This is a follow up to a post made in 2005, referenced at Problogger.net.
Google changed the way Adsense ads are clicked today and many are up in arms about it.
“Make money online” or pro-bloggers don’t use Google Adsense much. Why? Because it doesn’t work on these types of blogs. Guys like Shoemoney, John Chow, Zac Johnson and Problogger have found, and proven, that using Adsense on their blogs is a waste of time.
Yet… there is somehow some perpetual meme floating about that “Adsense makes everyone a ton of money”. I’m not sure how it got that way, but it’s reality. I’ve been talking about this for years. The truth is, bloggers don’t make money from Adsense.
The people who make money from Adsense are publishers of websites. Sites like:
AskDaveTaylor.com
or AsktheBuilder.com,
or Darren’s Digital Photography Blog.
Why do those sites make money with Adsense and regular type blogs don’t? Because they’re providing a different type of information, to a different audience.
AskDaveTaylor provides tech tips, but not to regular readers. His base is new traffic, found through organic search results based off of his excellent problem solving content. Same thing with AsktheBuilder.com. Therefore, when a new reader comes to the site, they’re looking for a solution to their problem, and when they see an ad (like Adsense) that is relevant and solves their problem, they usually click on it.
A blog’s readers are different. They are regular readers who have come to read what you have to say, not to have a problem solved, therefore, they’re not looking for a solution really, but instead just there to listen to you. This equals less clicks.
If you have a blog, chances are that Adsense isn’t going to make you any real money unless you’re doing millions of impressions a month. But if you are doing that, you should be selling your own sponsorship ads anyway :_)
I never made much from Adsense. I currently have Adsense on my blog but mainly as a placeholder when I get to the monetization stage of building my blog. Maybe a couple of years ago I would have made some money. But that time is done. Your post is so true.
Agreed *by personal experience)! Than what are the alternatives for us bloggers?
I use Adsense for my writing blog, which is very hard to monetize, and it serves me well. It’s not such a great performer for many of my other blogs, but for FWJ it brings in about 60% of my revenue – and it’s a pretty decent revenue at that.
So far I don’t know if it’s not as clickable. It started going down in the beginning of November but now it’s going back up again. I suppose time will tell.
It definitely depends on the blog though.
Your post is true. Now, I need to find other ways to monetize my blog… you have any suggestion?