I am sure by now most of you webmasters would have realized that Google adsense offers their publishers a new set of referrals - Referrals v 2. In the past, referrals are usually just Google products like Adwords or Adsense or perhaps just the browser firefox but things have changed. Google now offers a set of products by third party service providers. However, the basic concept is still the same. Clicks don’t count. The person clicking on the advertisement on your site need to purchase a product or service first before you are paid with a commission. The amount paid is dependent on the advertiser. But if a purchase is needed, then it will probably take sometime before your commission is paid to you. From my brief look at the payout, it can be much better than what PPC adverts can deliver. Hey, I had clicks paid with US$0.01 before!

I myself never really use referrals. In fact, even for Google’s own products, I didn’t do very well. Okay you are correct, I got no referrals at all but I think that if you offer your viewers a wider range of useful products like what Google is offering right now, it would have better chance of succeeding. You can see that Google has a wide range of products and services ranging from business services, beauty care, real estate, shopping to travel. If your site is in a niche market, then referrals would be a good choice since they usually have a better payout. And it’s less prone to abuse too since a “transaction” is first needed.

For me, the problem with referrals is that it is very much a US thing. I am pretty sure my viewers who are in Singapore will not be interested in getting a spa package in the US. Yes, Google adsense has a regional filter, but the number of advertiser listings for Singapore is probably so small that it is useless to me. Nearly all the listings are meant for US viewers only. Too bad. I would very much have liked to try out Google Referrals and see the response from my viewers. However, if you are in the US, you should take a look at Google Adsense and check out their referrals section.

First of all, I would like to say I was a big fan of the Firefox browser. In the past, I had used Netscape Communicator as my browser of choice, but as times goes by, it just don’t cut it. Internet Explorer 5 had better features, better interface and a more modern feel to it than my little Netscape. I had no choice but to switch to Internet Explorer. And IE 6 was even better than IE 5 in so many ways.

However, then my friend introduced to me a rather unknown browser - Firefox! Well, at that time nobody had heard of it. It was just a little round ball with a fox head it in. But after downloading it and testing it out, I was quite impressed. It rendered webpages pretty fast. Sure, it had it share of problems but the problems were mainly caused by Microsoft who did not follow standards when it comes to web programming and design. Thus, a number of websites looked off in Firefox. But luckily for me, people start to take notice of Firefox and soon, a lot of them started using the browser. Best thing, they started demanding that websites be standards compliant so that Mozilla and Firefox would render the pages properly. Even websites in Singapore started respecting international set standards to cater for Mozilla and firefox users! It was amazing!

However, as version 2 of Firefox came out, I started noticing a serious problem. It took up a lot of system resources and my system started to slow down significantly. Sure, my PC isn’t top of the line, but at times, it could take up nearly half of my computer’s memory. With just around 3-4 tabs, it could use up 200MB of memory! I was shocked to see how much a resource hog it became. I had no choice, it was either I go out and get myself a high end system or I have to ditch Firefox and use Internet Explorer. With the new Internet Explorer 7 already out, the choice was obvious. Not even the infamous Internet Explorer took up so much resource!

I don’t know what happened to Firefox. But I think that they should solve the memory “leak” problem soon. I had read that this problem is known to the developers for some time, but it seemed that they didn’t bother to correct the problem. I have received a lot of version revisions from Firefox but nothing solved the memory leak problem for me. Perhaps I would just have to wait till version 3 comes out?

How many of you are worried about what the latest (Page Rank) PR Update has done to your site? Especially if your site is a web directory? For my directories, both have dropped 1 notch to PR 3 from PR 4, which I think is a pretty small drop cosidering what others have faced. And for me, the traffic has not dropped much at all even for my general directory. In fact, for my business directory, the traffic has slightly increased. This is mainly due to the year end traffic increase. But comes the holiday season, I will definitely see a big drop in traffic. I guess this is only natural.

For commercial directories which are very dependent on how high their PR is, I guess this update will effect them more. Paid directories (unlike free directories) attract listings because their customers would like a PR boost for their site. So if a paid directory has a lower PR, then it won’t be as attractive as before. I wonder how these directories are handling it? Do they plan to change marketing strategy and switch focus away from PR to something else? I believe that web directories in a sense cannot change much. Basically, it’s a site with links to other sites which are categorized for easy reference and access. So, how are these paid directories planning to weather the storm?

For me, I still think that a niche directory is the best. General directories are too wide and without the focus on a certain subject to topic, will not be able to attract the correct crowd. And now, without the appeal of PR, it will get worse with time. One good example is my business directory, if we take away the seasonal factors, it has weathered everything Google or other Search Engines has thrown at it and still come out virtually unscathed. Traffic remains constantly increasing.