Google money machine all cranked out? Is reality finally catching up with Google's top-secret money machine? According to those clever net-watchers at Hitwise, paid ad clicks took a significant nose dive during the past month. In the four weeks leading up to May 9, Hitwise says, 7.25 per cent of all search engine traffic came from paid clicks, compared to 9.84 per …
People learn to ignore online ads as irrelevant to what they are interested in. Soon after ignoring them, they learn to block them. Ad-based online revenue streams are a short-lived business model, due to go the way of the dinosaur fairly shortly.
Another way of looking at it ... Think the mid-1630s, Holland & tulips. Make your pile o'loot from the rubes, and get out as soon as you can. I did.
I never broke any laws, or ripped off little old ladies, either ... rather $BIGCO bought me out because my "portal" (as they were then known) was getting a lot of hits per day. $BIGCO went under soon after, during the dot-bomb crash. Me, I bought a horse ranch in Sonoma & am now "retired" to a life of sun-up to the following sun-up, 7 days a week, labor. I only touch computers & networking when my wife has her eye on a particularly expensive horse, or I need to buy a new tractor (water truck, whatever). I'm happy, which is all I ever wanted in life :-)
Another possible answer is that Google has decided that it is time to return to the pre-meltdown ad improvement tactics. Lately google ads have been returning too much dross and as someone who actually clicks on ads when looking for a product I am kind-a pissed. So are other users.
My click payments (amount per click) have dropped from an average of .75 cents per click to .20 per click. The click count however is up by about 20%. Just greed on Google and Yahoo's part since they can hit their website partners that way. The Yahoo count is about the same as the Google account.
"OK, so if you're living the perfect life why are you trolling the register like all the rest of the wage slaves?"
Life's hardly perfect. Enjoy your 9-5 existence, horse work is 24/7/365.25 ... Currently, I'm sitting in the barn office, bored out of my skull, waiting on the farrier. Last night, I was spelling the foreman walking a colicing horse. I could spend my time more usefully when I'm bored, but I like to keep up with tech news, so I read ElReg and a few other sites when I have a few minutes of down-time. Sometimes I comment. Sometimes I don't. Why do you ask?
"Do you really expect anyone to believe your story?"
I don't really care. 99% of everything on the net is crap, so I'm probably full of shit, statistically. The fact that I'm not has nothing to do with it. Believe what you like :-)
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