The Adsense Problem

Two forces have been at war since the earliest days of the web. One force screams “information should be free” and proclaims the value of the free content site. The other force is that of capitalism which proclaims the value of allowing the free market to decide the value of information.

Many have tried to combine these forces on the web in much the same way those forces have been combined on television, radio and other commercial media where information is free… but not free of commercials. The latest attempt is Google Adsense and has been heralded by many as the final solution.

For those of us who have been around since the days when Yahoo had 17 sites in their directory… we yawn. We’ve seen this cycle over and over. It is not the final solution. It is just a repeat of the same old problem.

True… Adsense has made further inroads than any other attempt so far at solving the capitalist/socialist battle of information on the Internet. Many actually do make a living providing “free” information because of Adsense.

Consider the damage though. Ironically most of the damage has been done to Google’s search results. Now, instead of watching as Google miraculously serves up nearly perfect results… we can now expect Google to serve up the unique soup of “made for Adsense” junk sites that came into existence only because Google pays webmasters to create them.

And of course… the cycle of destruction has already begun. Adsense begets junk sites begets junk clicks begets lawsuits about click fraud begets advertisers turning away from Google. Those advertisers are where the money comes from to fund this massive project of garbage site generation. Adsense wasn’t the first monetization method to go through this cycle of causing its own destruction and it probably won’t be the last.

What should we do about it?

Some will claim that we should just cash in. Create hundreds of thousands of junk sites with the latest junk site generator; put Adsense on them and cash the checks all the while knowing that Adsense is self-destructing. OK; that works. Thousands of people are following this strategy… some with seven figure incomes.

Others are opposed to being part of the problem and deeply yearn for a true balance… a true solution to this problem. They know it is possible because it has been done before in other media with mixed, but stable results. What is that solution?

I truly believe that there is something inherently different about the Internet than other media. Other media have always been run by the big companies for the benefit for the little people. The Internet is different. The content we are talking about wasn’t created in Hollywood or New York by some large company. It was created by us!

I believe that is where the solution lies. We should not be looking at Google and all of the other advertising networks that preceded Google to solve this problem. Nor should we be waiting for Yahoo and Microsoft to solve it. We have the power to solve it ourselves!

We created this content. We also have the products to sell. Perhaps you fit only into one of those two camps. That’s OK too. The Internet has the power to bring the products directly to advertising spots on the content sites and has no need of a “Google” to be the go-between. YOU can do it yourself!

I know because I’ve been quietly doing it myself (both sides of that equation) for over 6 years. I earned my freedom from a J.O.B. on September 1, 2003 with an Internet income that was a multiple of my prior employment number that was very near six figures. I did not use ANY advertising network to do that. I simply built my own.

You can easily do the same. Do you currently run content sites with Adsense and have watched their ranking fall (yes; the data shows that having Adsense code on your site has a negative correlation with rankings)? Do you currently have products that you sell through Google Adwords? Why give Google a cut? This is the Internet! Why not just hook up with each other and pay directly for your advertising or receive your income directly from multiple advertisers?

It is possible. The tools to pull it off all exist on the Internet already. One again… ironically, you can Google them. Are you ready for Web 3.0? You had better be. Web 3.0 is YOU!