IMO, the purpose of frequent maintenance is to tweak AdSense to Google's benefit. It isn't for the purpose of enhancing publishers' revenues. Almost invariably, I notice a dip in AS revenues following maintenance, and it can take at least a week for things to be restored to previous levels. I think Google needs to dip in there on a periodic basis in order to assure that it's earnings reports can remain prettied up for the investment community. Have you ever received an email from the AdSense team saying, "There now, we've just performed some much needed maintenance which you should begin to see reflected in the form of increased AdSense earnings in your daily reports"? Remember, Google has 100% control.
What you receive is ultimately determined by what the advertiser pays. Google pays out approximately 78% of what they take from the advertiser (premium and regular pubishers combined) - the less money the advertiser pays, the less google makes. I don't understand why you think maintenance should increase the payout?
You completely missed my point. What advertisers pay is irrelevant. I believe that Google tweaks things so that it can scrape a larger take off the table for itself at the expense of publishers.
Google can keep whatever percentage they want. They are under no obligation to payout any set percentage and the publisher is under no obligation to stay with them. Having said that, Google is a public company and its financials show the percentage they make and payout from adsense really doesn't fluctuate much from quarter to quarter, year to year. Surely you can't think that google would have to take adsense down to increase the percentage they keep for themselves? I run a lot of sites and don't see any drop after a maintenance - although Saturday is a slow day, which is why they probably choose it to do their work.
Absolutely correct. Especially when those earnings statements are coming due for investors you'll notice a dip in publishers income as well as an overwhelming number of publishers crying that they were banned. but what can you do? It's their ballgame and they are in control as long as publishers continue to use Adsense to monetize their sites. I prefer to take matters into my own hands...
When google bans a publisher, the money gets refunded to the advertiser. It also means google doesn't get their cut i.e. they make less money.... but on the same topic, I heard people from Google were seen on a grassy knoll in Dallas....
Can you verify that this is true ? Is there an independent third party auditing firm that guarantees 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you're saying is accurate... No offense, mjewel, but anybody who has ever worked for a corporation knows that what a corporation says is to be taken with a grain of salt and not as the truth. As examples, I offer you Bear Stearns, Enron, Qwest, AOL, etc as examples not to believe what you read or hear but that corporations only have one interest at heart and that's the bottom line for their investors. btw, I worked for IBM for 15 years and was outsourced to Arthur Andersen in Chicago, so if you mention an "auditor", please - not Andersen (who was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2002 for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron).
Am I the only one who reads the Adsense blog? http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/06/site-maintenance-on-june-21-at-10am-pdt.html
All public exchange listed companies have fully audited statements. As a former CEO of a NASDAQ company, I am fully aware of what can happen with financials, however, it is revenue growth that drives Googles stock price. If they wanted to pad their revenue numbers, they would look the other way on click fraud. They wouldn't be banning publishers because it costs them money. As an Adwords user, yes, I know they do give credits for invalid clicks. No, I do not know of anyone who has paid several million dollars to do a third party audit of google's financials (ERNST & YOUNG are their auditors). You made the claim that Google increases bans on publishers around the end of the quarter for earnings purposes "an overwhelming number of publishers crying that they were banned." Overwhelming? I say that is pure bs - Let's forget the fact that I don't believe google bans legitimate publishers without good cause (Shoemoney also made a similar comment recently on his blog) but you can prove me wrong. Google is on a fiscal reporting period. You must have some data that shows the number of publisher bans which are "normal" for a month, and then the "overwhelming" increase just before the end of the quarter? I'm betting you have no such data. What you're forgetting is that Google doesn't promise any percentage payout. They have ZERO need to commit fraud if they wanted to tweak their profit from adsense. They could just say we aren't going to payout of 78% this quarter, we'll payout only 50% (or any number they choose). If you, or anyone else, has any real proof of fraud, then you should report it to the SEC which has a reward program that would surely pay you a very hefty sum for exposing it.
ups..., looks like I forgot to read those one. thanks mate .. anyway, Google has 100% control, but I'm sure they won't doin anything stupid, for them, advertiser, nor publisher.