14 DAY TRIAL // The last week of January will bring some changes in the referral program going on, so you'd better take notes. It won't do you any good, though, as it has an awfully weird structure and, eh, I think I'll just let you read and perhaps you'll be able to understand it. If you do, please tell me what you make of it.
"If you're in North America, Latin America, or Japan, the pricing structure for AdSense referrals is changing", they say. What the deal is with the location I cannot understand. Why would a publisher's location matter, when it comes to the potential success of a referral unit? Were they thinking about the visitors and their hand slipped on the keyboard to write a completely different thing? The visitors' location could have some importance, but still it wouldn't be that great to justify this.
The way they explained this change is by reminding users about the experiment they started one year ago, with the change in pricing structure for AdSense referrals, "so that when 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. We have decided to conclude this experiment and return to the original pricing structure. As a result, we'll soon no longer be offering the $5 bonus or $2000 bonus, and the payout for referring a user who generates $100 with AdSense in the first 180 days will return to $100."
"If you're outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired." This is the second part of the update and this one is pretty easily understandable: the referrals did not work as well as they had hoped, so they are withdrawing the product from the market.
Oh, in case this causes you any inconvenience, they apologize for it beforehand. Now, what was that all about?