Google has launched a new affiliate network named the Google Affiliate Network. In an effort to consolidate the DoubleClick acquisition, Google created the Google Affiliate Network and has announced the retirement of AdSense Referrals, which is part of Google’s Pay-Per-Action product.

Google launched Pay Per Action ads in March of 2007. I saw first signs that the product would be discontinued about 15 days ago.

For those AdSense publishers that run referral ads, you should remove the referral ad code from your site before the last week of August. You should also download and save all referral reports to your desktop, before Google does away with those reports for you.

For AdWords advertisers participating in the Pay Per Action ads, I guess you need to do nothing. Your ads will just stop working. If you want to continue to offer this as an advertising campaign, you should look into the new Google Affiliate Network, which is basically a DoubleClick program.

For more coverage, see Techmeme.

Related Topics: Google: AdSense | Google: AdWords | Google: DoubleClick

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz