The Disadvantages of Adsense
As adsense becomes the most
popular publisher program for Price per Click advertising, flaws
and disadvantages still exist. Since its inception advertisers
have chosen to advertise in search because they felt that
visitors would be less targeted. This is a genuine concern and
one that makes perfect sense. If you are visiting a website, and
notice an advert then the chances are you are not particularly
concentrating on its content.
Adsense has also become so popular that people can distinguish
them from other adverts. Therefore people may choose to ignore
them without even paying them a thought. This has been a hot
topic discussed by Bloggers and one that could contain a lot of
truth. Many have blamed Google for this, and their decision to
include text that says “ads by Google” beneath the advert.
Many publishers also fail to ever gain the revenues they
anticipated when starting the program. Those only gaining 30 –
40 visitors a day to their website would be unlikely to earn
even one dollar a day. Many advertisers talk of rates such as
1.5%- 5% for traffic to click conversion, whilst only gaining
around $0.10 per click. The maths doesn’t work out great, but
you can hardly blame advertisers or Google if you are not
bringing enough traffic. The key is to bring targeted traffic to
your website that are likely to click on adverts, however it is
said that it may be easier on other programs which allow figures
such as 75% share of advertising revenues for publishers.
Another disadvantage in adsense
is that it has almost become tacky. Its appearance on websites
that generally appear to be designed in a DIY fashion has lead
people to associate them inextricably. This can only be tackled
through adsense evolving to be more attractive to the bigger
brands, whilst those who currently use adsense are restricted.
Google Adsense also has to tackle the issue of click fraud which
is anticipated to count for over 15% of click through rate in
content. This has meant that advertiser’s who have been
particularly affected, have moved away to other programs or have
restricted their advertising to search.
This has meant that there is less competition in content and
therefore smaller revenues for publishers. Publisher’s who
previously had high yielding ads, are now having to alter their
content to ensure they get any adverts at all. This has largely
been the fault of the publishers themselves however the issue is
one that; if not addressed could bring adsense to its knees.
Google Adsense also has the disadvantage of not paying enough
for their search program. Other similar programs pay higher
rates, and if publishers decide to go elsewhere then problems
will occur for advertisers and publishers alike. Although Google
fail to pay enough for search another major problem with Adsense
is that it does not have a powerful database of graphic adverts.
Many advertisers prefer showing graphically drive
advertisements, however this has yet to materialise. As several
other programs exist for PPC graphic distribution problems could
occur.
Whilst this may not be a problem for all publishers, many
complain that the adverts within their site do not change, so
their repeat visitors fail to see fresh adverts so therefore
fail to visit them. This is a problem which could be addressed
through making adverts rotate. However if adverts rotate then
how will that be linked with advertisers paying a rate per
click? These are all problems which Google has to address to
ensure that Adsense remains the market leader.
Adwords on the other hand also has major advantages, and remains
the best in the market. It’s CPC rates can be chosen by the
advertisers so that even when they feel that they are not
getting the results they expect they can lower their prices
whilst still using the service.
Whilst many issues remain with adsense the program still remains
the most popular amongst publishers, whilst Google Adwords
remains the most popular amongst advertisers; with a database of
over 140,000 Adwords will remain on top for the time to come. |
