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SwingPoint (85.97)

Google Adsense: Slowly Dying?

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August 27, 2008 – Comments (3)

Adsense. The darling of  Google seems to have less appeal than it used to. Really readers, how many of you click on a Google Ad? Over the last year, I haven't clicked on more than a half dozen. And some of those when I was fooled into clicking on the ad as it was well surrounded by text that looked similar.

Is Google Adsense days over? Haven't web surfers gotten so used to seeing the ad formats and typical locations that they just know where not to look by ad blindness? The only thing I see Google has for it in the near term is brand named search. But head on over to the Google site and type in a phrase. 

Haven't you gotten used to knowing where the ads are by now? At the top, and at the right side. We just don't click there anymore. I hesitate to say that our focus is really on the top 5 search listings.

So if this is true, how will Google continue to capitalize on search? 

 

 

3 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 27, 2008 at 12:48 AM, TDRH (99.98) wrote:

Wish I could receive more than one time.    I agree with your 100%.    I wish Mr. Softy would take the money they were going to invest in Yahoo and put it in their search engine.   Make it better, or equal to Google.  If they did that, their home page is much more interesting, they have the traffic, they could see real return very quickly.    Google to me is over rated.   I use the site, but to my knowledge I have never purchased anything from them, or through their search that I would not have purchased. 

Not sure why advertizers continue to work with them.   Incredible waste of money.

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#2) On August 27, 2008 at 2:26 AM, Ph1sh55 (95.23) wrote:

"Google to me is over rated.   I use the site, but to my knowledge I have never purchased anything from them, or through their search that I would not have purchased. 

Not sure why advertizers continue to work with them.   Incredible waste of money."

That's sort of a funny statement.  Can you not say the same for TV commercials?

 

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#3) On August 29, 2008 at 5:32 AM, SwingPoint (85.97) wrote:

Has Google's door got slammed at $500/share? Its trading $473 right now and it looks terribly weak to me. I initiated a short on CAPS a few days ago with a target of sub $400. But looking at the chart, it just screams sub $300 to me over the next few quarters. Heck maybe even close to $200. The chart looks like a head and shoulder disaster in the making.

Don't get me wrong, I love Google but I just don't see how they can be valued so richly up here when a heavy part of their revenues are coming from Adsense in a recessionary economy.

Read this CNet article dated January 31, 2008:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9862244-7.html

How optimistic is Eric Schmidt now? His company stock has gone nowhere. And do Brin, Page, and Schmidt even own shares? Or did they dump them all the last few years? According to Yahoo Finance, none own the common and insiders continue to dump shares. Only 1% of the shares are owned by insiders.How's that for confidence in your company? It sure doesn't impress me at all.

Google said it saw fewer clicks on social network sites. Well yeah. Ever see where the Google ad is  placed? Its always right at the top of the Myspace profile page. Ad blindness has already crept in. Myspace to me is a dying fad. Its slowly starting to resemble Yahoo! at its height. People go there mainly to just read their email and comments from friends. Marketers on Myspace have really gotten slimey and the spam is horrendous. Flashing banner ads, annoying video ads that are dumb. You'd have to be really naive to click on any ad on Myspace. The kids today are smarter than that - they can see an ad a mile away and I seriously doubt click throughs even lead to much sales for the advertisers.

What was it Google paid to Myspace to 2010? $900 million dollars to place ads and the search box on the site? Or was it to track user movement, dislikes/likes? Did they not realize that most users on Myspace don't put real information up in their profiles to be of any use? Gender, income, age, etc are faked information. And how many of those Myspace profiles are even real? How did this investment of $900M translate to knowing more about a user and what he/she is likely to click on? You still have to get the user to click on the ad.

I just looked at the major shareholders of Google. Billions of dollars are invested in this company.Over $85 billion dollars of Google stock are held by by the top 5 of mutual funds and investor portfolios. Insiders continue to dump shares. I just can't see why any fund manager would want to hold Google up here.

Looking at Yahoo Finance's, Brin, Page and Schmidt have stopped dumping their shares. Do they even own the common anymore?

http://quote.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=GOOG

Why would anyone want to commit a large sum of investor dollars to suck up your portfolio assets for a $500 stock? I mean, 100 shares is half a million dollars. What retail investor is going to tie up that much capital in uncertain times?

I'd look for new lows in Google over the next 2 quarters. I wouldn't be surprised to see sub $300.

Just my $0.02.

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