There's so many factors that take place in how much you can make in Adsense revenue that this point is so pointless. It's to general of a question. It all depends on your traffic.
Are they making profits? YES How much do they make? Depends on website. I had a simple directory and made about 3-5usd a day on it. The bigger the directory, the more hits, the more clicks, the better the pay. Niche also plays a big role. Sports Directories will have low ppc as compared to mesothelioma which will have very high ppc. Mine was about 4-6cents/click.
For a fact, directories make much less than normal sites due to lack of content. With good placement you can make it work better...
Example: phplinkdir... How much can make by creating one phplinkdir... Example 2: self made a small dir
One of the worst from my experience. Games, Sports, Videos, Music related, and a few other things that are packed with websites tend to be low paying. Expect 1-5cents/click. Now if you have hosting, I think its worth it to make a directory. I have touched it like once since I made it and it makes me the money. Its easy free money. I'm going to make a few more and hopefully make more money
wikiindex directory does not make much money from adsense. I think because the requirements to run the mediawiki website is high and the server maintanence is much higher then the adsense revenue. IMO, I would never start a link directory unless I required submitters to introduce their websites.
It is a mith to make money with Adsense on directories. people who visit directories are web masters they just go and submit their site. And will never come back again. To make money the best way is to 1) sell links. -- Google don't want you to make money that way. They just want you to use the space for Adsense and they want the ones who want to buy links to use AdWords. -- Read about that on this forum. (They don't like link selling and link buying) 2) Selling Sponsored links -- As of now this is open. Google did not get any idea on how they want to use this so, for now you can sell Sponsored links. -- Buyers want your site to be PR5 or PR6 to buy sponsored links So, run the site free until you get a good PR and then hopefully you can sell Sponsored links. (if Google don't find any idea on how to control that) Note: My PR3 Free directory with 1000 to 1300 uniqe visitors make me any where between $0.00 to $1.50 a day. Most of the time close to the first figure. Very rarely close the second figure. (3 clicks * $0.10 is very normal) This is truth and Oh, the guys who submit links want them to be approved immediately. -- 50% of sites are not approvable. Thanks Thanks
I'd say for adsense to work on a directory you need: 1) decent targeted traffic 2) adsense blended into the internal links 3) a niche that has high paying ads for products related to your directory 4) a LOT of links submitted to the directory 1 is the hardest element - directories are tough to drive organic traffic to other than from webmasters looking to submit - who tend to be more ad-blind than your average surfer.
I had a niched directory inwhich I showed the ads...the ctr was extremely low.. .but that traffic was not that great either.
Thanks for the info. agree "directories are tough to drive organic traffic to other than from webmasters looking to submit"
Directories are not that good for Adsense, compared with almost any other kind of website (within the TOS, of course). Directories generally just don't have the right kind of content to make it work well.