Commission based programs have been around for almost as long as the internet. Only a few people took them seriously early on, and many who did are doing well today. Amazon started just selling books and when that worked, they quickly listed all kinds of products. They became the leader in affiliate sales in the late 1990s. Today, Amazon’s Affiliate program’s revenue accounts for almost half of all affiliate programs. If only more people saw this coming, many more could be rich today.
In the early 2000s, Google created a content-related cost-per-click program called Google Adsense. This program fast out-paced Amazon Associates and became the preferred affiliate program. Content producers receive up to 80% of the revenue generated on their content-rich website. Unlike Amazon, there is a strict approval process that involves humans looking at each website.
The employees at Google have a job to do that assures that the content is not low-value content and that it is unique. High value content that is not click bait and has clear navigation from every page is important. Unlike other affiliate programs, visitors are much more likely to find information that is helpful and accurate. Instead of just advertisements for products to buy, Adsense automatically produces ads based on the content and anchor text of incoming links. Google takes all the guess work out of targeted ad placements. All the content producer has to do is create content and let the bots at Google do all the rest. This works out best for the content producer, the curious search engine user, and the product advertiser. However, it requires much more compute power which most smaller search engines can’t match.
Amazon, Yahoo and Bing come nowhere near the size, power and advanced algorithms of Google. Everyone has their favorite search engine and sadly, some choose the lesser known search engines out of ignorance or even political reasons. Google Adsense has proven year after year for the last 20 years that they have by far the best program available for all parties in involved.