Google Inc. has started a validation period for a new system of calculating how online publishers are paid for displaying its referral ads.
Publishers of Web sites make money when visitors to their sites click the ads that Google places on their sites through its AdSense program. The ads that Google places on the publishers’ sites are for products or services related to the content of the sites.
Google now wants to ensure that the conversions generated from referral ads are valid — meaning that the people who click on the ads are actual customers — according Eva Woo, of AdSense product marketing, in an announcement on Google’s AdSense blog. And that means that publishers who display the referral ads may not make as much money as they thought they would be making.
“The earnings you receive for the ad may now be less than the maximum referral value displayed for that ad,” Woo said in the blog. “This is because our system will initially place a restriction on referral earnings as we monitor click and conversion data to determine that the conversions generated are valid. Once this validation period ends, you’ll begin earning the maximum value of the conversions as displayed in your account.”
