What topics work/don't work well with adsense?

[Erethorn]

Hello everyone, I'm new and thinking about starting a webpage with adsense. I've been going through the forums and I've noticed that some topics are less likely to atract income through adsense (at least that's what the peeps posted).

I was thinking about a computer gaming related site, since I'm very knowlegeable in the matter, and it's also a hobby of mine, so I would have lots of ideeas for quality content; but I remember reading that adsense doesn't go well with gaming sites...

Is there some sort of clasification regarding the relationship between site topic and adsense succes? I know that quality content and novel ideeas are likely to succed regardless of the topic, but still...

Thanks for reading and I hope you can give me a few pointers :)

[ann]

The T&C lays out most of it but for gaming sites, not gambling, I believe I would check it out with adsense first.

Ann

[joaquin112]

Ann doesn't get it... my recommendation is to stay away from gaming/jokes/entertainment sites becase... let's face it, you' be competing with another million webmasters. However, you may succeed if you are good so it's really up to you. By the way, you may make money from any topic you choose, it's just that some; mainly commercial topics, pay much better.

Good Luck.

[ann]

Oh Ann "gets" it. Just trying to be nice and point the poster to the final authority, Google.

[focused1]

If you are going to make a gaming site pick one aspect of gaming and make original content for it. Ohterwise gaming is a pretty saturated market already and it will be tough to get noticed if your just another gaming site.

[jfodale]

Even in a small niche of gaming, you're going to not only run into high competition, but very low CTR. I suppose there's a lot of reasons why gaming sites don't work very well with AdSense...

-Gamers are usually young... maybe too young to be interested or even able to shop online
-Gamers are usually more tech-savvy than the average internet surfer - they know how to avoid ads
-There's a ton of gaming sites already... its a common hobby among many internet users

You might be best off aiming for CPM ads, but many CPM places will turn down your application simply because of the topic.

My best advice to you: Don't do gaming.

[david_uk]

What you want to do is to make a site with the express intent of getting money from Adsense. That's an MFA (made for adsense) site, and tends to cause a bit of a reaction here - not least because making an MFA is against Google's TOS.

However, without getting started on that issue, my advice is to NOT go chasing high paying keywords - or what you think high paying keywords are.

These keywords change daily, and absolutely everyone else is chasing them. The best advice I can give is to find a topic you are interested in, and put in the time and effort to make that site worthwhile for visitors, and put in the effort to make sure it's well visited. The adsense rewards will flow from that, as the site (unlike MFA's) is of value to advertisers. That's an important consideration that many ignore completely.

Just in case you think that the old fart has no idea what he's on about, I started my site as a hobby site. It's now in the top few of page 1 of the google search results for my keywords, and my wife no longer has to work :)

[Erethorn]

Thank you for your insight. I think I'll stick to what I think I can do best :)

Edit. Oh and I've been looking around the forums for MFA and I can assure you that is not what I have in mind. That's why I asked the initial question, I want to know if I can use adsense to support a site that would be fun for me to build and publish. Again, thanks for the info.

Second edit. If I wanted to make money from webmastering, I assure you I wouldn't bother with adsense, there's always p0rn...

[edited by: Erethorn at 9:32 pm (utc) on Feb. 23, 2006]

[jomaxx]

Some areas do make more than others, but as you can imagine they're the ones hardest to get traffic for. High EPC areas also frequently have a very low CTR. So picking hot topics is largely a pointless exercise.

You need to sit down and think through who you're going to be able to reach -- what kind of demographic group, where they are in the world, and what they're interested in learning about or trying to accomplish when they get to your site. Then ask yourself, how valuable would it be for advertisers to be able to target this market?

For example, schoolkids browsing picture galleries for clip art = bad fit. Middle-aged men comparison shopping for sports cars = good fit.

[bts111]

What is expensive or is profitable in the offline world? Rubber bands or insurance?