Publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan can no longer participate in the Adsense Referral Program (referral promoting the use of Adsense). Darren, made a report about this stupid decision at Problogger. The complete detail can be read at the Adsense Blog.

Here’s the summary of the stupid decision made by Adsense.

1. First, Adsense is going to change their payout for Adsense Referral Program. Currently, Adsense pays their publishers $5 if a person they refer earns $5. Moreover, if a publisher refers someone to AdSense who makes $100 within 180 days, the publisher gets $250. Finally, if a publisher refers 25 people who make $100 within a 180 day period, the publisher gets a bonus payment of $2000. Instead of the current payout, Adsense decided to return the old payout system, which is to pay publishers $100 if they refer someone to Adsense who makes $100 within a 180 day period.
2. Second, and the most stupid decision yet made by Adsense, is to retire Adsense Referral Program to publishers located outside North America, Latin America and Japan.

On Changing Payout

This is not a good news to those publishers who refer other publishers to Adsense who make less than $100 within 180 days. The decision to change Adsense’s payout to their referral program strongly discourages publishers.

On Retiring Adsense Referral Program Outside North America, Latin America and Japan

When WidgetBucks made the decision to only pay for clicks made within North America, there was a strong protest from it’s publishers. I thought the decision was a bad move for WidgetBucks especially that they’ve just started operating. To some extent, I can understand why WidgetBucks made such a decision. Since their target market are those from North America, the decision was only made to protect their advertisers’ interest.

What I don’t understand is the decision of Adsense to retire Adsense Referral Program to their publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan. Take note, this is all about the location of the publisher and NOT the source of traffic. So, even if most of your traffic is coming from North America, Latin America or Japan when you are not located in these regions, you have to say goodbye with Adsense Referral Program.

Unfair Decision

Clearly, the decision that makes Adsense Referral Program only available to publishers in North America, South America and Japan is UNFAIR. Apparently, Adsense favors publishers from these locations. And with the implementation of this decision in the last week of this month, publishers from North America, Latin America and Japan have better chances of earning because competition has been reduced.

The only reason for this decision given by Adsense is that the Adsense Referral Program has not performed well as they’ve expected outside North America, Latin America and Japan.

Adsense Strategy : Unfair and Publisher-Unfriendly

Lately, Adsense has been coming up with “publisher-unfriendly” decisions. They weren’t satisfied at reducing the “clickable” space of Adsense. This time they’re limiting their Adsense Referral Program and changing their Adsense referral payout. I wonder what stupid move they’re going to do next. The Adsense people needs some serious lecture on Marketing. They seem to forget that their success if partly because of their publishers.

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