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Is Google AdSense Still The Contextual Ads Leader?

Google AdSense

Google AdSense has long held a status as being the leader in contextual advertising. We’ve seen companies come and go, but Google seems to stay right up there on top. Despite some fluctuations in the Google profits in the first quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2007, AdSense continues to stand the test of time, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. There are some companies trying to emulate the Google AdSense success, but most are failing. They are failing because of the very bad ad-quality that exists in their system, this is something which they ultimately cannot resolve unless they get better advertisers.

Why Did AdSense Revenues Fall? And Why You Shouldn’t Be Worried. This is some very simplistic logic that the media failed to grasp when reporting about the recent drop in AdSense click-through rates. Google decided that it is only fair to give the advertiser’s a greater opportunity for more genuine clicks, and I totally understand this. So they reduced the amount of white space that can be clicked around a typical AdSense Ad. Previously the whole AdSense block could be clicked on, but this led to false and accidental clicks, so now, more valid clicks are being recorded, hence a marginal decrease in revenue as a result of less accidental clicks.

Google AdSense Has Some Competition: There are quite a few companies wanting to reap profits from the contextual advertising market, and why not, it is quite lucrative. The contextual advertising competition are companies like Yahoo Publisher Network, Microsoft Ad Center, IndustryBrains, ContextWeb and Quigo (AdSonar) technologies. Then there are the in-text contextual advertising companies whom also serve as a bit of competition to Google AdSense for publishers who are seeking a different experience, the major ones to date are Kontera, IntelliTXT, Vibrant Media and more recently Amazon Links and Chitika Linx.

The Problem with Google AdSense, You May Want To Get Packing…Yes, there is a problem with AdSense, quite a big problem actually. AdSense currently has a huge amount of advertisers in their database (directory). Some of these advertisers lead you to sites that are utterly disgusting and unworthy of a click. The problems lies herein, AdSense is being filled by less trustworthy and less reliable sites, you’re beginning to be brought to random sites that seem very scam-like and gray area. The other companies I mentioned above tend to have more quality advertisers because they target high profiles news and celebrity sites as opposed to blogs and smaller sites.

New Technologies Being Rolled Out By Google AdSense Developers, As Google tries to combat a few problems such as click-fraud and ad quality (which is what they are well renown for), new technologies are continually being unveiled. A recent update saw AdSense publishers being able to select various ads they wanted to be displayed and not allow other ads to be displayed, I think this is certainly a move in the right direction. Webmasters want to have a certain amount of control over what gets shown on their sites, so it is only logical to allow this to occur.

Google AdSense and The Future: The future for Google AdSense is still looking quite good, despite these problems mentioned above. The competing companies are failing to reap considerable profits as a result of a bad business model. Google has grown and developed into a huge company, they are backed by a range of profitable networks and services of their own. Other companies don’t have a firm foundation that they can rely on, they rely on a sole service which they provide, therefore they can’t sustain themselves in harsh times, they are bound to fail or not be very profitable.

Do You Think Google Is Still A Leader In Contextual Advertising? Why?

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Posted on May 3, 2008
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11 Responses to “Is Google AdSense Still The Contextual Ads Leader?”

  1. no imageNadeesha Cabral (Check me out!) on May 3rd, 2008 8:28 am

    Before saying anything else, I should say I’m a huge Google fan. So, that might be influential in my stand-point, but I stand by my opinion.

    I think AdSense is indeed still the Contextual ad leader. Their reach is unparalleled to any of their competitors. With that said, I believe that they could work on their ad quality and all that I support you claims fully. But, in my humble opinion these things are usually experienced by every big advertiser network and it’s a matter of time before other small contextual advertiser networks get big and experience the same thing.

    Of course, that’s just my opinion and I could be wrong.

    Cheers!

    Nadeesha Cabrals last blog post..Woopra just got cooler with Woopra Sharing Access

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    		3.9 (2 people)
  2. no imageFabien (Check me out!) on May 3rd, 2008 12:32 pm

    :arrow: NADEESHA: Thanks for your comment Nadeesha. I still believe that Google should exercise some ad-quality control despite its size. There are ways to justify what makes a good advertiser and a bad advertiser, they just need to implement screening tests for advertisers. These kinds of tests could include ensuring that the site advertising gets a certain amount of visitors per month etc…But maybe they are too capitalist to do these things :grin:

    Rate this:
    		3.8 (1 person)
  3. no imageJohn (Check me out!) on May 3rd, 2008 5:16 pm

    Fabien - You should add ADSDAQ By ContextWeb to the list. ADSDAQ Exchange provides contextual display advertising in website content (similar to google’s text ad AdSense network). Shortly, the ADSDAQ Exchange will start its beta for self-serve contextual text ads, too. Sign up is here:
    http://exchange.contextweb.com/buyingdesk/betasignup.html

    Rate this:
    		3.7 (1 person)
  4. no imageIdenity Theft (Check me out!) on May 4th, 2008 12:48 am

    Adsense is still working OK for me. I have also tried Yahoo Publisher Ads which are similar to Adsense. They work too although maybe not quite as well.

    Idenity Thefts last blog post..Pre Approved Credit Card Applications and Identity Theft

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    		1.3 (2 people)
  5. no imageFabien (Check me out!) on May 4th, 2008 12:57 am

    :arrow: JOHN: Thanks for telling us about ADSDAQ John, I am sure a couple of people will certainly be interested in it. I think that people need to find as many monetization alternatives as they can, diversifying their possibilities. I’ll be looking into it myself. Thanks for your time.

    :arrow: IDENTITY THEFT: AdSense still works well for people who know which areas on their site convert well. That being said, you also need a decent amount of traffic for AdSense to successfully rake in profits. People stick to AdSense because it is contextual, they can’t find other ones as good as it. AdBrite does not convert well because it lacks the contextual edge (as do many other companies around). Your thoughts and opinions are much appreciated. Thanks for the comment.

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    		3.5
  6. no imageanthony dinh (Check me out!) on May 6th, 2008 4:16 pm

    yes, I still believe that Google is the industry leader in contextual targeting, but have u all heard of behavioral targeting? if not, read more about it here.

    this advertising network is “white hat” and deals strictly with reputable advertisers, so u don’t have issue of gray scam-like sites.

    Rate this:
    		3.6 (1 person)
  7. no imageMatt S (Check me out!) on May 8th, 2008 7:59 pm

    Adsense has to be King, for the simple fact it’s from Google!

    I’m not saying I agree with this but I can’t see adsense dying out anytime soon.

    Adsense hasn’t been too kind to me so far though and there aren’t a great number of options when it comes to ads. Perhaps 1 weakness is that the design is so well recognized that people now choose to ignore them. Having sais that it’s relatively simple to set up and the ads can be put up anywhere.

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    		4.0 (2 people)
  8. no imageFabien (Check me out!) on May 9th, 2008 10:49 am

    :arrow: MATT: Hey Matt, great to see you around here again. Always nice to see a familiar face in the MyBlogLog widget. The key to any Google AdSense success whatsoever lies in the placement, the amount of visitors you get to your site and your own customization of the Google AdSense ad block so it blends in extremely well with content (Colours and size mostly). CTR will be reduced even if it looks slightly odd or out of place.

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    		3.5
  9. no imageMarty (Check me out!) on May 9th, 2008 1:20 pm

    I think Google AdSense is still the leader based on sheer size of their network of advertisers. I do think you raise a valid point regarding the quality of those advertiser though.

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    		3.0 (1 person)
  10. no imagecoolproductreview (Check me out!) on May 12th, 2008 11:31 am

    Google will remain future leader too however i have noticed that they are paying less comparing to 3-4 years ago. maybe due to competition in industry ..however they are not transparent like how much money they give away to publishers

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    		2.5
  11. no imageFabien (Check me out!) on May 14th, 2008 9:32 am

    :arrow: MARTY: Thanks for adding to the discussion Marty, your opinions are always appreciated. I certainly do believe that Ad Quality has drastically reduced, and this is something which needs to be controlled, perhaps via increased screening of advertisers.

    :arrow: COOLPRODUCTREVIEW: I am not aware of how much they paid a couple of years ago; but that assumption can certainly be made with quite of a lot of evidence to back it up. Namely, the web 2.0 bubble that has increased competition in the industry, so you definitely have a perfectly valid and informative point there. Thanks for sharing this with us.

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    		3.5

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