Savvy Affiliate

Industry Consolidation Continues, Is this Good or Bad for The Average Blogger

In a deal announce Friday, Microsoft has signed up to buy Aquantive for $6 Billion - an 85% premium over their share price at the time.  This deal comes in wake of other consolidation in the online advertising industry, with Google buying Doubleclick and Microsoft in talk to buy Yahoo

So with all the industry consolidation, will it help the average webmaster or hurt them?   I maintain that the consolodation of the advertising industry is a net positive for bloggers for several reasons. 

1. More Money Flowing Into Programs Bloggers Use - Many many bloggers advertise with Adsense and Yahoo partner network.   As the industry consolidates, more and more money will flow into these large programs.  That is a good thing for bloggers.  Instead of signing up for only two networks, and missing out on 1/2 of the advertising available, you will be able to get a much greater percentage of the advertising dollars.
2. Easier to combat click fraud - The biggest danger to Adsense, and the ability of bloggers to make money from it, is advertisers being fearful that they are getting scammed, and deciding to withdraw their advertising dollars.  If there are many smaller advertising networks it is more likely that some scamming will be going on.  However companies such as Google and Microsoft are better equipped to crack down on that than their newly acquired partners were before.   The net result is that less money will go to scammers, and more money will go to you.  (Unless of course you commit click fraud.  Then you’re sort of just out of luck)

However too much consolidation could be a bad thing.  If there was a monopoly on online advertising the company could just screw over its affiliates, and they would have no alternative.   But given the nature of the internet, we are still a long way from having a monopoly.  If Microsoft were to buy Google, that might be a bad thing.  Until then I’ll cheer on the industry consolidation.