I have been messing with adsense off and on for over 3 years now and every time I give it a shot on a trafficked site, it performs horribly. Just recently was the last straw. First of all, Their stats don't match my own. They are a small percentage of the actual page impressions over a month period. I'm showing 1k visitors a day with over 10k page impressions and adsense is showing 170 impressions for the same day and 15 cents in earnings. Second: In comparison to another site with 1/3 the traffic utilizing one 480x60 affiliate banner placed in the header, compared to a 728x90 adsense banner in the same spot with 3 x's the traffic, the adsense banner barely made $2, while the affiliate banner made $75. The final straw was listening to a newspaper exec who's company owns multiple papers in metro areas on the east coast speak about hyperlocal communities and monetization, say point blank that "we have never found that adsense was a viable way to monetize compared to all of the other options". For those of you that make a living with it. God bless and keep up the good work, but I have read the books, followed the suggestions, combed the forums and have come to the conclusion that adsense is a rip off for publishers. It doesn't pay well at all and I'm not wasting anymore traffic on it. I don't know how you guys do it. I imagine that those of you that make good money with it( what ever good money is to you) could probably make 3x's the money using something else. I tried looking at it from every angle and I just don't see how it's worth it. Anything with as many configurations, settings, rules, and channels as you have to figure out just to make a buck, to me is purposely difficult to cut down on the amount of people that have to be paid out. It shouldn't be this hard to run ads on your website. No other program requires the equivalent of a community college course just to understand how to utilize the program and display the proper ads. I shouldn't have to learn anything to display their ads except how to bring lots of targeted traffic...they should be doing all of the work. They are the ones the need the advertising space. I have to do my job and theirs too ?I don't think so. How did they flip the switch and make people believe that displaying their ads is some kind of privilege? Everything about the program is geared towards long periods of testing. IOW, excuses to keep the BS ads on your site for months at a time. It's a con game and a rip off.
i guess it really depends on what type of site you have, i have a blog with 1 article about youtube and i have made a very significant amount of money by placing adsense ads around it. Also, it does not "require the equivalent of a community college course" to understand. I am still in high school and i just started adsense and my blog a month ago. You wouldn't believe how much i have made if i told you. anyway, what ad company are you using now?
I actually use a number of programs, private advertising and a few BANS stores. No complaints on any of them. I'd be interested to know what you call 'a significant amount of money'. I'm sure what a high school student (who lives at home with his parents) calls 'significant' compared to grown man with grown man bills are probably a few zeros away from each other. Not to belittle your accomplishment. I applaud you because I can't stand working with this program and if it does well for you I am truly amazed and happy for you, but, I'd be willing to bet that my hosting expenses alone would eat up a significant portion of what you call good money from adsense. The bottom line is, I can make more money with the space than adsense. Even a crappy CPM would pay $30 a day on 10k impressions. Targeted would probably get a little more...and without the risk of some crappy 2 cent ad popping up and displaying for a large portion of the day. I just don't get it. The program and the ads are not dependable. No matter how you optimize they can still display what ever they want during your busiest time of day and you have no control over it. It's like they are in charge of your websites ad space, not you. That's BS. If I am going to sign over a 300x250 or 480x60 spot on my website, I want to know how much I'm getting paid ALL OF THE TIME. On every click or impression. Not this fluctuating con game that they have you all believing in. HTF is a spot on your site worth one price one minute and then a lower price the next ? No other program works like that.
AdSense is very hit and miss. Some sites and topics are not made for AdSense. With these types of sites you can try every type of format in nearly every possible position with the best type of keywords and still not make any significant amounts of money. I've made AdSense work on a number of sites but it has also bombed on quite a few. Even with good keyword research you can never be quite sure how well your site is going to perform with AdSense. With Google’s PPC scheme I make about $50 a day, which isn't much in comparison to what some other publishers make but its ok for now. I hope to seriously boost my overall AdSense earnings with a few new sites that I'm publishing later this month. Of course you can't just rely on AdSense to make money on the web you need to balance it out by doing some affiliate marketing. But AdSense combined with everything else can work. You can have problems if you depend solely on AdSense to make money and you don't diversify enough. Anyway, I hope you make the right final decision. Good luck.
Adsense can be quite a challenge because there are so many factors which are used to calculate your earnings. First, if you're not getting targetted traffic, adsense won't work. For you to maximise on adsense, you'll need to be getting people from search engines. Returning visitors don't convert and adsense will lower the CPC if the person clicking on the ad did not come from a search engine. If your content is generating really good ads (high CPC), it still doesn't mean you will be getting a good earning. On the adsense blog, it states that if you have a site about photography and an ad for a digital camera is displayed there, you will get less money than if the ad was shown on a digital camera review site. Therefore if your content does not align with the ad, you are still losing money. Smart pricing is another factor and that's to do with adjustment of your earnings if the users don't convert for the advertiser. You may start with 100 clicks for $100 and then over time, it becomes 100 clicks for $10. You're basically giving away your traffic. There are many ways to make adsense work but if you're sure you've tried everything, then it might not be worth sticking to it as you can be monetising your site's traffic in some other ways.
ii havent tried much things with adsense. i joined it 3 years ago, made $20usd. then i stopped. now i am trying it again, hope it works better for me soon enough. as long as it pays for my domain renewals its fine. ii haven't got any clue about development
I have tried it in different niches and every type of ad available. In comparison to every other program out there, it's just too much trouble for what they actually pay. You have to worry about smart pricing, the occasional public service ad, and so many other factors just to get a good configuration of their ads. No other program works with so many variables of what you will get paid. they are all pretty simple...I get targeted traffic, I send sales, I get paid...and I get paid the same amount on every sale or impression I send. I shouldn't have to learn about smart pricing to display someone else's ads on my real estate. No other advertising scheme in ANY other industry (radio, print, T.V., billboards) works the way they have this thing set up. It seems with adsense, the publisher is jumping through all of the hoops, when it should be the person that needs the space to display ads. Too many times I have followed the suggested way of doing things only to turn around at my busiest time to see public services ads on my site at a peak traffic time or a low paying ad that I have to block. I don't mind the rotating ad principle, what I mind is the rotating payout of each ad. The space is no less valuable from one hour to the next and the fluctuations can be extreme. With all of the options out there, I just don't see where this one is worth the hassle. It doesn't pay the best, it pays the worst. If you are making decent money on a particular niche with adsense, chances are it is good paying niche industry wide and you can probably earn more via other programs or private advertising.
I'm new here, never posted before but I use adsense. I make decent money with it, although like you said, everyone has a different idea of what good money is. Not to give exact details, I get about 30,000 impressions a month and that brings $1500-$2000. I guess I'm kind of the opposite of you in my thinking because I have never had much luck with affiliates. I guess I need the instant gratification that comes from getting a bunch of money from clicks instead of waiting for a bigger payoff on affiliate ads. Anyway, it sounds like you are pretty adamant that you're not going to use adsense any more and you believe other methods of advertising are more profitable, so my question to you is which other advertising method do you recommend? I have tried some affiliates and never had much luck. I'm wondering if I was just using the wrong ones.
On the site that I just pulled adsense from, I'm well over 70k impressions for just the last 14 days. If it looked like I would bring in anything close to that, I wouldn't be complaining but it's far from it and I'm not going to waste another 70k impressions on their low paying ads trying to figure out why, when I can give that space to someone else that pays without me having to jump through the hoops. As someone pointed out adsense isn't for everyone, or every type of website, so the same goes for other programs as well. So for me, It's different for every site. Across all of my sites I use Ebay, Ticket Network (CJ), Amazon, Fandango, Linkshare...pretty much what ever fits best based on the type of traffic. Not just the niche, but how the site promotes it. Some sites I have just to promote other sites like BANS or AOM stores. I have found that adsense has never been good for any of them. I used to think it was the niche, now I just think it's the program. There are more niches that are bad for adsense than there are good ones. Actually, there are only a handful of good paying niches for adsense, everything else is a waste of time. I don't like those odds.
Simple solution...there are alternatives....if u giving up adsense.... else adsense is the best think twice before giving it up
I'll agree with IronClad, a lot of websites that are built wont succeed because the owners don't tend to them very long. the longer your website stays up, the higher authority it will receive. As for these affiliate programs, i never really got too far with those. just enough to know, its a lot harder to find a lead than it is to refer them to ppc.
I just can't share that sentiment. It's the only program that I haven't made any money on (2 checks tops) , so I don't see it as the best of anything. I see it as a waste of space. Space is valuable. Adsense has you believing that your space is not valuable. I'm no web primadona, but it only takes ONE 3 cent click for me to realize that I am being taken advantage of. a whole day of them, and I'm just getting screwed. There is no way that I am going to give you a second day..but in the case of adsense, I had myself brainwashed to give it weeks and it still makes no difference. I keep blocking low paying ads and competitors, and they just keep replacing them with lower paying ads and other competitors. It's ridiculous. I'm not closing out my account or anything, but I am not reserving prime ad spots on good traffic sites for adsense anymore. I'll use it as a filler for developing or growing sites.
On the site that I just pulled adsense from, I'm well over 70k impressions for just the last 14 days. If it looked like I would bring in anything close to that, I wouldn't be complaining but it's far from it and I'm not going to waste another 70k impressions on their low paying ads trying to figure out why, when I can give that space to someone else that pays without me having to jump through the hoops. As someone pointed out adsense isn't for everyone, or every type of website, so the same goes for other programs as well. So for me, It's different for every site. Across all of my sites I use Ebay, Ticket Network (CJ), Amazon, Fandango, Linkshare...pretty much what ever fits best based on the type of traffic. Not just the niche, but how the site promotes it. Some sites I have just to promote other sites like BANS or AOM stores. I have found that adsense has never been good for any of them. I used to think it was the niche, now I just think it's the program. There are more niches that are bad for adsense than there are good ones. Actually, there are only a handful of good paying niches for adsense, everything else is a waste of time. I don't like those odds. Yeah, if you're doing that much better on the other advertising you may be better off not focusing much time on adsense until you run across a good paying niche or something. I've never heard of Ticket Network,but I'll check it out.
Ticket Network is on CJ and sells event and concert tickets. Just like any other affiliate program, just placing banners doesn't work. you have to have content and information specific to the niche for it to work. I have a Comedy News site, so it works well for that.
It's got nothing to do with my SEO or marketing my website. I don't seem to have a problem with other programs.
Adsense is only good for people getting over 1K UV a day. You need more and more traffic to earn with adsense. personally I was trying adsense for over 6 month and all I got is $2!
With around 700 uv per day I get around $3. Yes, the niche is important, because I always get targeted fitness/health ads for my fitness blog.
Yep and I take full responsibility for that because I don't start sites or blogs because of the best paying keyword. I do stuff that I like and enjoy...unfortunately those things pay crap in adsense, but are good for other programs. Never had an insurance, legal, fitness, medical or any other of the "good for adsense" niche websites. One of my oldest blogs is about music and you know how sh*tty music ads are. Definitely not worth the adsense space.