Google Earnings - Transparency More Necessary than Ever

[Sleepys]

Google just reported what is being called "Massive Earnings" yesterday. This amounted to a huge upside surprise and the stock is up over 80 points a share so far today.

Here is the big problem I have with that. We have been seeing declining domain earnings for months now. Google tells us that it is because of the economy and because of internet user behavior. They tell us that less people are clicking on ads, that advertisers are paying less for ads, and that more and more clicks are deemed fraudulent and are being refunded (we assume refunded to the advertiser). If this is all true, than how could Google possibly top estimates by so much. Our industry is the same as theirs. It is just accept that they tell us they are paying us the most they can pay for certain keywords or names, without any proof.

It seems to me that for Google to report such huge numbers, they have to be shaving more and more clicks/earnings off of domains. I understand that they make a lot from search as well, but they don't have people to skim money from on that. If times are so hard in online advertising, then I don't buy their earnings as being generated legitimately. Comscore is now even getting in trouble for predicting flat growth this quarter, as Google has basically been telling everyone to expect. All quarter long we hear how bad clicks are and it is not Google's fault, but the fault of the advertiser and the fault of the clickers, yet somehow the clicks are only bad for us and not for Google as well? We need transparency in the industry now more than ever.

 

[TheBulldog]

Ironically, my clicks seem to be getting better. what used to be 1 cent clicks are turning into 10 to 60 cent clicks.

 

[Sleepys]

Ironically, my clicks seem to be getting better. what used to be 1 cent clicks are turning into 10 to 60 cent clicks.

Mine actually have been getting better also. I am talking more about the performance we all had over the past few months, during the time that Google was blowing away the numbers.

 

[TheBulldog]

Well, that is what I meant......over the last few months is when I have been seeing the uptick. Not just the last few days or weeks, but since around Feb they have been getting better and better.

I still get one penny clicks, just not nearly as many.

 

[Sleepys]

Yeah, mine have been ticking up progressively for maybe a month and a half or two. The problem is, that earnings still don't seem to be at levels of October or November of last year. Maybe they will catch up again this year, but the explosive growth of Google is not evident elsewhere.

Direct Google quote:
"Paid click growth in the U.S. remains healthy"

We have just not been hearing that. It just seems to me that a lot of people on here talk about how much harder times are now and how much less they make on their domains. When people were expecting Google to earn 32 cents less per share in earnings, it all matched up and everything made sense. Now that they beat those estimates by 32 cents, which is huge, they say that everything is fine and the slowdown has not had an effect. It just does not add up as much now. Most of my names are still doing fine, but it seems many people's are not. We keep hearing about mass portfolio liquidations due to lower earnings. I am just saying that it seems to me that people's cry for transparency is becoming more important now.

 

[MildSeven]

Google tells us that it is because of the economy and because of internet user behavior.

Link to quote telling us this, please.

 

[Seabass]

I have a suspicion as to why comScore had faulty numbers and as to why we are getting lower payouts as a group (with obvious exceptions noted above) - but it is just a guess.

It's that they are measuring on a per site basis across hundreds of thousands of domains and did not take into account all the new properties that site developers and domainers are adding, which MAYBE they have not indexed/crawled/counted, which is creating more available ad space. So, in a sense they are correct - the clicks are slowing on a per site basis, but as a community we create, developers and domainers alike, so much new property that ad space is booming - thus the higher earnings for Google and the lower payout per domain for us.

I'd like to hear if someone thinks I am wrong, but I have a feeling this is what is happening.
.

 

[Sleepys]

Link to quote telling us this, please.

That is not a direct quote or I would have quoted. It is more what I had been hearing was the culprit from the parking companies which use Google and Yahoo.