OH ME ME ME! I'm earning about 2.5million per month.... Who can beat me huh?!?! But seriously... Obviously the bigger websites out there are making the most.... isn't this an obvious answer?
http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/the-internets-biggest-google-whores/ 1: Markus Frind: PlentyOfFish.com - $300,000 per month 2: Kevin Rose: Digg.com - $250,000 per month 3: Jeremy Schoemaker - $140,000 per month 4: Jason Calacanis: Weblogs, Inc. - $120,000 per month 5: David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard - $100,000 per month 6: Tim Carter: AskTheBuilder.com - $30,000 per month 7: Joel Comm - $24,000 per month 8: Shawn Hogan – DigitalPoint.com $10,000 per month
woot digitalpoint is number 8! he would of probably rose up the ranks if he didnt put the adsense revenue sharing, but then, he wouldnt get as much posts..
I think what Shawn did with the revenue sharing thing was very clever. It generates more revenue in the future.
besides individuals... i bet ask.com and about.com make the most on adsense. i'm trying to find something that might back this up..
I know a few people that do the arbitrage thing but it takes some work. One of the big things now is putting up mini sites and placing little ad's in 'thrifty nickel' type of papers. If you work it you can make a few K a month, unfortunately I have a full time job.
google don't count - they make money on adwords and pay out on adsense! I think firefox might be the biggest earner http://www.calacanis.com/2006/03/06/firefox-mozilla-corporation-mozilla-foundation-made-72m-last/ but I'm not sure it counts as adsense earnings
Wasn't it found out that PlentyOfFish.com wasn't making that much each month? He did it as an advertising ploy? That's what I remember hearing atleast.
Its practically impossible to know unless they stated. The list provided above could be a good benchmark.