In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, they quoted some analyst as saying the Google ad system is like crack to webmasters. This would be a good one to kick around the forum, here's some thought starters. To many it gives a euphoric feeling like no other. I suppose some get addicted to checking their stats. Does it effect some user's ability to function in other areas of life? Do we need a bigger and bigger fix over time (that first day's $0.76 wouldn't do much for me now)? Now I think the drug analogy falls down when you look at the cost since it should be positive rather than negative. And I also can't see anyone stealing anothers web site at gun point...but then again some do steal web content at mouse point.
The crack analogy fits for those that do not generate any or minimal revenue with their site(s). To be rewarded for their webmaster efforts by Google is a warm fuzzy wrapped in $$$$.
When you start you tend to dig a fairly deep hours/dollars hole. As your results improve that hole begins to fill in. Now I spend, maybe, an hour a day on my sites and make, between 20 and 40 a day. Add zeros to those numbers and you begin to see the addictive nature of AS.
I stopped playing addictive video games years ago. AdSense brought back that feeling of dependence on a computer algorithm. But, instead of buying games, I'm paid to play this one
As some have pointed out, you get paid for this crack, which is kind of cool. The crack analogy does fit, though, when you consider that I just spent the better part of my day ignoring my "real" job and futzing with my web site. Oh well, maybe I'll get some work done tomorrow.
Why would anyone want to associate something so negative with a constructive business activity??? No one wants to be addicted to crack because it provides almost 0 benefits. All you get is a good feeling. Almost any webmaster would love to be a part of Google's Adsense because... - the value of the website improves because it is at least Adsense acceptable - an opportunity to find out more about your users by looking at which advertisers are popular - a means to turn visitors into cash - more incentive to develop the website - motivation to learn more about other advertising options and so on. Adsense is good. Crack is bad.
It's crack. I spend most of the day and night trying to get a site with a PR of 0 to display adsense nicely. It will be months if I ever see any money for that. Meanwhile I have two outstanding support tickets, and a major program rewrite, waiting to be worked on. I could have made $600 easy with my eyes shut if I'd ignored the Adsense addiction. Meanwhile I should have gone to bed 4 hours ago.
I think the comparison was basically aimed at the addictiveness of it. How many of you don't check your Adsense earnings at least once every couple of hours? And that's not even to mention all the effort and time we all go through to optimize our layouts and generating traffic for increasing Adsense revenue. As an added benefit, once you get your cheque you can go around showing it to people and tell them you "work" for Google. (At least it's fun if people actually know who or what Google is)
^ haha I know what you mean, cause like when I go to the bank to cash my check , i cant wait to say "yeaaaaa I need to uh cash this $6xx check from google, thank you!!" start feelin a little bit like a high roller then lol
Well, let's see. At my current rate of earnings, I should have enough for them to cut me a check by late 2047. I'm so excited!!
Your site looks a lot better already but move that Adsense block out of your Work from Home block. Make it a block similar to Work from Home and Featured Article block. With a little traffic you can hit the magical $100 mark in a few weeks. Good job Adsense addicts!
Maybe we out to start a club; call it Adsense Addicts Anonymous. "adsenseaddicts.com" We could help each other break free. 1) lesson one: make the SEO use dialup. 2) no starbucks 3) no lap-top 4) no cell D
If you run Firefox, get the adsense notifier and your updated stats appear constantly in the status bar.
I have joined recently and earn about a buck a day as mine is a commercial website and I allow only those ads which do not affect my bussiness directly also I have not put too many ads on most pages. I intend to inc or like to earn upto 10$ a day, but since I am from India it helps that I straightaway can multiply my earnings x 45 as that is how much a $ is valued in Rupees, the Indian currency. Anand