I’ve previously reported that wordpress.com did not give bloggers the ability to incorporate AdSense ads into their blogs. I just came across a post in the wordpress.com FAQ that explains the reasoning was to avoid the attack of the spam blogs that free sites like Blogger.com got slammed by. However, they also hinted that we could expect functionality for including ads on wordpress.com in the future:

We currently don’t allow Adsense or other JS ad code on the site, though we probably will in the future. However right now it is keeping sploggers (spam bloggers) from exploiting WP.com and only a few legit users have asked for it.

We’ll announce when you’ll be able to add Adsense or Yahoo or Chitika to your templates.

I look forward to the time when they do allow wordpress.com bloggers to earn a little money for their hard spent hours blogging through adsense, ypn, chitika, and what-have-you. I think that would be a great move for wordpress.com as right now that’s the number one reason I’m not recommending it to bloggers looking for a hosted solution (in which case I’d currently say go with TypePad). There are plenty of legitimate bloggers who would like to be compensated somewhat for their writing.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that wordpress.com should continue to take a hard stance against sploggers (spam bloggers) - by all means, nuke their butts! They could make it easier to identify splogs by adding a little button of ‘flag as spam’ in the dashboard for wordpress.com users who are logged in and surfing other wordpress.com blogs. Right now they’re asking users to use the Feedback button to send them a note when someone comes across a splog - but by installing a button on the dashboard that automatically sends that feedback they could make the process of reporting splogs that much easier…(my 2 cents)

c|net posted an article yesterday about how Google indavertantly revealed internal projections. Some of this leaked information should be of great importance (and very disturbing) for professional bloggers:

Google said that “AdSense margins will be squeezed in 2006 and beyond.”

It’s not like Google isn’t already making a ton of money from AdSense - the leak also said that:

Google expected ad revenue to grow from “$6 billion this year to $9.5 billion next year.”

So why does Google need to reduce publisher’s earnings even more?? As it is, earnings paid on AdSense clicks are marginal compared to what the advertisers are paying for those clicks (and what’s going in Google’s pockets).

Looks like bloggers need to take a better look at the Yahoo! Publisher Network (which is still in Beta) because Google is apparently planning on screwing AdSense publishers in the upcoming future.