Google AdSense Forum

My math is different: 4 million pageviews / adsense in half of tem = 2 million pagevies

Using 2.7% CTR {low end} = 54,000 clicks

October revenue $11,000

$11,000 / 54,000 clicks = $0.204 EPC

Makes sense ;)

I've always wondered how websites reach that "next level" of pageviews.

<snip>

Not really. It's been my experience that it is on par. They have content that's why. When people are interested in the content they read on and look around later so it works better towards the end of the content. If the content is uninteresting or the content owner is looking for the quick click then the ads work best on the top. It's because it's not worth the time for the surfer to hang around and the content owner doesn't really care if they do anyway.

<yawn>

All the other figures are interesting and a lot of webmasters will be comparing them with their own figures but saying that it can be hundreds of dollars a month or even hundreds of thousands doesn't say anything except that he has omitted to mention that some sites may make only $10 per month. Also, some sites could have CTR as low as 0.1% and some could have 20%+, the EPC could be lower than the 11-19 cents suggested... or in excess of $1.00.

Google choose the example carefully in that it demonstrates that you don't need to be in the s*x or penile extension businesses to rake in money via Adsense. And it's all carefully worded to suggest you don't need to do much to "rake it in"... "Zucker spends about an hour a day "... read the article again but this time with a cynical eye, it sounds like a press release.

Maybe they are confusing "hits" with page views ;-)

Maybe they are getting 4 millions "hits". They get traffic not just from linkbacks of course, they get traffic from search engines too but they don't seem to do that well in SEs. They come up #5 in Google for Pet place :-)

Leaves me wondering about the accuracy of some of those other figures. I've been doing some research - the EPC is possible for the type of ads they attract. The CTR is not impossible. But if the impressions are widely off track then the very juicy earnings that the article reports are probably widely off track too.

I was going to put this in my first post, but I was afraid Alexa wouldn't be a good indicator - but hey it's an indicator nonetheless.

The PR gain from being featured on Google must be phenomenal! They even got a link from a WW thread to boost their PR and get visitors like me who'd never otherwise go there ;-)

password-protected members pages

figment88, if over 90% of their page views (3.75 million/4 million) were *hidden* pages surely it would have been mentioned somewhere, either in the original Google article or in subsequent ones? In fact, if that was the case it's highly unlikely Google would have chosen to use them as a "typical" example, IMHO.

I agree. And those sites could add substantially to the traffic figures already estimated.

<admiring even more how crafty Google was in their choice of site to make an example of>

We're around 40,000 and get 7,500,000 page vies a month (around 13M hits). Of course, I don't have the toolbar installed on my computer which would make a big difference ;).

Metricsmarket puts my 19,000 Alexa, 750,000 page views, PR7 website at 325,100 user sessions.

I'd love to have enough cash ($11,000/month would suffice) to buy a report from a company like Hitwise to have a big fish eye view of my niche area...