Google retires AdSense referral system

I have used AdSense for a long while now. I have yet for one person to join the AdSense program through a referral link on my site. At least not reported. Then again, none of the affiliate programs I have ever signed to have let me know that anyone used my link. I do know that when i am looking fro a new advertiser for my site, I do check into the “hey try us” links. Can we trust DoubleClick yet?

But as the title stated, here is the email I received today:

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program. We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit this site. *AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space. * Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information

Why is this happening? We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Sincerely.

The Google AdSense Team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about the retirement of an AdSense feature.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Looks like that side money will not be coming, even if it never came anyway.