Is AdSense still relevant?

11 Dec

Posted by Dom

I’ve been using Google AdSense for over 4 years now, and during that time I’ve earned over $50,000 from it.

But for the past couple of years, I’ve never really recommended it to other people.

My main issue has always been a lack of transparency from Google. Publishers don’t know what percentage of revenue they’re getting or if Google is reporting accurately. Google often implement far reaching changes to AdSense without getting feedback from publishers. And then there’s the fact that Google is just getting too big for a lot of people.

As a result, I’ve been gradually moving away from using AdSense on my sites over the last couple of years. Where I have used them, I’ve treated them as “placeholder” ads – something to fill the space until something better comes along.

But lately I’ve seen a bit of a change – for the better. Improved earnings and better quality ads mean I’m earning more from AdSense (on a eCPM basis) than ever before. In fact, my current eCPM is about twice what it was a year ago.

I put this down to a number of factors, including:

Google reacting to increased competition from new ad networks.
Advertisers reacting positively to Google’s recent changes in ad clickability.

So, in answer to the question “Is AdSense still relevant?”, my answer has to be a resounding “Absolutely!”.

If you’ve never tried AdSense on your site, or even if you just haven’t used it for a couple of years, now (Christmas shopping season!) would be a great time to try it.

8 Responses

Nelson

December 11th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
1

In my opinion adsense is still the better program at least for portuguese people like me.
Azrael

December 12th, 2007 at 10:11 am
2

I don’t like adsense since it has a high payout. I am still going for adbrite.
Dom

December 12th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
3

You don’t like it because it pays more?
Sammy

December 18th, 2007 at 9:17 am
4

I tried adsence on my website hoping to make 200.000 dolars a month from it and shar the profit with the subscribers but i m not getting but few pennies a day from it.
Llama Money

December 18th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
5

Dom: I think Azrael means the minimum payout is too high for him.
Personally I think Adsense is much worse than it used to be, but unfortunately still the best option for most folks.
Dom

December 19th, 2007 at 1:05 am
6

Llama: Ah yes, you could be right! Personally, I think you should look on that minimum payout as an incentive to see what YOU can do to increase your earnings.

I’ve also just gone back and checked my own stats. When I started out, it took me 4 months to make that first $100, but in the 5th month alone, I made $200. Also, my CPM back then was $1.33 – it’s currently about $3 across all my sites.

It’s possible that AdSense isn’t paying as much as it used to (we’ll probably never know), but with careful tweaks over time you can more than compensate for that anyway.
Goran

December 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
7

I we earned nothing in 4 months, but with a little HELP PLEASE maybe will come something out of it. What do you think?
rirlGragnip

November 25th, 2009 at 1:36 am
8

Oh my god enjoyed reading this post. I added your feed to my blogreader.

Is AdSense still relevant?

8 Responses

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