I’ll be honest, I’m not expecting too much of a response from this. Join, don’t join, I don’t really care.

Day in and day out I look at hundreds of websites. A few are amazing, some are average and most are awful to the degree that they warrant a post like this. Now, I’m all for making a few bucks from a Web presence and am even considered by some (only a handful really) to know more than your average Webbie on how to make that happen, but I for one have had my fill.

Here’s the deal. Most of the GRQ (Get Rich Quick) sites that I came across are filled with what else? Adsense - that contextual advertising program that for the most part has revolutionized the commercial Web and at least in some part been the catalyst for record breaking ad revenues. The problem is that it’s all over the place - billions of us see Adsense everyday, in every place, at nearly every click of the mouse. The result is that users are becoming increasingly “blind” to these ads as they did with banners several years ago. In addition, many website owners (publishers) look to Adsense as the only way to generate money from a website (which it definitely is not) while advertisers view it (Adwords/Adsense) as jusy another means to bring people to their site (which it is) regardless of quality.

What’s the solution to diminishing the frequency with which all of us see these ads?
Simple, boycott them of course.

Here’s when to start: March 25th, 2007 for 24 Hours

Here’s what to do:

Adsense Affiliates: I know this is a lot to ask but it’s time. If you’re not making over 50 dollars a day from your Adsense, you have no reason not to switch to another solution to generate revenue - even if it’s for one day. I’m not going to tell you what program to use, I don’t really care what you do. Actually I do have one suggestion. Develop a product, start a newsletter, whatever - just use the space that you use for your Adsense to promote that new offering. Check the results and after one day, if you’re not happy with the results, go ahead and revert back to Adsense.

Adwords Advertisers: This is much less of an effort than getting affilaites to switch out their ads. If you’re an Adwords advertiser, turn off the content network on your ads for one day. If you are worried that you will lose that much money don’t try this (or up your bids on the search network), but if you’re even slightly worried that the content network is producing even remotely poor results, turn it off for one day and see what happens in relation to your return on investment.

End-user: If you’re not an affiliate or advertiser, your mission is much easier - don’t click on any contextual ads. If you’re worried about what ads to click and which ads not to click, Google has made it easy for you - they all say “Ads by Goooooogle”.

I’m not proposing this to be malicious. I don’t care if you participate or not. I’m not going to suggest any alternatives - my mission is to help others expand their horizons to the potentials outside of most frequent practice - that being the use of Adsense.

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