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meleva

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One reason to justify Google's cut is that on an advertising deal where the Advertiser gets billed for each click (CPC) on his link on someone else website, having a reliable third party to count the clicks is very important.

Click fraud is what makes Tier 2 CPC networks really risky for advertisers even if CPC are much lower than Tier 1 (Adwords, Bing).

Regarding your Adsense example, was there not a mention like "Ads by Google," "Sponsored Links," or the AdChoices icon ? In that case, it makes clear that it's not a natural link.

Actually it goes like that:

You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website. The link is presented as an organic, non paid link. =BAD

You own a website, I own a website. I pay you $100 to show your visitors a link to my website. The link is presented as a paid link, with a no follow attribute. =GOOD

On a side note, your breakdown of the Ad Revenue using Google as a middleman is wrong. If you pay Google 100$ (via Adwords) to decide to show ad on my site, I will get 68% of that 100$ and Google will get 32%

Adense revenue share: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en

A good way to avoid articles on those big companies is to start reading "region specific" startup blogs or "topic specific" startup blogs. Some of the blogs I follow:

by region

Arctic Startups (Scandinavia) http://www.arcticstartup.com/

Rude Baguette (France) http://www.rudebaguette.com/

Silicon Allee (Berlin) http://siliconallee.com/

by topic

Tnooz (Travel)http://www.tnooz.com/

Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/

3D Printing Industry http://3dprintingindustry.com/