Are you a Caribbean webmaster, site publisher that currently displaying a referral unit for AdSense on your website? Then take it off right now. The Google Adsence blog just announced that you no longer matter to them or as they said, it simply no longer makes business sense. The Google adsense blog just announced changes to its referral programme that will take effect this month end. But let’s clarify that “only referral units promoting AdSense will be affected by this change; referrals to other products and services remain unaffected at this time.” Still, the impact will be big. Here are the changes:
The Payment System: Previously,”a user you referred to the program earned $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you would also earn $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days and removed all payment holds, you’d receive $250.” The Payment System as of this month end will be.“A referred user who reaches $100 within 180 days of signing up and who removes all payments holds before the change occurs will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publisher. Any referred user who meets this conversion criteria after the change occurs will only generate $100 in earnings for the referring publisher. In addition, the $5 bonus will be removed at that time. Please note that the date a user was referred will only affect where the 180-day window is set but not necessarily the payout the referring publisher receives.”
Location,Location, Location. The change in the referral programme will mean “if you’re outside of North America, Latin America and
Caribbean webmasters let us hear from you?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted in 
Hmmm… I’m going to look into this. In the U.S., the Caribbean is usually lumped with “Latin America”. Alas, everyone has recognized the advantages of Caribbean unity except for Caribbean nationals.
Regardless, we need to figure out how to generate traffic. It’s certainly more than content. We need a stronger community. Period. Kudos for Silicon Caribe for working towards just that.
I have to agree with others bloggers when they say that this just does not make sense. Is traffic determined by location? No. Do you take a bus or a plane to get to a website? No. Sites all over the world get traffic from countries worldwide, and some do so in large numbers. The Internet was a key factor in pushing globalisation for this very reason.
I don’t use Ad Sense so this does not affect me personally. However, for those bloggers who did, this definitely affects their potential income stream from blogging.
Suzette, you have a point about doublechecking whether Google has grouped us into Latin America, since I’ve also see this happen with other companies. You also have a point about Caribbean sites being promoted better, since obviously how you optimise your blog/ site, as well as ensuring you have appropriate ads on your site, has an important role to play in getting a decent click-through rate for Google ads.
Screw Google Adsense, we dont need your chump change to keep our sites going. Once your content is good enuff ppl will seek u out for advertising space.
F U google.. hope your web crawlers can digg that
how bout making some “customizable” ads, instead of that crap u have siliconcaribe showing to the right of this post? “Repair Windows XP”.. plz