When Google launched their referral buttons, Darren over at Problogger.net raised a pretty interesting point. He speculated on whether Googles link-up with Firefox marked the start of a range of affiliate products for publishers that Google were planning to roll out.

Now that the buttons have been around for a while, I have to say that Id be pretty surprised if Google decided to try out any more.

Im not aware of anyone making any serious money out of them. The ad units are great. The link units can do pretty well. The image ads not so much. And the referral buttons might buy someone a small coffee once a month... provided they have an audience which has never heard of Firefox.

The real problem with the referral buttons we were offered was that they just werent very competitive. Theres a whole range of different affiliate programs that we can sign up to online and the payment terms that Google was offering just didnt beat what was out there -- a dollar for a download? One hundred dollars when someone youve signed up for AdSense breaks a century? Youll probably do better sending people to some dating site or pushing books at Amazon.

The buttons dont do any harm. But I dont think anyone really expects them to do a great deal of good either.

The fact that we havent seen any additions to these programs suggests that Google has picked up the message that affiliate programs just arent their strong points. In fact, I dont think AdSense has produced anything yet that beats the basic ad unit. That was a killer idea... and no ones beaten it yet. Weve had a few false starts when companies have brought out some attractive new products but the bottom line is that its still the good old AdSense ad unit thats keeping those fat checks coming in.

That doesnt mean that Google shouldnt be looking for new ways to make us all a little richer. But they need to be original if theyre going to make it work, and do something that no one else has done.

Or they can just focus on rolling out new formats and adjusting the Smart Pricing so that my prices go up. Id be happier if they just did that than offer more affiliate buttons.