

Generating additional revenue from Sponsored Links allows us to offer lower prices to you--something we are dedicated to doing every way we can."

Is this some kind of deal Amazon has or is the fact that they are not "asking" anyone to click on the links skirt the issue.

Thanks
Satch Reed

 

I think Amazon and Google has special agreement because Amazon is one of the sites that earns millions of hits a day. if you'll look at their Adsense ads looks, it was modified already.

 

Amazon is a "Premium" publisher. There are many things they can do that a regular publisher can't.

 

Yeah people need to remember the interesting reverse dynamic that is work for most people here.

Our individual relationships with Google are that Google is actually our customer. In most situations, such a position would let us call most of the shots. Due to Google's force in the market though, they are able to dictate to us how things are done. That doesn't work for everybody. Some of the merchants who have Google as a customer are big enough to dictate some or all terms of their agreements.

I liken it to a small Lousiana meat packager trying to get a single SKU into Wal-Mart. In a lot of cases a distributor/manufacturer will dictate most of the terms in such a situation. With the little meat packager and Wal-Mart, that single SKU could multiply their business by ten-fold or more. Wal-Mart holds all the cards and all the power in the relationship.

If you have a little brick and mortar store front selling widgets, and a customer came in and started telling you that you will sell them the widget for half-price, you will hand deliver it to their house and you will throw their kids a pizza party at Chuck E. Cheese, you would tell them to get bent.

Unfortunately or fortunately, the relationship between most publishers and Google does not allow for that. Part of it does have to do with the complete lack of competition, and part of it has to do with the imbalanced nature of the relationship. Will be interesting to see how things evolve over time.

 

Yes, very interesting...

 

One model to look at the problem is that Google has a near-monopsony (and I thought I'd never use this term outside of my economics degree) right now on contextual ad space.

Another is that google is a monopoloy seller of an application that enables you to benefit from contextual advertising (essentially free money for content sites).

Either way, we have to bend over and take it (or move to one of the dozens of smaller networks).

 

Adsense ads in popups is a nono. Exactly.