We just learned today from the Google Adwords Blog (administered by non other than Adwords project manager Rohit Dhawan) that Google has decided to begin charging advertisers for use of their API’s. Now personally I find that distressing - we pay the costs for the clicks, we have to manage the accounts, and NOW we have to pay to do it with our own pre-developed software? Feels to me like Google is trying to squeeze blood from the proverbial “PPC Stone”.
Either way you look at it, with the monetary component attached to every query call this will no doubt increase efficiency, as coders will develop new ways to make API integration faster, batched, less cumbersome, and scale better.
We don’t want to “hate” Google for the move, but when we’re paying $38 per click for “Mortgage refinance” terms, I think we should be able to change our bids as many times as we’d like. Some have even said the move is an “Outrage!”
A quote from the Google Blog is below:
Revised quota allocation system & pricing model: We are changing the quota allocation system and pricing model to create a more flexible and level playing field that encourages efficient coding and application design. Effective July 1, 2006, the current free quota system will be replaced by a usage-based system. Under this new model, AdWords API token holders will be charged a nominal $0.25/1000 quota units consumed. As a result, current developer quota caps will be removed in order to provide a more flexible and scalable system for quota allocation and consumption.
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April 21st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
[...] On having read Jeremy’s post about Google’s decision to charge advertisers for using their “self-serve” API, it seems to me that Google is going to maintain the rate of their profit increase, through all means necessary. [...]