It was an exciting and strange week for Google as they released a new experiment called Google Contributor which ultimately gives people the option to block the very adverts that has made Google so much money over the years. Doesn’t make sense, right? Well, here is an explanation of the experiment and how it works.
 
 

Web Users Pay To Block Adverts

In essence, Google Contributor will allow those involves with the scheme to block adverts on websites that support Google Contributor. From a small monthly subscription fee of between $1-$3, the web user can gain this. The advertising units will still appear there but will have a thank you message in them for supporting the site.
 
This does sound rather strange from Google so here are a few important facts that Google Contributor consists around:

• The websites that support Google Contributor still make money from these web users – A proportion of the $1-$3 subscription fee will go towards the websites that the web user visits so that they still make money even if they are not showing Adsense advertising units to these web users.
• Other advertising units from other forms of online advertising (such as banner advertising and intext advertising) will still appear on the website. Google Contributor only applies to PPC adverts from the Adsense/AdWords channel.

 
Some are saying its the beginning of the end for the internet because Google are, in theory, introducing a way for websites to make web users pay to visit their websites. However, there might be many reasons Google is performing this experiment:

• Market research – Maybe Google wants to see if people are willing to pay to remove adverts from websites and contribute to the websites they enjoy visiting … or not.
• To expand the ways they make money through PPC. Google never really have targeted the ad blocking market but it seems that Google Contributor is kind of moving itself into the market.
• To make more money. Although $1-$3 a month per web user does not sound a lot, it might be a heck of a lot more than that same web user would have made Google and the websites that support Google Contributor through clicking on PPC display adverts.

 
The one thing that is sure is that Google do many experiments over time which come and go with success and failure. For example, the Google Glass experiment seemed like it was going to work, but for the price and fashion statement it sends people, it probably going to seem like a wacky futuristic idea.