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How did I earn...
Adsense: Does it still make sense? Or is it really just a scam?
By now many readers must be familiar with the Adsense by Google Program. I’ve been with the program for over 3 years. During those 3 years, I have only received 2 checks from them.
I enjoyed the ease with which it is possible to set up Adsense and actually use it. I particularly benefitted because it allowed me to pay for my hosting costs with a little left over. My websites aren’t particularly highly trafficked, but the traffic I do get tends to be highly focused, so I achieve decent click through rates on advertisements. But it took me a long time to build up the traffic, so it was nearly 13 months before I qualified for a minimum payment! The second payment came in less than a year. Currently things are getting better still, as I learn how to tweak the placement, generate traffic, and build content. In fact, I just qualified for another payment! Cool. Don’t know when the check will get here, but it should be within 2 months.
I’m quite concerned over bloggers losing their Adsense Accounts to click fraud. In fact over the last week, I’ve seen two bloggers (Kumiko’s Make Money Online Blog and LegalAndrew’s Blog) lose their Adsense accounts, and neither of the blogs seems particularly the kind of fraudulent website that seems to persist. For more information on regaining your account, Stason.org has a great article, called How to Bring Google Adsense Down.
And so I wonder, as they must, why Google seems to take action against these websites, but leaves the splog around. In fact, quite a few of the sploggers delight in joining forums and blogs like this to leave their trash. Naturally, they don’t last long enough to do much here. But still, how is it that Google seems to take these actions when thousands of splogs openly flout the rules? Or is that just an impression, since those who are splogs don’t openly complain? Does Google now need more legal oversight, or are Adsense lawsuits just around the corner, too? At the moment, I’m weighing my options on Adsense on whether I should include them on this blog or not. I’m still undecided.
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17 Responses to “Adsense: Does it still make sense? Or is it really just a scam?”
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I enjoyed reading your blog. I’ve bookmarked your blog.
Thanks for the compliment. Duly noted.
Thanks for the comment on my Flickr post. I am still trying to figure out how it works.
I forgot to ask, did you ever get a chance to link my blog?
It seems that adsense is not that good. Bloggers see adsense ads in all blogs and I guess they are not interested in them anymore.
This is my opinion of course.
Well, a certain blindness is inherent in ads these days, but the ads I don’t like the most are the businessweek ads which flash and are placed right up against the text of the articles, so that you can’t NOT click on them, really.
Google has outlawed that technique now in some ways.
[...] 10% Adsense: Does it still make sense? Or is it really just a scam? [...]
I am glad that someone is making some money on Adsense. I think I have had it on my blog over a year and have made all of $12. LOL
That’s awful, Google can be very weird about banning Adsense accounts.
I wish they would disclose more information so more people could avoid future attacks.
Hey, nice blog by the way. Glad I stopped by.
Yep. I’ve received one or two warning notices, but I took immediate action to remedy the situation. Wrote back promptly, removed the offending ads. It seems to have worked. I also keep them uptodate about any mistaken clicks I make while working on the website …
Haven’t had any recent problems. Fingers crossed.
Do hope you can stop by again!
Kenneth
Hi, Nice article. I put up a blog of my own very recently and was wondering what the best placement for Google Ads would be? I placed them between the articles (at the top and bottom) but where do you think is the best place for these. I am also open to suggestions on other ad networks if you know of any.
Asela
Thanks, Asela, most people put them in posts these days… I don’t want to do that yet, but if Adsense doesn’t pick up soon, I may do. Search my blog for Adbrite (sucks badly) and Text Links (really good).
Kenneth
Thanks for the tip, I will look into it.
[...] it’s time for June results, and there printed below.: Payperpost: $91.10 Google : $7.00 SR/ReviewME/Other : $37.05 Adlinks : $38.39 Stocks: $72.69 Hosting : $107.40 Bank A/C [...]
[...] to August’s income: Payperpost: $84.81 Google : $4.45 SR/ReviewME/Other : $68.63 Adlinks : $60.89 Stocks: $75.46 Hosting : $0.00 Bank A/C [...]
[...] Here are the numbers. Payperpost: $126.50 Google : $2.48 SR/ReviewME/Other : $25.00 Adlinks : $56.89 Stocks: $73.26 Hosting : $58.46 Bank A/C [...]
[...] first off, Adsense is just not performing well in those positions. I knew that for some time, but I need to break up the text of the blog with [...]