Google changed their Adsense advertising method last Tuesday which is affecting millions of online campaigns. Many Adsense publishers have seen a "bump" in revenue as a result of Google's advertising changes, while advertisers are complaining of increased costs. Google now implemented a minimum keyword bid based on the "quality" of the keyword. Before if no one else bid on the keyword, you could get away with Google's minimum bid price of $0.05 cents/click. (It may be $0.10/click now, I'm not sure). But now with Google's "quality keyword algorithm" you may be forced to pay more even if no one is competing with you for that keyword. Essentially, Google is deciding to raise the minimum keyword price based on their own little secret formula (aka, "How can we squeeze more money and break our 'Do no evil' creed?"). Google tried to put a positive spin on this by stating that the new changes will also now allow advertisers to resurrect keywords that previously had been disabled because of low click-through performance.

I have to wonder how much of these Google Adsense / Adwords changes is in response to the beta launch of Google's rival Yahoo! launching the Yahoo Publisher Network. This could be a pre-emptive strike by Google to keep their Adsense customers happy and from jumping ship to Yahoo. Problem is what if the advertisers (Adwords advertisers) jump ship due to the higher minimum keyword bids? Adsense publishers will be left with no advertisements to display. Certainly unlikely at this point given Google's dominant position, but with time Yahoo could chip away. I wonder what took Yahoo so long anyway?