Is there still a future in Adsense/Adwords?

[MrSavage]

I'm not in the best of spirits but this is a relevant topic whether it's cozy where you are today. Most smart people are thinking one step ahead of the game or see the writing on the wall and change strategies accordingly. If not, they crash and burn. Lots of examples of that in business.

I know there are people just doing fine out there. Always the debate about the cry babies vs the people just raking in the money from Adsense. Even if my downturn of the past 6 months was to reverse itself tomorrow, I'd be asking the same question. Is this a dying formula? Should I even bother with sites I love because in reality they are going to produce squat in income and have very little monetizing options outside of Adsense.

I'm curious if anyone thinks that Adwords/Adsense worked yesterday but isn't viable in the future. There is something that I see where companies keep all the money to themselves. They don't have to include a middle man such as publishers. In the long haul, who wins? If you have a model that does away with the middle man I would think that is the ultimate situation. It's a much bigger topic whether you think Google believes they can keep ads in house enough to be on top. They can certainly move towards that even if it's gradual. Facebook doesn't pay you for a spot on your posts. Get it? M$ will be doing some sort of embedding advertising. Google has many many options for embedding ads which don't involve the middle man. It's just that they haven't pushed in that direction.

I guess I should have said it differently. Is there enough of a future in Adsense that you will keep creating content even when the payback becomes smaller and smaller? For me, if things don't turn around, I could see myself killing off many future planned projects and websites that I'm passionate about but that are dependent on a Adsense for earnings. If that's all a website has for earning options, then I'm pretty much approaching putting up the closed/out of business sign. At the end of the day why would I bother creating a website with great articles that Google won't really rank (unless you believe that a great website with good content can rank for no other reason) or send organic traffic to and secondly it won't generate enough clicks or Adsense earnings to make it worthwhile. At some point enough people might just say F this. Selling off websites, domains and the whole nine yards.

And for those sitting pretty right now, there may just be an influx of competition in your cozy little niches. I'm smart enough to know what not to do now. When the organics are all going to Wikpedia and pro staffed sites, there is only one direction left to go. I do think everyone will see their little comfort zones rocked in the next while.

In the end, if your Adsense diminished to 30%, 40%, 50% or similar, are you continuing along the same path? You don't think that in of itself would kill off a portion of the internet? As a senior person here said. It's because of programs like Adsense that all these scrapers are around and all the MFA junk is around etc. There is something ironic in that mentality.

Again this could all be an illusion or it could be my situation clouding my judgement. It's possible that everything shall remain excellent and that all the time spent on websites and content remain getting rewarding with decent Adsense earnings. I think I've seen a different side to this. I may be in a temporary bunk or something not right in my situation. With that said when I can have days of $xyz and have a day like today where in the last hour I get to $xy, that has to say something. No, nothing THAT extraordinary has taken place on any of my sites. But think for a moment having a day of $xyz and simply making your sites better with more content and then getting two days back to backthat BARELY break $x? I mean seriously. That's worth my time and effort? Sinking time into writing content that can drop so substantially?

[HuskyPup]

June 2012 earnings v March 2011 prior to Pandalisation - 27.4% - Don't trust your life or business on Google, they don't give a damn about you.

[ken_b]

I really started this out as a future prospects discussion.

I do think there is a great future in the AdSense Program for people that master the rest of managing an AdSense friendly website.

It's kind of deceiving because it is so easy to install the program, plop down some code and go home. That worked great for a whole bunch of diverse websites in the beginning, not so great now for many folks.

Like most of life, making AdSense work for a site has changed, a lot. The basic install is pretty much the same, but the main issue isn't and probably never has been AdSense. It is everything else that goes in to building and running a successful site.

You need targeted quality traffic and advertisers.

Traffic is something the webmaster has some control over.

The publisher has less, if any, influence when it comes to getting advertisers to use AdWords. I think it can be done, but it's not a plug and play deal like installing the code. It's certainly not as simple as creating content that attracts people ready to pull the "Buy Now" button. That's a big part of it, but you still need the advertisers.

Advertisers can target your site. But they have to have a reason to try it to begin with. We hear a lot about advertisers just skipping the content network all together. That means some great and very productive sites get tossed out with the trash that cause advertiser to skip the content network in the first place.

Can you win those advertiser back, or get them to try your site in the first place? Sure, but it might not be all that easy.

The question is, is it easier and more profitable than selling ads directly and managing those accounts.

In the end, I suspect AdSense will continue to work better and better for some and less and less well for others.

Since the very beginning of AdSense we've heard that it is not appropriate foir every site. I'd say that's more true today than ever before. The range or variety of appropriate types of sites is probably getting smaller.