Hi Google is no angel. check out their revenue financial tables. Revenue 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Revenues 439,508 1,465,934 3,189,223 6,138,560 10,604,917 16,593,986 Google web sites 306,978 792,063 1,589,032 3,377,061 6,332,797 10,624,705 Google network web sites 103,937 628,600 1,554,256 2,687,942 4,159,831 5,787,938 Since 2003 publishers get decreasing percentage revenue from 50% down every year to 30% in 2007. If this keeps on going it means some scary stuff for us. in 2003 for every billion publishers earn 500 million. In 2007 for every billion publishers earn 300 million. What will happen 10 years later? In layman terms publishers are getting less and less of the google pie every year.
Just wondering, where did you get the statistics anyway? As far as I know google has always been very tight lipped about their figures.
Well the thing is that now there are many of us using adsense and as such the payout has dropped. Almost everyone 3rd person is having Adsense on gis site or blog. In 2003 there were not as many PC users as thery are today in 2008. Its Natural.
The information is a little confusing since it's not explained much. However, I think that you're mistaken about that being the cut earned by publishers. It is actually the amount of revenue earned by Google through Google sites vs. network sites. So, if "Google network web sites" has 35% in 2007, that means 35% of Google's revenue came through network web sites (publishers' websites). It's not a percentage of commission shared. Basically, it seems to mean that Google is relying more (percentage wise) on its own assets than on publishers, compared to the recent past.