Bad news for Google Adsense publishers located outside North America, Latin America, or Japan: you cannot earn commissions anymore if you refer someone to the Google Adsense program.
Google announced that it is retiring its Referrals units that promote Adsense. The company cited that it did not perform as expected in regions outside the three mentioned.
At present, anyone who refers a new publisher to the Google Adsense program stands to earn the following:
- $5 when a publisher you referred to Google Adsense earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up;
- An additional $250 when that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment;
- A $2,000 bonus if, in any 180-day period, 25 publishers you have referred each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout (bonus payout limited to 1 per year).
This referral bonus program will be gone starting the last week of January.
Although publishers in North America, Latin America, and Japan will still eligible to earn from Referrals units, the pricing structure will be changed.
The existing bonus structure will be scrapped, and the only payout for referring a user who generates $100 with Adsense in the first 180 days is $100. That’s a steep drop from the $5, $250, and $2,000 bonus that Adsense is currently offering.
Do note that this only affects referrals that promote Adsense. A publisher can still earn by generating referrals for the other products listed under the ‘Referrals’ section in the Adsense Setup tab.
Time now to further optimize Google’s contextual ads and Referral units or, better yet, to look for alternative or complementary online income program because with the recent changes in Adsense, it’s become more difficult now to earn money with Google Adsense.
