I received an email from Google stating that they were retiring their AdSense Referrals Program during the last week of August. In the same mail they also popped in an invite to register with Google Affiliate Network, which has come about with the acquisition and integration of DoubleClick. Google henceforth will “operate the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions.”
The reasons given by Google for the same in their own words are “We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program.”
Well this hardly matters to me since I was not pushing any referrals barring Firefox, which I will continue to do anyway for free. The real important news coming forth from this is about Google Affiliate Network and where Google is heading towards in their online advertizing business. Guess competition is here from the big G at last for all other affiliate networks, but this was bound to happen with time anyway. Let’s see Google’s take on affiliate marketing. BTW I have signed up with Google Affiliate Network and shall keep things posted about affiliate marketing with Google.
