Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Adsense works by Google targetting ads to a block on your site. If a visitor clicks on any of the displayed adverts you get paid for that click. You have the opportunity to stop competitors adverts, or ones that are not appropriate appearing on your site, but that's about it for options.
If you make money or not depends on many, many factors, so the only way to find out is to sign up and have a go. I signed up hoping to cover the cost of hosting my site. As it happens, adsense works for me very well, and as of just now, my earnings to date in 2005 have already paid for the years wehbosting.
The thing I would say is that content is paramount. Concentrate on getting good content and thus good traffic. From that will come good Adsense returns.
Please be aware that you will get booted off for TOS violations. Make sure you understand and adhere to them. Any questions on them and the folks here will help out.
Good luck!
I found that major advertisers paying the big bucks turn their campaigns off or lower their bids at certain times of the week/day. So there would be times that the adsense revenue won't cover for your adwords expense.
So playing that game of turning off your adwords when they do might not be worth it in itself though.
you have to be able to afford floating money for a while to get by. There's nothing like spending all of your money and not getting anything back for 30+ days.
The return in less than 10 miniutes
If you're only making a profit of $.05 per visitor and have to spend $1.00 to get that visitor, it's probably not worth your money.
Over 100% return over a year
So playing that game of turning off your adwords when they do might not be worth it in itself though.
Never turn off my AdWords
I have one site that focuses on a KW niche that is rather specialized and is blessed with a variety of spelling errors / thinkos - I make about $10 - $14 for every dollar I spend in adwords - however the site only makes from $3 - $50 a day - depending on factors beyond my control - ie search volume.
Totally worth promoting - but not anything to retire on - I wish I could find 50 more niches just like it - I'd be set for life.
If the ads are still there, it means there is money to be made.
I know of a few industries where competition is so fierce that top-tier affiliates will intentionally lose money for a short time to convince the smaller affiliates of this type of thing. Just make sure that you babysit your ads very closely if you go by this idea.
The best advice I ever had was one day I was complaining out loud about an advertising idea I had that lost me some money. A salesman I had working for me stuck his head in the door & said "Bill, if you don't do nothin, nothin is gonna happen" He was not eloquent but very perceptive. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Why bother asking then, just do it...
Kind of like a perpetual motion machine - except possible in this case.
I think if you looked at it as a challenge - you MIGHT make money, but you would also learn a lot in the process - if you didn't run out of money first.