Type Subsidiary of Google Parent Google | Industry Mobile advertising Website contributor.google.com | |
Founded November 20, 2014; 2 years ago (2014-11-20) | ||
Google Contributor was a program run by Google that allowed users in the Google Network of content sites to view the websites without any advertisements that are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google.
The program started with prominent websites, like The Onion and Mashable among others, to test this service. After November 2015, the program opened up to any publisher who displayed ads on their websites through Google AdSense without requiring any sign-on from publishers.
Since November 2015, the program was available for everyone in the United States. Google Contributor stopped accepting new registrations after December 2016 in preparation for a new version launch in early 2017. On January 17th, Google Contributor was shut down. As of January 17, 2017 8:40 AM no replacement had been announced.
Background
Users could set a maximum monthly contribution starting at $1.99 USD up to $14.99. After February 2016, Google Contributor changed to a fixed subscription fee of $6.99.
When the user visits any of the Contributor-supported websites, a small part of the contribution will go to the website owners. The ad blocks, instead of displaying advertisement material, will, by default, display a thank you message with a pixel pattern. This pattern can be configured to contain cats or other patterns.
In the implementation, Contributor bids for ad slots on the user's behalf using the standard Google ad auction system; if the user wins the auction, the Contributor image is placed in the ad space, and the cost of the ad is deducted from the user's monthly contribution. If the user does not win, the winning ad is displayed as normal and the user pays nothing for that slot. The website owners are paid for the ad slot as normal, although the revenue could, in theory, be marginally higher due to an additional participant in the ad auction.