I have heard adsense is the best and easiest way to monetize a website/blog, but I've heard people also have run into some shady problems. I saw this posted at another website and I'm wondering if anyone has run into similar problems. Like 1) Customer Service which doesn't exist whether you having a technical problem or payment isn't arriving - you have to use their forum or try to contact them through their contact form. 2) Contextual Ads really? - a lot of times and on a lot of sites the ads aren't really all that great at matching the content. You'll still see ads for random products like automotive supplies being shown on a site about crackers or biscuits. It's not limited to just badly designed sites. 3) No Transparency - if you get banned, you're out. Very unlikely you're getting back in - because of #1 - no way to get in real contact with them. 4) Top Cutting - google takes an unlisted commission, because they don't list it - it means they can take however much they want in the future. with the recession - they're taking a bigger slice, advertisers are still paying say $5.00 but instead of getting a 75% commission say 2 years ago - you could be getting a measly 10% with the rest going to Google. Because they don't list the rate, there's no stopping how much they take. 5) Bait and Kick - new to adsense? maybe you spend 3 years to reach payout - and when you finally do, you get kicked out for fraud. It doesn't matter whether someone clicked your ads 500 times or whether they think your site may be a "threat to advertisers" - there's no customer service #1, no tranparency #3 and they still need to scrape more money - so goodbye earnings. Smaller publishers get the boot to make up for their own losses.