What's an AdSense Premium Publisher?

To get an answer for this question, I turned to my friend and colleague Lee Dodd, self-annointed Forum Jedi at The Forum Fix. Here's what Lee had to share regarding his own brush with Premium Publisher status:

Great question, but the answer might not be quite what you expect, so I'd like to try to clarify a bit about Google Adsense Premium Publishers because, in my opinion, the information on the site doesn't really answer your questions about this program.

First of all, I am not a premium publisher nor will I ever be most likely. I am a part of Google's "Special Adsense Optimization Team", however (that's an unofficial name).

I do have an account manager at Google that I can call / email. There are benefits to of the Optimization Team program that regular AdSense users don't ever see, such as the ability to use creative ad formats, put more than three ad units per page, more ads per ad unit, and so on.

I do not however make a bigger commission percentage, nor will they share with me the percentage of the PPC ad payment I earn. It's just as much a mystery to me as everyone else, frankly.

The very first call I had with my account manager I grilled him all the questions I ever wanted to ask Google about Adsense. I had him explain how this Optimizer program was something new and was invite only. I had him explain how it wasn't the premium publisher program and why it wasn't.

He said the premium publisher program is for very large publisher, b but that the 20 million page views required for admission isn't a concrete number. The examples of premium publisher he gave were AOL and CNN. Very large sites, getting huge traffic.

They also get the benefits I do, but the difference is that they have a signed contract with Google.

He explained that premium publisher negotiate their price - so to speak - with Google, and that the process usually takes weeks or even months, then a set pay rate is established and a contract signed. It is a major ordeal according to my Google rep.

After hearing that, I was very pleased to be in the position I was in and glad that I could move on and quit dreaming of being an Adsense Premium Publisher. :)

Lee, thanks for sharing that inside scoop on both Premium Publishers and the Optimization Team. I want to be in the latter group now! :-)