Here’s my delayed reaction to Widgetbucks’ post on not moneytizing traffic from some Asian countries, the Philippines included. I was torn with indecision for a while because I realized that US/Canada/Australia/Europe viewers comprise the majority of the incoming traffic in evilwoobie, therefore qualifying me to earn in the Widgetbucks ad program. But I am indecisive no more, and have decided not to avail of Widgetbucks program offers.

This is in support of my fellow pinoy bloggers who worked so hard to create buzz for Widgetbucks during the initial part of their campaign, and whose earnings for putting that flash widget on their sidebars will undoubtedly go down due to the higher ratio of Asian traffic over international on their sites. Granted, they were well compensated for their recruitment efforts in the past, but still, this decision now smacks of ingratitude. Well, Widgetbucks did say that this was the Advertiser’s decision, not theirs. They were quite adamant on that point (probably not wanting to take the heat). According to them, US/Europe advertisers don’t consider traffic from Asian countries lucrative.

That’s fine. Asians have Advertlets anyways.

I will not be a hypocrite and say “this doesn’t affect me” because I also started blogging with money making in my mind. In fact, ads can be seen in a myriad of places within this blog. It’s cool enough just to have a webbie and start writing about anything and everything. But to actually earn from that? Wow.

So, how does it work? Advertisers flock to adsites like google adsense and Widgetbucks, and these in turn recruit bloggers to show these ads in blogsites, with promises of commissions from referrals and/or sales. I know of people who have profited from these, and have been encouraged to follow suit.

There are a number of bloggers around who have centered their websites in the income-generation side of blogging. If you notice, a lot more blogs are sprouting with this income-aspect in mind. Now, it seems like google adsense and widgetbucks are taking notice of their rate per clicks and actual customer earnings… and things are not adding up.

I. Google

Some of these adsites that I know of, Google adsense in particular, can detect fraudulent clicks, but these don’t include valid clicks that are ‘accidental’ (i.e. the reader clicked on the link and viewed the advertiser’s page without real intent or interest, but just purely by accident). The reader might be curious about the site for a second, click some links, but then move along and buy nothing because that wasn’t his intended destination in the first place.

And voila, within this week, google announced that there will be no more accidental clicks on their ads on blogsites by implementing a new set of ad presentation changes.

II. Widgetbucks

I’ve been told by other blogger friends that this is one of the best ways to earn online because of their generous commission on referrals (25 dollar bonus on sign up, and a few more bucks when you refer others). This is allegedly one of the newer adsites and they need to build a high blogger base of advertising sites (apparently to compete with google adsense). However, this generosity obviously made their business suffer because they are putting out more than their customers are paying them. No sales conversions, just plain outpour of revenue for the bloggers who hustled well in the initial phase of Widgetbuck’s campaign.

Hence, their shocking management decision: clicks from sites other than US and Canada will no longer be paid. US and Canada, no “Philippines” included there. Tough luck, pinoy bloggers. But congratulations to those pinoys who made it past the 20k php revenue for referrals. Kudos!

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The internet is divided into business sites, fan sites, pron sites, non-profit sites and blogsites. Business sites and fan sites will want to keep their visitors to themselves, non-profit/charity sites will mainly show related links, and pron sites… well pron sites will always earn revenue due to the nature of their business.

Blogsites are really the only places in the net where it is logical to present advertisements, because people who visit these have particular interests and will always be ready customers for business sites that cater to their whims. I do hope that google, and particularly Widgetbucks, made the right decision, because a lot of bloggers are mad right now due to the decrease in their blog revenue.

But not me. How can I miss what I never had, right? LOL.

survey time: