Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What thoughts or beliefs or ideas did you have about 'the Adsense program' - before you signed up - that you learned by experience, were either misconceptions, wrong, unrealistic, overly rosey, . . . whatever?
What's your "before and after" story reflecting what you thought the experience of working with the program would be and what that experience actually has been for you?
> what that experience actually has been for you?
The most troubling aspect of AdSense is FUD
once there is a little more openness from Google, more publishers will plunge into the program full force.
That's also why I give Ad units only a small percentage of my traffic, referrals and direct advertisers get the rest.
I hear there's a rumor floating around the internet that there's a "bucket of money" in AdSense, making it attract the greedy bunch of the players, that also worries me long term.
[edited by: Hobbs at 3:39 pm (utc) on Dec. 21, 2006]
The reality is that it performed a bit too well. I find myself putting more and more time into the affiliate side (new programs, new sites), so I can keep somewhat of a balance and don't become too reliant on one source of income.
Make more money because of Adsense, work harder because of Adsense. Go figure.
I was astonished that from the get-go--when I put the code on maybe a couple of dozen pages on my site, with aesthetics dictating placement--AdSense earned double Amazon. Now, with experience and tweaking, and ad placement remaining inobtrusive, it's earning me four times what I make from Amazon (Amazon didn't drop off, either).
Closest I've come to stubbing my toe on a bucket of money!
If placed correctly, they really do not hurt the looks of your site. I have an ecommerce site that earns 98% of the money, however, over the last few months, I've been building many other sites that are not ecommerce and a few dollars have started trickling in. It could be much more if I were not only one person and can only work so many hours in a day, but I have hopes that with the new sites, next year will be even better.
Good luck to you! You are a great guy and have always offered so much information to others in the Domain Names forum especially.
Happy Holidays!
I'd hoped to find a source of extra income that could, in time, allow me to spend less hours working.
I've found a source of extra income - but at a cost of spending all my time working, monitoring or adjusting.
Over time, the program has improved in some ways (e.g., smart pricing and domain filters were introduced to make the content network more attractive to advertisers), and it's gotten worse in others (e.g., the expansion into so-called "content" media like gmail, the growth of made-for-AdSense sites, and the provision of tools that--whether by intent or accident--have made it easier for AdSense publishers to encourage inadvertent clicks).
The advertising landscape has changed since AdSense was introduced, and display advertising is now making a strong comeback in some sectors, with net CPMs that--in some cases--outperform AdSense eCPMs by a significant margin. Will AdSense's ubiquity turn PPC ads into a commodity, or will Google be able to increase the value of the content network (or subsets of the content network)? It'll be interesting to see what changes 2007 brings.
Cash wise, I would have been happy with a lot less, so I was flabbergasted by the first month's cheque.
Ad quality wise I'm still far from impressed it seems like it sits there in the long tail made up of crappy advertisers that basically feel visitors are worth only cents, but don;t mind write copy that attracts them like crazy. This latter has had it's up and downs and perhaps the downward trend is finally turning positive again. If the money wasn;t so positive, I'd be long out for this reason alone.
What Were Your Expectations and Reality?
When starting out, expectations were to make some pocket change - a few hundred - every month.
Now, some years later, averaged a bit under the UPS club level for the whole of 2006, more or less passive income.
Thank you Google, and thank you WebmasterWorld.
The program seems to have matured over the past year or so. About a year ago I actually removed adsense from many of my pages due to low earnings in comparison to sold ad space. We have again added it to the majority of our site and have noticed that wild swings in income are not as prevelant as previously noted.
Depending on exactly how it fits into your overall revenue streams it can provide a steady, low maintainance source.
Unlike many here we refuse to second guess the algo and assume G wants to maximize the revenue so allow them to do that. It is easy to add and the TOS is a lot less harmful then many we have been asked to sign.
So strap on the water wings and we'll see you at the floating bar:)
My initial hopes were that it earn enough to cover my cigarettes - but then the taxes and prices went up above $5/pack, and I quit smoking.
Then I was shooting for enough to cover gas, because I have to spend so much time in Detroit which is 55 miles away. We all know what happened with gas prices. Sigh.
But overall, the trend is good. I made roughly three times this year what I did last year, expanded to half a dozen small sites, and if I ever get the time, have some ideas for a couple more.
It'll never replace my day job, nor do I expect it to.
As it turns out, it's not particularly precise. What I see is medium to fine targeting, when I'd prefer ultrafine, exact-phrase style targeting.
Before I miss the opportunity: Happy Holidays To All! ;0)
I decided to add AdSense to monetize those visitors that I had nothing to sell too. The AS income now doubles my AdWords bill & I'm still full. It has had little or no effect on my reservations. Thanks WW and AdSense.
With a communuity based site we push the use of our Amazon links as a way of promoting the site. Clearly Adsense is just there and never mentioned.
It allows me to keep up my horse racing hobby free of charge.
Dave.
not as smooth as I had expected
(more like a roller coaster)
not as worry-free as I had expected
(ever since someone decided to give me a hard time which resulted in that "invalid clicks" notification)
not as stable as I had expected
(about the same as working a full-time job in the sense that you could get the boot anytime)
not as much money as I had expected
(haven't reached the target I set for this year).
but I'm STILL EXCITED. My earnings can only go up.
Heck... Google gave me a fantastic way to make money that allows me to :
- work when I want, when I want, how I want.
- go christmas shopping on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 3.00 pm.
- stay up late and wake up late.
- tuck my kids in for afternoon naps.
- take an hour long snooze after lunch.
- visit my kids during recess at school.
- work in my jammies...
;) ;) ;)
ehhehe best way to describe it.
One of the few down points with AS is the constant whining (not in this thread!) of people who believe that they are ENTITLED to a BUCKET OF MONEY without any work NOW!
If you manage to avoid that trap, I think you'll do fine.
Keep your original, useful, helpful content quotient high, and remember that your site is there for your USERS not for AdSense and you'll be OK. Work on the site so far as you can is if AS didn't exist.
Rgds
Damon
After the first week, we thought, "Wow, this is amazing." And noone has ever emailed us and complained about the ads.
I was able to quit my fulltime job 2 months later, yet we sort of struggled with finances the first year. But the hubby quit his job in Feb 06. The finances are not struggling now, but we are not living high on the hog either.
Then 18 months and $200K later and I thought time to stop consulting and lay back, write content and collect the checks.
January 2007 around the corner and I'm back working nearly full time and i'm praying this will last for another 12 months so maybe I can take 10 days off :(
