Google is killing off Adsense?

Holy Cow!  Google is killing Adsense.

I just got this email today:


Hello,

We’re writing to let you know about some important changes that will be happening to AdSense on Google Sites. Starting on August 30th, it will no longer be possible to make updates to AdSense on your Google Site.

Any ads that you currently have running will not be altered or removed. However, it will no longer be possible to edit or add new ads to your existing site or new pages.

This change does not require any action on your part and will not affect the current implementation of ads on your site.

To read more details about this change, please visit the help page.

Yours sincerely,

The Google Sites Team

© 2013 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to AdSense on your Google Sites account.

So I went to the Adsense website and I got this terse notice:

Sunsetting AdSense

Some important changes are coming to AdSense on Google Sites. By August 30, 2013, it will no longer be possible to make updates to AdSense on any of your Google Sites.

No change is required on the part of AdSense users. Any ads that you currently have running will not be altered or removed, though you’ll be free to delete ads yourself. However, it will no longer be possible to edit or add new AdSense ads to your existing site or to new pages.

There is no other explanation.  There is no indication of what if anything will replace it.  Inquiring minds want to know!

Monetizing Your Content - How Much Money Do You Make From Youtube

I monetize my digital content.  I would be a fool not too.  This includes my videos on Youtube.  I participate in Google's Adsense programs.  This works out well, because Google owns Youtube.  So how much money do I make on Youtube?

Here are my metrics.  I make exactly half a cent per minute of videos watched.  Two minutes of viewing makes me one cent.  To make a dollar, I need 200 minutes of viewing time with monetized ads.  I need 40 views of a five minute video to make a dollar.  My most popular video has 12,765 views.  It is 10 seconds long.  That's 2,127 minutes of view.  That video has made me $10.64 cents in ad revenue.  Not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.  Obviously the trick is to upload as many videos as possible.

Google Doesn't Like Orgasms

Google hates an orgasm ~ a happy ending explosion. It is quite funny, but also shows how automated word filters can go horribly wrong.

I created a blog of unique foods that were a complete surprise in how tasty they were. Have you ever popped a morsel into your mouth, and it so excited your tastebuds, that you were amazed, amused and gratified by the taste of the food? I wanted to document the foods the foods that did that to me. For me, it was a taste orgasm.

I created the blog (it can be found HERE ). I called it a taste orgasm blog. I then went to add the food, drink, snacks and various edible morsels that hugely tickled my tastebuds.

The rub came when I monetized the blog, as I do with all of my blogs. Ads placed by Google would not show up. I waited a week, and still no commercialization.

I decided to test a theory. Perhaps it was the word orgasm that was preventing the ads from being placed (and perhaps preventing my blog from being found on search engines). I re-tooled the entire blog, renaming orgasm to blowout, resulting in the URL http://tasteblowout.blogspot.com/

Voila. Within minutes, ads started appearing on my blog. There was nothing objectionable, in bad taste or X-rated on my blog. I just had the word orgasm to describe a taste explosion. Google is so puritanical, that it hates orgasms. Even if it is in relation to taste buds and food.

I am not starting to wonder if the ads will disappear off this blog too.

Update: They also don't like animated gifs. It's too bad. The animated gif atop this blog post is a doozy. Unfortunately it is limpid and non-functional in this environment. It turned my animated gif into a png file.

Big Brother Google Keeps Reading My Browsing History Too

I just had an amazing epiphany on how Google Adsense and Google advertising works, and I can't say that I am thrilled. Google reads my browsing history to serve up ads to me. I am not sure that I like that!

This was visibly demonstrated to me this morning. I was reading an online forum about how a politician may be suffering from Vitiligo. I didn't know what it was. I had to Google it. It turns out that Vitiligo is a condition where you lose pigmentation cells in your skin, and you get big white blotches that will never tan again.

The next thing that I did, was close the tab and navigate to another blog. And what do you know -- the advertisement next to the blog was showing me a treatment for Vitiligo. Coincidence -- I think not.

Big Brother reads my browser history to try to sell me stuff. It's a good thing that I wasn't googling pictures of hairy French babes.