AdSensing the Web

ad-space.jpgI did search today in Google for blogs which cover web hosting industry. This is something I do on regular basis to find stories, viewpoints and analysis about our industry. I found 4 types of web hosting blogs. The first ones are similar to mine, blogs owned from people who are addicted to web hosting. There also are many blogs which belong to web hosting companies. Another group of blogs can be taged as “Reviews and coupons”. Those are affiliated with web hosting companies or just aim to promote web hosts and to profit from affiliate commissions. The biggest group of hosting blogs you can find are those made for Adsense.

Google’s publisher program Adsense is something that helps the owners of personal and small business websites to profit from displaying ads on their web sites. It is a money making source for millions of people and it is probably the most useful publisher program on the web. AdSense is an advertising model that should be appreciated. But most people don’t do it. All they want is to “consume” advertising. And this is something that no one shall tolerate. Why?

Made for Adsense

When you type keywords “web hosting blog” in Google’s search bar you’ll see that the blogs are ranked top are Lunarpage’s blog, Webhostingfind’s blog, my Daw blog, GoodWebHosting,info, a blog owned from Webhosting.uk.com and a few more.

Most of the blogs ranked on the first few pages on “web hosting blog” search term are either owned from web hosts or a just a pile of meaningless pages made so their owner to squeeze some money from AdSense. Just take a look at webhoster.okayblog.net. This is a perfect example of a useless website.

Take a look at its latest title. It is named “Do You Need Web Hosting For Your Small Business?” and it is more than 2 months old. The structure of the post (as well as of all others in this blog) is designed to make visitors to click on the AdSense ads.

This is just one example (definitely not the worst one) from many others, for blogs created only to make people to click on ads. Most of those blogs don’t even have reasonable content. All their owners do is to copy/paste news, to write boring reviews about overselling web hosts or to publish meaningless “how-to” articles.

Ads or Content?

There are many blogs made to teach us how to make money. I read the best of them not because I expect to find step-by-step guide on how to get rich. The main reason to visit them is to find good content which would stimulate me to think or to learn something.

I believe there is not “short cash extravaganza” in web business. Anyone can make a few bugs from ad clicks, but finaly he or she will realize that they need to work hard to succeed.

There is no choice between ads and content. There is one between quality content and the lack of quality. In the real world no one pays for advertising on boring and poor TV channels. In the web world however, anyone can sign up with AdSense and to display their ads in web pages with poor or general content.

Google does not require siteowners to produce unique content as a condition to become AdSense publishers. That’s why most of them don’t do it. They just reproduce something alredy published in other websites.

I think that it is a good idea Google to reshape AdSense in a way it would require publishers to prove they publish unique content on their websites. Otherwise we will see a growing number of fake websites wich do nothing but display ads.

Adsensing the web is a trend which may compromise Google advertising and publishing programs and to make site owners world wide to abandon them. Google is good enough to stay a web leader within the next few years but the things are very different for its webmaster programs.

Why does anyone use any search engine? Sure to find good content. If they don’t find any, they’ll stop using it. It is the same with online ads.

About the Author

Dimitar A.
Dimitar is founder of the global Cloud & Infrastructure Hosting provider HostColor.com & European Cloud IaaS company RAX. He has two Decades-long experience in the web hosting industry and in building and managing Cloud computing infrastructure and IT ecosystems. Dimitar is also political scientist who has published books "The New American State" and "The New Polity". "The New American State" is one of the best current political books. It is focused on the change of the American political process. It offers a perspective on how the fourth industrial revolution, also called the Digital Revolution and Industry 4.0, marks the beginning of an era of deterritorialization.