Is Google AdSense Dead?

Sep 21 2008

There’s been a lot of buzz around the Web recently about AdSense and how people aren’t making much money with the program anymore.

I’m not really sure where this noise is coming from.

Yes, many people have reported their earnings have dropped this year, but it’s still a great monetization option for many sites and blogs.

I personally think “dead” is too strong of a word.

I certainly prefer AdSense over many of the other CPC programs available (Kontera, AdBrite, etc.), and have no plans of dropping them anytime soon.

Watch the video below for my view of the current state of AdSense.

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23 Responses

Mike@EasyGreensy

September 21st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
1

Sniff, sniff. The video is gone.
lisa

September 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
2

It’s up. I had it set to private by accident. Sorry.
Mike@EasyGreensy

September 21st, 2008 at 8:50 pm
3

Thanks Lisa,

I’m with you 100%. The bottom line is: “Your results will vary.”

I have sites with low traffic, high click through, High traffic, almost zero clicks and it’s amazing how much variance there is in payouts.

Experimenting with ads helps too (when done properly), but Adsense is not dead.
james

September 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
4

Let’s see… 35,000 page views a day. Earnings from Adsense running at 6 / 7 dollars a day (average)! CPM was stable from when I signed up in the start of 2005 to 2007 when it suddenly fell by a third. CPM fell by a third again uniformly last week and is now less than half what it was a year ago.

Sell an advert on the front page myself which gets 80,000 page views a month for $300. Earnings from Adsense this month = $200ish on 1 million page views.

Earnings from individually sold adverts total $1,400 dollars on 190,000 page views because we have a little thing called prestige. Furthermore, one advertiser paid me an extra $250 just to remove their rival from Adsense on our website! Another company is paying me $900 per job (these are $100,000 salaries jobs) we list that they have!

Conclusion = Adsense grossly undercharges for quality sites where advertisers will pay more. Webmasters of medium sized websites are unable to set the CPM and screwed as a result by being competitively priced down to the same level as crappy unread blogs.
lisa

September 21st, 2008 at 10:45 pm
5

Wow James, I gotta say that’s one of the worst AdSense stories I’ve heard from a site with your kind of traffic. With 35,000 page views per day one would think you’d do better than $6-7 dollars per day!
james

September 21st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
6

When we were getting say… 20,000 page views a day 18 months ago we were taking $35 a day which is still pretty rubbish. The PRs have us lumped in with the industry magazines, I can see from who gets emailed press releases this is the case, but Adsense doesn’t know these things so you have a highly professional site, well regarded, aimed at industry professionals and it couldn’t care less.
To give you another example of how Adsense does not relate to the reality of the site’s success, we have a branded section in a news stand magazine in the UK (circulation roughly 20,000 a month) that they have syndicated from the website. Basically, they republish a selection of our news stories in addition to a news section of their own! Do you know any other websites that have done something like that?
I wouldn’t really care as we do fine from affiliates except I logged into Adsense earlier and saw the CPM had dropped again. It was peanuts before but I am angry at how rubbish it is now. It takes a large amount of the screen up relative to the return and the only people who benefit are Google and the advertisers who undercut the rates they should be paying.
Adsense does not compute.
David

September 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
7

Hi Lisa!!!

I absolutely LOVE your website and you’re an inspiration! I wanted to ask a question concerning online businesses. I hope its not too off topic…once you have a niche for an on-line business, do you to need to Incorporate or create a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or in someway legally create your company to pay taxes and protect your company once you’re making money?

I’m asking because I’d really like to start an online business yet website builder’s don’t mention legalizing your business with the government.

Thank you in advance for your response!
lisa

September 24th, 2008 at 12:44 am
8

Thanks David, Yeah a bit off topic from this post but I’ll letcha slide. See my other site for that answer….
http://www.2planawebsite.com/payments/paying-taxes.html
toto

September 24th, 2008 at 1:38 am
9

good work!
University Princess

September 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
10

Am I the only one speculating that it might be the economy?

I noticed that my earnings took a nosedive (13 cents for 13 clicks consistently, it seemed) just around the time they started throwing the “R” word around.

The way PPC advertising works, if I am not mistaken, is that people bid on keywords, the more expensive the keyword, the more you get each time someone clicks a link relating to that keyword, if I’m not mistaken.

But like all things in life, it’s only worth what you’ll pay for it–or if you even CAN pay for it.

People have less money - people bid less for keywords - internets makes less monies D=

Right?
lisa

September 24th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
11

University Princess, I mentioned this very point in the opening minute or two of the video. The economy definitely plays a role but if you have a lot of traffic you can still generate a good income — even in a sagging economy.
University Princess

September 26th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
12

HAHA, watch the video, DUR! -hits self in the forehead-

I just saw that and was like, awww, maaan!

My apologies, when I commented I was in class, so I had to save the video for later. ^_______________^
Mike

September 27th, 2008 at 7:39 am
13

AdSense most certainly is not dead. Like everything else, it takes some work and effort to maintain your income from Adsense. Sure, gone are the days that people blindly click on ads to try to find the next site that they are going to visit… but that does not mean that with the right ad being displayed to the right person at the right time that they are not going to click it.

Like everything else in our fast paced world of internet marketing, AdSense too takes some effort in getting just the right ads seen by your visitors.
zawadi

September 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am
14

Thanks fo that video Lisa. I am working on transitioning from Blogger to my own Domain and Paid Hosting in a couple of weeks and your site is very helpful.
BloggerNewbie

October 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
15

I don’t see any adsense ads?
lisa

October 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
16

BloggerNewbie, I don’t use it on my blog. Only on my websites.
Jennifer Kilkenny

October 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
17

That’s a relief. I know that personally, as a web designer, I avoid clicking on the adsense ads, so I always wonder if your average web site visitor still click on those links. Glad to know it’s still a profitable endeavor.
Paul

October 16th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
18

Adsense is NOT dead…If anything the revenue is increasing on my sites. As long as you provide good content and consistently add new information for your visitors and subscribers you should see an increase in revenue from adsense.
Paul
Sunny kapoor

October 20th, 2008 at 8:20 am
19

I agree with Paul. Adsense is not dead but in this time of year when financial crisis are going on, people wants to make quick money and usually gettrapped into false “get quick rich programs” showing false Adsense statement proofs.
I have posted a video in my blog it is an eye opener, a little JavaScript can turn $0 earnings to $24,900 earnings of adsense
Click on my name to find out
Josefina Hart

October 26th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
20

I have been try to set up adsense in my website and i don’t know what happen it doesnt show me the adds.
Please i need help.
Josie
SEO Binh Nguyen

November 7th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
21

My Adsense earning on my main blog has been dropped to $0/day. That’s none of my concern because I make money using other blogs/sites.

What I’ve noticed so far is that the earning / click is dropping everyday. I mean it, everyday. At first I was getting up to $2 for some clicks. And now… 25 cents is lucky. I’m talking about the same niche and exactly the same pages.

I do notice the CTR is good for some placement though.

I agree with you, AdSense is not dead. It’s just being … more greedy for Google.
William

November 11th, 2008 at 1:57 am
22

Holy smoke ! Thank you, Sunny Kapoor for the video on the Fraud Adsense Earnings via your link.

I was wondering if you could point me a way to download this video for my blog and website.

Thanks,

William
vinny28

November 13th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
23

Im a newbie when it comes to adsense but i would suspect a big reason for clicks being down is the economy. I’m sure if your site is straight that you could still generate some sort of income.