As an Internet Marketer, can I make a living off AdSense income at the present time like was possible back a few years? Well let’s first look at the way that money was made back in the day!
At the height of the AdSense feeding frenzy, web masters would create sites that were purely made up of unconnected and automated content (scraped content as it was known) designed to lure people in and encourage clicks on the AdSense links thereby generating large income for the web master. These were tended to be designed around high paying, but well known keywords and were known as “splogs” or spam blogs. There were a quite a number of Internet Marketers who made a lot of money from this particular type of web site before they were closed down by Google who manage AdSense.
This type of working is sometimes known as Black Hat marketing and is deemed illegal by Google and the other companies. If your site is found to be employing this type of marketing strategy then it will be treated as search engine spam and reported to Google and will end with your site being shut down. The people who were using these methods and were shut down sw their income plummet to zero overnight!
So can you make a living purely from AdSense following the rules as laid down now by Google as they have set up a number of restrictions on the number of possible clickable links on your site at any one time? There is a maximum of three clickable AdSense links allowed on any page of your site along with three link units and two search boxes.
When you have placed the ad spaces on your site, Google will interpret what type of product your site should be advertising and will eventually in a few days be placing items suitable for your readers on your site based on the content you are putting there.
Rates for some advertised products are still very good and you can achieve, in some cases, over a dollar a click for the most popular products so if your blog is based around these high paying keywords, you can see significant income.
So my original question was if you could make a living off AdSense and from the restrictions that Google have imposed on the number of ad spaces you can have on your site then I don’t believe that this is possible. But I think having these ads on your site, especially if it is a popular site, will bring you in a steady income from suitable product placement to augment your finances.
Have you made money from AdSense off any of your blogs? Do you think you will moving forward?
6 replies to "Making A Living From Adsense"
Hello Dave,
I was also quite curious about Adsense earnings, especially during my early years in studying Internet Marketing. I actually got a chance to get hold of an Adsense course back then called “Fatcat Blueprint.”
The author claimed that he was earning at least five figures per month back then. I think you still can earn decent enough from Adsense, but just like what John Thornhill has said, you should be owning dozens of websites to make a substantial dent on your finances.
Romi
Hi Romi
Yes you would need to have many hundreds of sites to generate the same incomes as in the “good old days” when farming was allowed
Glad that is not around now although I wouldn’t have minded a bit of that action back then!
Thanks for the comment
DaveT
Hi Dave,
I think managing one site is already quite complicated let alone hundreds of sites, then again, back in the days, it must have been a great earning for those marketers who did put the effort in. Have to say though, we are now entering and part of a new web era, where semantics are high priority, thus like you have mentioned, it’s why adsense will analyse our blog posts and determine the best ads with regards to the content on the webpage where it is situated. As you have also mentioned, a relevant product placement ad would probably be of more benefit. I personally haven’t earned anything from adsense yet, apart from the few dollars which I made a few years ago which I still have no idea where it came from.
Take care and kind regards
Sky
Sky
Like you I have around £8 in my AdSense account which I can’t access as it is below the minimum pay out level. This was all “earned” from some rubbish sites over five years ago, but how and from exactly what has always eluded me.
I’m hoping with this programme that I will gradually see a steady increase in my AdSense earnings as more people visit my site once we are generating more interest with our own products
Thanks for the comment
DaveT
Wouldn’t it be better to use the space that would be taken up by adsense to have a banner where you could get a 4 figure commission? Plus the banner could also match the style and colours of your site, adding to the appeal and professionalism, rather than for a product that could well not match your site at all, right?
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Greg, it has been two years since the post and your comment and my Adsense account has moved forward by zero so maybe your suggestion might be the right one, who knows!
I already have some banner ads promoting various items by John Thornhil and his students and they have also brought me in zero over the past two years so that seems to answer that question although I must agree that matching a banner to the colours of your site is probably a better way to use the space!
Apologies for the time to reply, but things have been busy! LOL!!