Is this the end of Adsense?

If Adsense collapses, Google collapses. It is one part of the Google trinity that holds the Google Empire together. Firstly, there is the powerful and influential search engine. This part acts as the core, the central pillar that holds everything together. It has become extremely popular because it is extremely good. It is fast, efficient and reliable.

Secondly, there is Adwords, the money making part of the site. It was only natural the Google would take advantage of the popularity of its search engine through advertising. Adwords gave anyone who had the financial clout the ability to advertise their site on the first few pages of related search queries. It enabled businesses, publishers and marketers the ability to skip the arduous process of search engine optimization (SEO).

Thirdly, there is the last of Google’s trinity, Adsense. As a result of the popularity of Adwords and to accommodate the amount of advertising that they had to deal with Google cleverly found a way to hire webmasters to do some of their advertising for them.

They realized that there was money to be made in general internet traffic and they found a way to capitalize on it.

 Adsense was a runaway success but it had problems. Advertisers complained about click fraud, this continues to be a thorn in Google’s side. Also Google’s Adsense was beginning to get some serious competition. Amazon associates continues to grow in range and prominence. And has proved to be exceptionally lucrative for the few webmasters who have cleverly chosen the right products and embarked on the right marketing strategy.

There are some advertising schemes that are similar in format to Adsense like Chitika and Yahoo’s own contextual advertising program. There are now many more established income streams for webmasters to use than just Adsense.

So webmasters had more choices. Google no longer had a monopoly on internet marketing. But there were deeper reasons for the persistent rumors surrounding the descent of Adsense.

Recently, Google made some subtle changes to its Adwords program that made it difficult to use the arbitrage system of making money. The changes made it difficult for certain publishers to buy low and send visitors to more lucrative landing pages. Also Google at last started taking some real action against garbage sites. Tracking them and closing them down when necessary. As information resources these sites were useless and they damaged the overall function of Google as well as all other good search engines.

But these changes sparked the rumblings of discontent that has reverberated through the web community. A lot of publishers were not pleased. But does this mean that these are the last days of Adsense?

No, it doesn’t.

Google’s Adsense is not dead, nor is it dying. However, it is changing and adapting to its surroundings. It is becoming leaner, fitter and stronger to fight off its various competitors. For it to change for the better it had to shed the excess weight it was carrying in the form of junk information sites.

Now it seems that the best way to truly benefit long term with Adsense is to create good, original, content-rich websites. Google wants to bolster its core; it wants to make its search engine stronger. And for it to do so it needs good content, content that can only be put together by the web creating community. Google has an obligation not to upset this community too much but it also has an obligation to the billions of people that use its search engine.

But Google hasn’t upset the large majority of webmasters. The only ones that are really talking about the last days of Google are those that are trying to cut corners. Those that are involved in get rich quick schemes.

If you are thinking of cultivating a long term future with Adsense, forget those all too familiar looking websites promising you instant Adsense riches. The fact is there is no such thing. However, there are long term Adsense riches to be had. If you want to make the most out of Adsense, you have to try and view it as a business and treat it accordingly. You have to research, plan and organize your venture. But most importantly, you have to be persistent and patient.