New Referral Rules (90 Day Window)

I guess they did the math and didn't like the results. My first real boo for Google.

 

I have few clicks on my firefox but no conversion .. how does firefox referral works?

 

Google have silently added a clause stating that your referrals must make $100 in their first 90 days or you get nothing.

The amount of people who have beginning websites who make $100 in the first 90 days must be real low.

The people who have sites that will make more than $100 in the first 90 days probably already have adsense.

Surely google must know this?

People will just stop promoting their program.

 

That rule is annoying!

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=53647

 

I have removed the referral units from my websites and will remove the rest soon. It is like changing rules once the game has started.

 

Thank you for letting us know! Will take action and remove referral link asap.

 

I'm going to do the same except for my Webmaster related blog. I don't need to use the space for anything else yet. This is definitely a bad move on Google's part, especially since they didn't even bother to let the publishers know about it.

Almost as bad as Fastclicks changes to their referral program, a few months back.

 

90 days are really *without words*
I remove them on all sites.

 

Like I said, its sucks
Maybe they will see if the signups from referrals are getting lower and they can remove this crap low...

 

this is bullshit.

they should just remove the damn referral program, or change the name, because it's not a referral you're being rewarded with.

 

Common people. 90 days for 100 bucks. I can see why google does this. They dont need bazillions of affiliates making less than 100 bucks per THREE MONTHS!.

Changing policy without notice is a bit sneaky though. However, remember that many people have more than one website. Again, 100 bucks / 90 days is really nothing ..

 

Sure they don't want that KingSEO - I'm sure they'd rather have 1 guy making 1,000 bucks a day than 1,000 people making a dollar a day.

BUT - those making a dollar a day today might be making 1,000 next year. You just never know. You know, those adsense referrals really only work for new webmasters or people with small websites anyways - the one's that aren't really "webmasters" in a sense are are more of hobbyists or people with personal pages wanting to make a few bucks to cover hosting.

 

I agre mdvaldosta, which is why I never even bothered with those elements.

The firefox one I would consider showing to users browsing with IE, but never the adsense-element. Every webmaster worth his title knows about adsense already anyway.

 

Perhaps Google knows that webmasters/bloggers don’t need the referral button to hear about AdSense, so why pay for that? They probably made the math (were they paying too many $100 referral checks?) and decided to implement this rule silently. They have the numbers, they know exactly how long does it take to a new site make $100. Bottom line, they don’t want to pay for referrals anymore. That’s for sure.

 

Last I checked, Google only sent out a check when I earned $100 or more. What do you suppose Google does with that money until they pay me? If I were Google, I'd love to have every hobbyist in the world. I'd love it even more if they earn $99.99 and hung there for months. I've made money from the advertiser because someone has already clicked on the ad, but I haven't paid the publisher yet because he hasn't met my minimum. Imagine just 50,000 websites that have only averaged $50 in earnings each during a month. That's 2.5 million sitting in a money market fund earning 4% annually or a little over $8000 a month. Sure, the money won't be in there all year, but next month you might have another set of 50,000 websites. I also think $50,000 is a conservative number.

So you can keep the big earning high traffic sites, but I'd be happy if you sent the long tail my way.

 

Let say :
- contract signed on December 22, 2005
- 100 $ reached on February 2, 2006
- payment approved on March 23, 2006

And Google now says : "Bad luck! There are 91 days between 12/22 and 3/23."

Or does "eligible for payment" mean something else than "payment approved" ? And between 12/22 and 2/2, I only count 42 days...

Maybe they had a second thought about it and it was not a good deal for them... But why don't they just stop the program in a clear way ?

Jean-Luc

 

That might be the case. But googles recent change in policy kinda proves they're not interested in smalltime players.

I think they find people that doesn't make 100 bucks / 90 days a hassle, click fraud, sending out those cheques on minimium balance, extra administration etc etc. Not to mention affiliate fraud... They want affiliates that create decent sums of money immediatly.

 

Wow, never saw this before.

Looks like link will be coming down...

 

Hi Guys,

You all make very valid points however instead of venting your anger here why not let Google know you are not happy.

If enough of us politely let Google know that we are not happy with the change then they may do something about it.

The contact form for Google Adsense can be found by logging into your account and clicking the "Help" link in the top right corner of the page.

 

I did it, but I’m pretty sure Google knows what we’re all discussing here. DP is very easy to find using Google search engine...