Google AdSense Program Review

Google AdSense, Google's advertising program that lets webmasters display ads from Google's extensive list of advertisers, has taken the Internet by storm. Through this successful program, unobtrusive text-based ads are served in member sites, who then earn a commission every time someone clicks on the advertisers' links.

At this point in time, the jury is still out on whether this program will continue to enjoy its initial success. That is why, through this article, we want to give you some highlights and insights on how the Google Adsense program has worked for us, one month after we signed up for it, so that we can use it as a checkpoint for future analysis.

Generate revenue from your website. Google AdSense.

Why is Google AdSense so Popular?

Google AdSense uses Google's proprietary PageRank™ search technology to deliver ads that are highly relevant to the content of a page. Google's engine will scan through the content of the page to determine its topic, and will then serve ads that are relevant to the page's content.

Running Google AdSense is simple and straightforward: Google gives you a snippet of HTML code that you can paste in the desired location on your page, and the ads start appearing immediately after you upload the changes to your server.

However, Google AdSense's main claim to fame is that, by displaying text-based ads, it is able to deliver much higher click-through rates than traditional graphic banner ads. As usability studies have widely shown, users are already conditioned to ignore banner ads (or anything else that looks like them). As a result, banner ad click-through rates have dropped below a dismal 0.5% (in other words, it takes 200 page views, on average, to get someone to click on a banner ad).

By using text based ads instead of graphic banners, Google has been able to overcome banner ad blindness, delivering click-through rates that are much higher than the industry's average (some put the figure around the 1.5% mark).

This site recommends Google AdSense for targeted ads

How much can you expect to earn by running Google Ads on your site?

The pay-off per click varies widely depending on what each advertiser decides to offer, based on the profitability of their products and their expected conversion rate (percentage of clicks that deliver a sale). Google is not saying what the average pay-off is nor how does it share the revenue per click with their AdSense partners, but how much you will earn per click will really depends on the topic and the product being advertised. Products with profit margins of $3.00 for the advertiser will probably give you a smaller pay-off per click than a product with a $300 profit margin. Similarly, ads with high conversion rates will normally give you higher payouts than less effective ads, since they can afford to pay more dollars per click, with a portion of that money going to you.

So, just for the sake of giving an example, lets say that your site receives 1,000 page views per day. At a 1.0% click-through rate and $0.50 pay-off per click to you, in a 30-day month you can expect to make:

1,000 x 30 x 1.0% x $0.50 = $150

The more traffic your site has, the more clicks (and the larger the pay-off) you will get.

Will Google's AdSense continue to be successful?

This is the big question, and nobody has a definite answer yet.

On the downside:

• The program will most likely face strong competition from other search engines in the near future.
• The proliferation of text based ads could make users "text-ad blind" the same way as they have already become "banner-ad blind", causing click-through rates to drop.
• There is always the potential for abuse, since some unscrupulous program members may violate the program's rules and click on their own ads, inflating the advertisers' click-through rate and forcing them to decrease their pay-off per click.

On the positive side, I believe that Google AdSense's success is not only due to the fact that they deliver text based ads instead of banners, but because those ads are served by Google. The credibility and brand equity that Google enjoys is huge, and I expect them to continue to beat other search engines and advertising networks that may eventually jump on the bandwagon.

However, it is reasonable to expect at least a slight decrease in click-through rates and pay-off as a result of the increased competition.

For tips and tricks on how to maximize the return of your AdSense program, you can read The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense, by William Charlwood, the complete step by step road map for making and maximising your income from Google's AdSense program.

Introducing Google AdSense

A few months ago, Google began distribution of the AdWords advertisements that are normally found at the right side of their search results (for more on AdWords, see http://adwords.google.com). This distribution was based on CPM rates, and was limited to sites that served more than 20 million impressions a month, along with ad networks like Burst!Media, TribalFusion, and Fastclick.

Last week, Google launched a new service called AdSense, which expanded on this distribution program and made it more accessible to smaller publishers.

This new program differs from what is now “AdSense Premium”, in that it is CPC based and, for the time being, offers less flexibility in terms of ad sizes -- only banners and skyscrapers are currently available. Publishers can apply using their existing AdWords accounts, or may request a new account. Applicants are usually notified within a day as to whether they’ve been accepted for the program.

There are no strict criteria for acceptance into the AdSense program, which, unlike other ad networks, does not place minimum traffic requirements on applicants. The only real criteria are the standard “acceptable content” requirements that exist just about everywhere. Of course, AdSense wants to attract quality content sites, and will only allow AdSense members to serve one ad per page – the service can’t be used for both banners and skyscrapers.

Once you’ve been accepted, you’ll be able to run AdSense advertisements on any site you own using the same ad code, provided you obey the guidelines. Reporting doesn’t occur in real time, but is updated regularly throughout the day. Currently, you cannot view reports based on a domain or site basis if you run the ads on more than one site. Google has published a very lengthy and detailed FAQ on the AdSense site, and if you’re thinking about signing up, you should definitely read it.
How Does The Targeting Work?

Google uses its search engine ranking technology to decide which ads to show on your site, and on specific pages of your site. For instance, on a Webmaster site, an article about Flash might be accompanied by an ad for Macromedia products, while an article about Web hosting might show an ad from a hosting company. This type of targeting is very effective, and results in good click-through rates in most circumstances.

However, this type of targeting isn’t perfect. One key issue with the system is that Google seems to be doing very little in the way of ad rotation. If a certain ad is highly targeted to your content, it might be shown every time. This means that if you attract a large number of return visitors, or generate a high number of page views per visitor, you may experience declining click-through rates on the ads over time.

Another issue is that Google targets the ads based on your site’s content, not your visitor’s desires. The difference between the two might not be readily apparent, but it can have a significant impact on clickthrough rates.

For instance, I run a literature site that provides information on classic books and authors. Google will analyze my content and serve advertisements they see as being appropriate. For instance, on my Shakespeare page users may see ads for Shakespeare audio books or limited edition prints. The problem with this is that while those ads fit my content, they do not fit my visitors. Most of my visitors are students doing research and they simply aren’t interested in buying those types of products. In contrast, advertisements for essay or other homework assistance services do very well on that site. But unless an essay site owner specifically selects a keyword like “Shakespeare” in their AdWords account, visitors to my site will not see any essay advertisements.

In pondering this situation I was reminded of a company called TeknoSurf Adwave, who eventually turned into Advertising.com. Their original claim to fame was that they were a CPC-only ad network. Yet they took the time to identify the banners that performed well on each site, and optimize the ads they served. This proved very successful – members enjoyed clickthrough rates high enough to generate an effective CPM. Indeed, the company’s figures were usually comparable to, or better than, the CPM rates offered by many other ad networks.

If Google could implement a similar system, it could greatly increase the effectiveness of their AdSense program. However, a hurdle to implementing this kind of system is that, currently, AdWords advertisers specifically select keywords under which they want ads to be served. For Google to implement TeknoSurf-style targeting, it would have to allow AdWords advertisers to opt into a program in which Google could place ads on the basis of what had been proven as the most effective keywords for that advertiser’s product.

In this situation, if an advertiser served essay advertisements based on the “Shakespeare” keyword, and those ads did very well on my site, Google would remember this. The system would automatically compare the text of that ad to the text of other AdWords ads, it would run similar ads on my site, and it would track the results to see how they ads performed. In this way, Google would constantly be learning what types of ads performed well on members’ sites and what ads didn’t. After publishers had used the service for a while, the program would be able to serve ads that were tailored to publisher sites’ visitors, rather than their content. Thus, CTR rates would improve, both Google and the publishers would make more money, and the advertisers would attract more targeted traffic.
How Much Can You Make?

The amount of money you can make with Google AdSense depends entirely upon the niche your Website fills. For instance, a site about men’s health can make a killing on AdSense because of the high level of competition for related keywords. The CPC rates for competitive keywords can exceed $1, which translates directly to your site’s earning potential within the program. Of course, if you’re in a less competitive niche, you’ll make less money. Still, I haven’t seen anyone report earnings less than an effective $1 CPM, and the average seems to be more along the lines of $4-$5 CPM. Some people are making an effective CPM of $15 or more with this program. And all these figures reflect what the site owner receives after Google takes its commission.

Commission is definitely one thing is that’s up in the air with AdSense. Google doesn’t publish the percentage it takes as a “cut”, and only displays the publisher’s cut in member reports. So far, comparisons of AdWords rates with AdSense earnings have produced commission estimates between 40% and 60%. Why Google refuses to publish its commission rates is unknown. It could be for legal reasons arising from the contracts the business has with premium distribution partners, or it could simply be that Google wants the ability to change rates without having to explicitly announce those changes.

So far, most members report steady declines in earnings each day. This could be a result of the issues I mentioned above, including the lack of ad rotation. However, Google will likely implement changes to increase the program’s effectiveness in future, so this phenomenon is likely to be temporary.
Looking to the Future

Currently, the online ad market is in a fairly dismal state. Though it has recovered somewhat from lows experienced after the collapse in 1999, Web advertising is still very much a buyer’s market. This is not because online advertising doesn’t work – it’s because people either do not understand how it works, or don’t know how to make it work.

One other reason is that advertising has traditionally been the realm of big publishers and big companies. Ad networks have changed this structure, and allow small publishers to display ads from big companies. However, due to the large minimum buys imposed by ad networks, most small companies have been limited to PPC search engine advertising. Google AdSense takes the PPC search engine model and allows small publishers to benefit from it. Now, for the first time, small companies can easily advertise with small publishers.

The implications of this are far-reaching. Currently, many advertisers will design low-CTR banners and pay CPC rates on them, or design high-CTR banners and pay low CPM rates on them. The end result is that the advertiser enjoys the benefits of either cheap branding or cheap traffic, and the publisher earns much less than they should. With AdSense, many publishers will likely end up abandoning low-paying ad networks, as AdSense ads are more lucrative and less annoying to visitors. This means that ad networks may end up with less available inventory and they will either fail, or end up having to charge more in order to compete with AdSense. Eventually, it’s likely that advertisers will be forced to pay a premium to run graphic advertisements that are more intrusive than the simple text ads Google offers.

Google generally has the public’s goodwill, and as these ads are provided by Google (and are clearly marked as such), the public will likely be more accepting of the advertisements. The current anti-ad attitude that pervades many aspects of society may be lessened by these types of ads.

All in all, Google’s new program is good for publishers and the Internet advertising industry as a whole. Even if you choose not to run Google’s ads, the ripple effect of their introduction may mean higher rates for the ads you do choose to run.

Google AdSense Expands Contextual Ad Placement Program To Small Sites

Google has expanded its contextual ads program to allow many more content sites to carry its paid listings. The new Google AdSense program allows site owners to sign-up for the program in a self-serve manner, similar to becoming an Amazon affiliate.

Google's contextual ads program, Google Content-Targeted Advertising, was officially launched in March. In the program, Google negotiated deals with large web sites to integrate its paid listings into their web pages. Smaller web sites were not able to take part.

"When we rolled out content ads a couple months ago, we had set a threshold of 20 million page views per month for web sites we'd consider for the current program," said Susan Wojcicki, director of product management for Google's ad syndication programs. "We found there are huge number of very high quality web sites that did not meet that threshold."

The new AdSense program corrects this. It allows any site to apply, even those with only a few thousand page views per month.

"We built an online automated way for web sites to come to Google, sign-up and apply to be accepted into our network," Wojcicki said. "This program will be a way for web sites to earn money by putting ads on their pages."

Those accepted into the program simply insert some short JavaScript code into their web pages. In response, Google will deliver a banner or skyscraper-sized ad module filled containing paid listings.

While the program opens the doors to many more sites than before, not all will be accepted. Google will review the sites to ensure that they meet certain program policies. Among those not eligible are sites that include content about drugs, pornography or gambling.
Google Ads & Blogs

The program policies do not allow "personal pages" to take part. What's a personal page? This isn't defined. However, a traditional personal home page listing things like interests or family news certainly wouldn't be eligible. Similarly, some blogs may find themselves rejected, under this rule.

"In general, we're looking for at this stage web sites with more standardized content," Wojcicki said. "Blogs are an example of a gray area, and we will review them on a case-by-case basis to see if they fit our network."

This will be a difficult area for Google, because blogging tools aren't just used by those wishing to express personal views. Some use them simply because they are an easier way to publish a web site focused on a particular topic.

Gary Price's great search and research site, ResourceShelf, is an example of this. Gary moved to using the Blogger.com tool, now owned by Google, not out of great love to be blogging but because it was an efficient way to publish his content, he has told me in the past.

ResourceShelf is so tightly focused around a particular topic that it should be a natural for Google's program. But how about blogger Jeremy Zawodny's site?

Zawodny has a section of his blog archives that are specifically about Linux, which might be perfect for ads about Linux (should he wish to carry them). However, the home page of his blog is far more diverse, such as including a post (at the moment) about determining the optimal temperature for Heineken beer. Not exactly the standardized content Google wants.

Why even care about standardized content? Google's contextual technology automatically delivers paid listings that are deemed relevant to a page, based on that page's content. So, a blog that covers a wide variety of topics may be difficult to target.

For example, the jimpunk blog is about, well, a lot of pictures that have no apparent theme to me. But since this is a site making use of the free Blogger service, it already carries Google's contextual ads. This was done as part of the initial Google rollout of its contextual program.

What are the ads about? Buying "Iraqi Most Wanted Cards." Why? There's a part of the page that flows an article across the page that appears to be about the Iraqi conflict. As best I can tell, this may be what's causing Google to make the bad guess that ads for "Most Wanted" cards might be relevant to this page.
Helping The Web, But...

Google makes the pitch that its ad program should be a boon to everyone who uses the web, since the revenue will help publishers keep making good content for users.

"From the user standpoint, this will be good. No only will it fund quality publishers to produce quality content, it will also produce a better user experience, because they'll be able to see ads that are related to the content," Wojcicki said.

An excellent recent article from Business 2.0 explores in more depth the idea of contextual ads as helping support good web content. It's an idea I buy into. When I got involved with building web sites back in 1995, I always hoped there would be a way to connect those with good content with advertisers to fund their work. Google's program certainly will help with this.

Nevertheless, one major downside remains to the expansion of Google's contextual ad program. It leaves the company even more vulnerable to accusations that it may favor sites carrying its ads in its search results, as I explained when the program first announced.

At that time, Google denied that this would happen. The company has even added a FAQ answer denying it. And Google cofounder Larry Page reemphasized this last month, when I spoke with him about the issue.

"That's not something we would ever consider doing. We wouldn't bias our search results based on the monetary relationships we have with people," he said. "It would be sort of dumb for us from an economic perspective. Let's make a little bit more money and in return get everyone in the world upset."

Directory submission helps your website exposure.

Your website can be on top and even reach the rank that you’ve wanted, by promoting it into different directories, to get listed into search engines.

Many webmaster in today’s market are doing different tricks just to be on top, they we’re doing this to get listed on different Search Engines. As a marketer you have to be aware on what are the different strategies to keep your website on top on different search engines. You have to familiarize what are the things that can help you to reach the top and get your targeted keywords.

So why does submitting your website into directories can help your website rankings? As a webmaster you must know the importance of search engines, and you can only achieve the good visibility in search engine through promoting it into different directories. There are so many directory submission services that lurking around the World Wide Web, even FREE or not, the important is make it sure that your website is promoted properly.

There are thousand of businesses competing on your specific targeted keyword, and the easiest way to conquer your targeted keyword is by submitting your website into directories for high possibility of exposure.

How to increase your Adsense Revenue

Many webmasters are digging their wealth through google adsense, and there are lots of people trying their own way to get into adsense for their living. There are tons of strategies where you can use to increase your income and make a stable income from google adsense.

1. Boost your content – You must maintain your pages with fresh content and regular updates particularly all articles and information needs to be up to date. One of the most effective way of increasing your content and drive traffic to website is by writing an articles and ofcourse don’t forget to include adsense ads on every pages of your website as well. If you can’t write an article, there’s no problem ‘cause there are lots of free articles out there where you can publish on your webpage, just to make sure to leave some credentials where you found the articles and about the writer of it.

2. Customizing your ad placement. Google has different layout of ads that fits with your webpage, just look for something that fits with the layout of your page and experiment it by changing the background color; ie: if your webpage’s background color is blue try to change the adsense background with blue. And place your ads to a place where you think it will be easily notice by your audience.

3. Always consider your keyword. Keywords take a best part on every pages of your website. You must look for the keywords where you think you can compete with others. If you want to be easily get rank on your targeted keywords, you must look for the keyword that you think has a less competency, and don’t go for a keyword that has millions of competitions.

AdSense profits may vary from month to month and you will even hear stories of people making a living off of Adsense. You must work hard to have an stable income from adsense and do some strategies to make you wealth.

Driving up placement targeting earnings

Carsurvey.org is a car review website published by CSDO Media Limited. Initially inspired by some of the earliest experiments in user-generated reviews, the site now hosts almost 100,000 English-language car reviews submitted by visitors from across the globe.

From 1997 to 2000, founder Steven Jackson ran the site as a hobby. However, the growing hosting costs became significant, so Steven opted to run ads to cover them. He joined the AdSense program and was impressed with the initial results, which were further improved by carefully optimising the location, colour and size of the ads. By 2005, the time demands of running a popular website while holding down a day job were no longer sustainable. The steady revenue from AdSense was a major factor in Steven's decision to leave his old career and devote himself full-time to running Carsurvey.org.


AdSense offered Steven many advantages. Its global reach matched Carsurvey.org's diverse user base, and the fact that it separated the selling of ad space from the management of the site was very important to maintaining the sites' independence and credibility. Steven says, "AdSense allows me to focus on running Carsurvey.org for visitors. As long as Carsurvey.org provides a useful service, AdSense helps pay the bills."

Ad placements

As a regular reader of Inside AdSense, Steven was quick to pick up on improvements to the custom channel feature, which allows advertisers to target specific site areas using ad placements. He updated his AdSense HTML code to highlight his site via ad placements and focused on the most important pages and locations within Carsurvey.org. This made the site more appealing to advertisers, as they could begin to target specific page locations and sections. In addition, it gave more prominence to Carsurvey.org in the AdWords site tool, as you can see in the image below.


Medium rectangles

In addition to implementing the ad placements, Steven also tried another AdSense optimisation tip and added more image-enabled 300x250 medium rectangle units to his site. Though initially skeptical, as using those units would mean both changing the page layout for all of Carsurvey.org and displaying fewer ads per page, Steven decided to give the change a try.

Accelerating revenue

The improvements were gradual at first, but soon Steven's revenue climbed as advertisers began targeting specific ad placements on Carsurvey.org, namely the new 300x250 units in prime locations. Within a few months, Steven saw his placement targeting revenue grow up to six times its previous level; it now represents 60-80% of his overall earnings.

"I can definitely recommend experimenting with the ad placements and image enabled ads, especially in the 300x250 and skyscraper formats recommended by Google. I thought Carsurvey.org was pretty well optimised, but this just shows that experimenting with AdSense ad placements and testing out new features can really pay off," says Steven.

Lucky number ten

Two weeks ago, we let you know that the PIN and phone verification processes would be automatically triggered at $10, rather than $50. Along those same lines, we've also updated how it works to choose a form of payment and enter tax information in your account. Because we don't pay out earnings of less than $10, you'll only be able to choose a form of payment and enter your tax info once your earnings reach $10. When you first sign up for AdSense and log in to your account, these options won't be available yet.

So when it comes to payments, consider 10 your new lucky number. Once you receive your PIN or a notice to verify your phone number, you'll know it's also time to head to your account and enter your tax information and select your form of payment. Then you'll be on your way to receiving your first payment -- lucky you!