Online revenue

After reading an article about how to make money from Google AdSense (a programme where a partnering website can get paid for displaying “targeted” Google ads), Sofia Haque (name changed) dived into the online publishing industry by launching a news portal. Once the domain was booked and layout completed, she applied for the most-talked about AdSense, a free programme that empowers online publishers to earn quick revenue. When her application was not entertained, she was foxed. She had already forked out Rs 30,000 to get her website started and had assumed that becoming an AdSense partner would be a mere formality.

After some initial research she came to know that online publishers in India can only get AdSense after six months. A post in Google AdSense section mentioned: “In some locations, including China and India, we require publishers to have owned their sites for six months. We’ve taken this step to ensure the quality of our advertising network and protect the interests of our advertisers and existing publishers.” After waiting for six months, she applied again. This time too, Sofia claims, Google declined her request. The Google AdSense Team wrote: “Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into AdSense at this time. We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.” Sofia mentions that a detailed list of reasons was provided.

After attempting to fix the issues raised in the email, she applied again; and got rejected again. Sofia’s future applications met with little success. Later on, she closed the website as she was losing money. She said: “Even after fixing the issues, my application was not accepted. It appears that the answers were auto generated as the content of the emails were same. They kept on repeating that the website was incomplete and should be redesigned. But the fact was that it was full of original content and updated regularly. All my hope of making some money from AdSense has been shattered. To find out the main reason for not accepting my application, I even posted a few emails to them, but they never thought it fit to answer my questions.”

That Google has been selective in giving AdSense to certain applicants is not something that they can be questioned upon. After all, it is their own particular service and they are free enough to decide the  policies on the basis of which they would select or reject sites (a detailed list of such policies is provided by Google beforehand to applicants).

At the same time, an Indian publisher – whose initial application gets rejected – may apparently use innovative ways to get AdSense. When one Indian publisher couldn’t get the AdSense in India, he booked a domain in the US in the name of his relative and instantly got partnership with AdSense. Is Google then biased against Indian online publishers or publishers with Indian servers?

Rahul Singh, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert, said: “I don’t think so as in India, many publishers have been caught involved in wrong practices like getting bogus clicks on their websites so as to make some money. The purpose of AdSense is to earn money through genuine means. But merely to earn, you are not allowed to stuff your website with duplicate stuff. Many Indian publishers don’t care about quality and copyright issues.”

Some cases have surfaced in India where a few publishers have been found misusing AdSense by pulling out top stories from leading websites like The New York Times, The Guardian and others and then getting them rehashed. After that, SEO experts stuff the articles with keywords so that their rankings are increased. This way, the website gets more traffic, making more people click on AdSense ads. Many small Indian websites that religiously follow SEO mantras have good Alexa ranking in the US and other western countries where online marketing is all the rage. It is because of this that some sites are able to generate good revenue through AdSense.

While media reports have mentioned that Google has made good money out of online advertising in India (over Rs 600 crore in 2010), there is no confirmation of whether Indian online publishers have also made similarly profitable earnings.

Online publisher Danish Khan, who also had problems getting AdSense, accepts: “I know many websites that made good money by duplicating and rehashing contents. Now Google has planned to clampdown on such websites.”

Google has made efforts to weaken the search-ability of websites that are known to be involved in “content farming.” For this purpose California-based Google that is under intense pressure from big US media houses to act against “fake” websites has overhauled its search engine algorithm. Also, it has started to add block option on Google.

Many media experts, including former executive editor of The Washington Post, Leonard Downie Jr., are worried about the spread of content farms online, calling it: “parasites living off journalism produced by others.”

Anti-spam and content farm are a big problem with Indian websites, claims Mukesh Kumar, who runs SEO Bawa. He says “Because of spamming, Google has gone strict against Indian websites. That is why online publishers in India are having difficulties in getting AdSense approval.”

This is not to say that all Indian online publishers are involved in content farm. There are genuine websites that want to make money through AdSense, but they too are facing the problem because of lack of full understanding of Google’s policies, claimed Khan. “Google must come out with ways in which the genuine online publishers should get AdSense earlier,” he added. Google India declined to discuss the issue when contacted by us.

Sofia said: “I understand their concern. Spamming, re-posting of articles, content farm and news aggregators are practiced by online publishers outside India also. Why has not Google acted against such websites operating from US and other places?”

US-based Huffington Post has come under severe attack by other media houses for practicing news aggregation. When HP’s Alexa ranking overtook Washington Post.com in 2009 there was disquiet in the American media. Leonard’s attack on HP and other websites for being news aggregators in a lecture at City University, London, sparked off a debate. In an article (Huffington vs. Downie on ‘parasites’ 9/24/10 9:06 AM) published in Politico, he said: “The aggregators fill their websites with news, opinion, features, photographs and video that they continuously collect – some would say steal – from other national and local news sites, along with mostly unpaid postings by bloggers who settle for exposure in lieu of money.”

Arianna Huffington, the site’s founder and then editor-in-chief, lashed at Leonard for his lack of understanding of the new media. Despite the controversy, HP and other such websites based in US are free to carry AdSense.

All told, while some Indian online publishers do feel that Google is biased, an effort by Google to train the online website managing community on its varied AdSense policies would go a long way in not only assisting Google in improving its revenue base, but also in reducing the discrepancies.