Thanks, adsense

[astrobiologist]

I joined the Adsense program back in June 2004. On my first full day I made 90 cents and was delighted. The next day it was over a dollar, and the next almost two. My site was pretty small back then and I hadn't put much thought into ad placement or appearance, although I was pretty conservative in my use of them because I didn't want the site (which is informational/encyclopedia in nature) to look too commercial. Had a visitor spike on Sep 14, 2004, and made over $20 -- my first time into double figures. A couple of weeks later I was a guest on a big radio show and made over $60 in two days -- whoo-hoo! By the beginning of 2005 it was pretty consistently into double-figure dollars every day and by March 2005, with more visitors and better ad placement, was averaging $25 to $30 a day. By the end of 2005 it was over $100 a day. Since then there have been ups and downs, obviously, some seasonal, others unpredictable, and yet others due to minor catastrophes (such as when my site was hacked or my web host was on the blink). But overall, life has been good. For a program that costs me nothing to run and precious little effort in optimization, etc., it's been extraordinary effective. To date, it's earned me close to $300,000 and is making $80K-$90K pa. I work on the site a few hours a day, or whenever I feel like it. Even if it all ends tomorrow, I count myself a lucky guy. My best tip for success -- quality, rich, unique content supported where possible by good images. Also, don't worry about daily or even weekly fluctuations. Month-end and year-end figures are what count.

[dertyfern]

You're luck astrobiologist, many here have experienced the exact opposite despite good content, et al.

Hats off that it works for you.

[nomis5]

Well done astrobiologist for spreading some good news.

From first to last, your experience is creepily similar to mine. And the good, unique content comment you make is something I agree with wholeheartedly. Especially, I would advise in investing time and money to obtain unique and helpful images. They, above all, convince the reader that you've really been there and done it.

I'm not so much in agreement about looking only at monthly totals, though. I believe daily totals contain lots of information. Their ups and downs also cause the mental "juices" to keep flowing even if there often isn't much to be done about them.

[incrediBILL]

Same here, been surviving off my sites for many years now.

If you make as little as $100/day every day for a year then your AdSense income alone actually makes as much as a 1 person median income for most states in the U.S. [acf.hhs.gov].

If you can make as little as $200/day, you're making the median wage of a 4-person family for most of the U.S.

All that from a little website with some javascript inserted in a few key locations.

Sure beats "working" for a living doesn't it? :)

[johnnie]

incrediBILL, that surely hits the nail right on the head. Personally, I now work (as in: am employed) three days a week. I've gotten to the point where my job supports me, but I don't completely depend on it. And I love the feeling of freedom and independence that comes with that.

Adsense has allowed me a degree of flexibility in life that I ever thought possible. I've only recently started a business (sole proprietor) and as such I really do feel the best is yet to come. I love it. Very, very much.

[Swebbie]

Adsense is great because it's simple to wrap your head around, regardless of your experience/skill level. I joined way back in 2003 when it first came out, and have had over 90 niche sites since then. I've flipped many of them, so that's another income stream through Adsense. It definitely changed the lives of many previously struggling online marketers.

[WolfLover]

I love AdSense as well. It's the easiest money I make. Other money made from selling products is more of a pain due to customers whining, etc. Much easier through AdSense. I am very thankful for my income.

[skweb]

Another happy AdSense publisher for over 6 years and have made already made more than half a million dollars. Yes, no shipping of products and dealing with returns or nasty customers calling with product trouble. Just insert some code and then keep creating content that we love and readers do too. My wife and I will hopefully never have to put on a suit and sit in a cubicle listening to some dude telling us how to work, or sit in boring meetings or be evaluated each year by some boss who has no clue.

[Leonard0]

Just over six years ago I was just about to give up and let my sites molder when I discovered AdSense. At first it was earning me just a few hundred a month but after a bit of time and tweaking I was making enough to live on - not as much as the OP (astrobiology must be a great niche) but it has kept me going.
There must be many other publishers who have also had good results but it is the negative experiences we hear most about.
IMO AdSense has been a major influence on forming the Web into what it is today (the good and the bad). Without it the Web wouldn't have grown nearly as much as it has.
Here's to another 6 years (at least)

[m0thman]

Kind of similar experience me - with the exception of the last year. I didn't quite make it to a $100 day but came preciously close. At the moment a day with over $50 is a smiley day. Up until recently I had managed to survive on income from the website alone but sadly I've had to go find some part time work to top up the coffers. At the end of the day though, I took over three years off out of the rat race and although I didn't get to where I wanted, I had the chance to experience the freedom and benefits of being a self-employed publisher.

Not sure what the future holds. Hoping this is a temporary setback and that sometime next year I'll have forged ahead and hopefully the economy picked up a bit to help me on my way. I guess certain sites will do worse in a depression than others and some may in fact thrive under these conditions.

Anyway... Good luck to ya'all.. hope we're all still here this time next year :)

[SmallP]

So nice to read this thread. For me too Adsense has provided a really worthwhile income and the ability to work entirely around my family and children, working the hours I want and family commitments permit. I do what I love (creating content myself and commissioning content from others) and simply insert code on the pages.

Every so often over the years I have been distracted by the promise of reward for promoting affiliate programs - so much that you read on the net is geared towards affiliate advertising - but they don't work in my sector and take much more effort. Adsense income has had its ups and downs but every day I remember how lucky I am that I am a web publisher, and well rewarded for it.

Smallp

[ken_b]

Nice to see this thread grow a bit.

While the "easy money with AdSense" concept may be more true for some than for others, it seems like there is plenty of opportunity to make a decent living publishing a website monetized at least in part with AdSense.

Sure beats flipping burgers flipping burgers in a fast food joint! :)

What to do with the money though, interest rates are terrible these days!

[ziajunu]

the best thing is
earn money while you sleep :)

[Jane_Doe]

I still have some affiliate programs but the nice thing about Adsense is never having to update the links as programs and products change over time.

I also appreciate Adsense. It has been nice being able to work from home and set my own schedule.

What to do with the money though, interest rates are terrible these days!

It is funny reading retirement planning books from even a few years ago because the interest rate assumptions all wildly off base and totally unattainable these days.

[Leosghost]

the best thing is
earn money while you sleep :)

actually adsense is just one way to do this ..;))

[astrobiologist]

Thanks for all the responses. I know a lot of people have seen a big drop in their bottom lines over the past couple of years, which must be tough if you'd gotten use to a decent steady income from Adsense. The nature of my site, which covers a multitude of topics, from antimatter to zero energy homes helps cushion me I think from some of the monthly and yearly swings that affect sites that are more tightly focussed. Also, my visitor count has grown a lot over the years so although, like everyone else, my CTR has dropped a lot over the past three years, my income has stayed pretty constant. This month just ended I averaged about $260 a day from Adsense -- about the same as in 2007 with over double the visitor traffic. It's strange what topics I earn money from. As you'd expect it's the product oriented pages that over time bring in the bulk of the income but just the other week I earned $16 from just two clicks on a topic in microbiology.

My wife and I live modestly in a rented 2-bedroom flat and have no car (since we live in the center of a city with good public transport). So, how do we spend our not-so-hard-earned cash? I've taken up rock guitar and singing (the mid-age crisis having well and truly kicked in!). My wife's a big Disney fan so we "invested" (ha!) in a timeshare in Florida. Lots of travel, gigging, and seeing our granddaughter every day -- all thanks to the those funny little ads floating around in cyberspace!

[koan]

Congrats astrobiologist, I think you're the perfect success Adsense story, doing it honestly, with passion and knowledge for a topic, hard work and long term dedication. I mean, in the end, when you'll look back, you'll be able to say you contributed to the world's knowledge. It will also great to be able to earn a living even in retirement age, on top of the savings.

But I noticed you weren't impervious either to Adsense's decline in the past year, which you made up with increased traffic, thankfully, but it's still a kick in the balls. Not unlike what others are experiencing in a recession.

[sid786]

Congrats astrobiologist and it's great to hear that you are a modest human being.

260 dollar a day is indeed a great achievement and I hope you will go along with Adsense program pretty well and hit the $500 mark pretty soon :)

[trader]

Wow, $260 a day average is amazing from 1 site in an niche and seemingly obscure category, at least imo. The experience of astrobiologist appears to be the exact opposite of most other Adsense publishers I am familiar with including myself who have experienced big declines over past several years since peaking sometime around 2005.

I would love to learn how astrobiologist has been so successful, in particular knowing the traffic his site gets as far as uniques go (antimatter & microbiology etc do not appear to be so popular that it would get much traffic, imo), how many ad units are on each page, what kind of ads appear, and the size of the site?

[astrobiologist]

My site gets close to a million visitors a month at peak, which basically is during the academic year; although I sometimes earn more on low-visitor days. I benefit earnings-wise by a lot of those folk being non-repeats; most of my traffic comes from organic searches. Although the site is science and technology based it covers a lot of topics and has about 14,000 pages of unique, rich, densely cross-linked content. I like to keep my ads mostly in one place -- at the top. That way people get to see the ads first, when, in my experience, they are mostly likely to click on them, and also, they're not being bothered by ads while they're reading the content. I use a medium rectangle and a small ad links unit. I rarely bother to check what ads appear -- they vary enormously from page to page, day to day, place to place (very different for example in the US, UK, and Spain), and even from ad to ad within the same block. I think it's this diversity that helps cushion my earnings from wild fluctuations. I don't get into trying to affect what ads show, keywords, etc. I just concentrate on quality content and let the system do its thing.

[jetteroheller]

Also thanks to AdSense, since June 2004 nearly 140.000,-EUR

There was some years ago minister Grasser in Austria, who spent for a crappy nearly no content web site about the same.

So I tell people, to get from a minister knowing nearly nothing about web sites 140.000,-EUR is an easy task, when You are a school friend of this minister. To get 140.000,-EUR from Google is a proof of quality.

[maximillianos]

Thanks for sharing your story.

Mine is similar as well. I was about to call it quits back in 2002, tried selling my site, etc. Then came Adsense. Started out making a few hundred a month. Now I make more than I could ever have imagined. Neither myself nor my wife have to work now. Which is awesome. When compared to any other ad program, it is hands down the best out there. No maintenance and a consistent earner.

This is a breath of fresh air to read so many others with positive experiences.

[denisl]

astrobiologist, it is good to hear your story.

One of my recent sites is small but in an academic niche (an area I used to lecture in) without much competition.
I have Adsense on the site but have been concerned that a site mostly visited by students may result in poor conversions for the advertisers, and could result in smart pricing.

I assume you havn't found this to be a problem

[jimilives]

This was such a nice post, you really made my day reading this. Good for you, I remember when I was doing 300 - 500 a day on adsense, I am starting again after stopping for about 4 years but great to hear someones life made better by adsense, good for you!

[Harmain]

happy earning friend
i m poor in adsense earning, only 50-70 per month owning

[koan]

I remember when I was doing 300 - 500 a day

Damn, you need to make a thread of your own.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Thanks, you guys, for reminding me why I love my job.

ASA

[trader]

The great success of Astrobiologist and his amazing 14,000 pages of unique content in hie one site has inspired me to work harder on adding lots of new content to my sites.

[Swanny007]

AdSense is the best thing that's happened to me in the last 6 years, not including having kids LOL. AdSense has allowed me to quit my day job, my wife to quit her job, buy a new house, new cars (paying cash), etc. all while putting cash away for retirement, etc. If it weren't for AdSense I'd still be at my 9-5 without really enjoying it. I am always adding content for visitors and thinking long-term.

Don't chase get-rich-quick cash. You might make cash but you have to figure out how to do it again. Just crank out great content that no one else has and sit back for years and let the site rake in the cash. In the long term a quality, unique content site will outperform regurgitated sites like many blogs, shopping/comparison sites, etc.

With that said, it's not merely AdSense to thank here. My biggest site is 10 years old, I started it back when it was a hobby and didn't start it for profit. AdSense merely helped me turn my hobby into a part-time work, full-time pay business. Thanks Google!

[Pepito]

Although my earnings has dropped since past month, it is always rewarding receive some money from a hobby. Thanks Google, but.... I miss now an ASA post saying Thanks publishers, because thanks to you, Google is going bigger and bigger. Thatīs at the end is good for both.

AdSense is a B2B, and both "B"s, Publishers and G, have the same size. IMHO