yep, I agree. it depends on whether it's general or niche. niche directories get quite a bit of targeted traffic.
It's realistic with plenty of the right sort of traffic, and in the right sort of niche. But if you're concerned with making money from Adsense, directories are probably not the way to go. Since webmasters don't click on Adsense often, a proportion of your traffic will not be from people who will earn you any money.
directories are mostly visited by webmasters who as !ask! said are "blind" to all type of ad schemes, let alone adsense. i personally dont bother with any ad schemes on my directories.
On a paid directory adsense is really a turn down; it’s stilling clicks from the listings. I run this directory and don’t have any form of advertising besides the listings, and this reflects on more hits to the sites listed.
I only make a few cents daily with each directory I own. Adsense just don't do well with directories.
My new directory gives me 15-20 cents with 6-7 clicks daily and its likely to increase when i get the traffic coming in, as its new and under the development stages so AdSense isnt doing well too but its likely to increase once its gets the traffic.
Have to agree with the majority here, I removed Adsense from my directory and now only offer my own links. Much better conversion now.
We agree with your comments ! Ask ! we just took out adsense from one of our other directories about 2 weeks ago, we were making money, but we did not consider that it was an 'added value feature' for our clients
I think the beauty of the niche is that you get less of the adsense-blind webmasters that !ask! has mentioned, whilst also getting the higher paying keywords and targeted traffic because your site is better optimised for the industry that it represents.
I'd have to agree on this. When in search for a niche specific topic, the end users are more focused on what they see in terms of keywords towards their search. If the links possess the key term, I'm pretty sure they aren't afraid to click on it, or are thinking to themselves; 'self..this is an ad, don't click on it'. They're clickity clank happy and just want results.