Almost every privately owned site, page or blog seems to have an AdSense feed on it - and to tell ya the truth… it’s highly annoying.
There are a lot of reasons I don’t like AdSense - I’m not the type of person to randomly buy products off the net. I especially dislike being somewhere for one reason, and having a product shoved in my face.
Another reason I don’t like AdSense, is because of the random text matching. I run a Christian & Catholic Forum. The problem with AdSense is that a discussion on the negative aspects of, say for example, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, might pull an ad for the book on my site! This works for anything and everything you may not want to plug/promote but have mentioned on your site/page/blog.
Trust me, I speak from experience. Ajay convinced me to use AdSense feeds on my community. Almost immediately I started getting mail from members who were angry/hurt/upset at the things being advertised. I pulled AdSense off immediately.
Matthew Haughey, who’s mentioned in Wikipedia, wrote a piece called “Why AdSense for feeds is a bad idea (at least for now)” which pretty much coincides with what I just said.
There is however another side to the whole AdSense thing.
And it involves money. And when money is involved, things like subjecting your readers to ads or being “flexible” with your morals, seem to not matter all that much.
Personally, I’m highly skeptical about even the money angle. True, if someone hits an ad off your AdSense, you get paid – but it’s not pointed out anywhere how much you really make… Instead they’ll tell you it depends on “various factors” & deflect all yr questions. Here’s a quote from the FAQs off the AdSense site:
You’ll receive a portion of the amount paid for either activity on your website. Although we don’t disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks.
The best way to find out how much you’ll earn is to sign up and start showing ads on your web page
Brilliant.
But there are people who claim to have made “thousands of (American) dollars” every month from AdSense. And it’s a free service, so even if one makes, say 50 cents, it’s still 50 cents profit. Hmmm.
The Google Financial Release for the First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2005 state that:
Revenues generated on Google’s partner sites, through AdSense programs, contributed $584 million, or 47% of total revenues, a 75% increase over the Network revenues generated in the same quarter last year.
William Charlwood runs an independant site (not Google related) called FactsAboutAdSense. He let’s you sign up for a free 5 day course to teach you how to use AdSense correctly so that you can make the big bucks.
The debate continues. Which side are you on?
Tags: Google-AdSense
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July 6th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
4 me AdSense is Nonsense!!!
July 6th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Putting up ads is a personal choice. Its upto each individual…..and I dont see anything wrong it it. I mean if it suits you and you dont mind the kind of content that creeps in good for you.
Personally for me…I got this strange kind of idea that putting up ads on my space desecrates its sanctity. For me, my journal is like an extension of me and those ads just dont fit in there. Though the greed for the bucks is there and there are friends who have got checks from google i dont really see myself doing it!
Thought provoking post this!
July 6th, 2005 at 6:51 pm
I happened to see someone coming to my site from yours. Thanks for the mention.
AdSense is great if you want to recover some of the costs of running a private site because it is easy to get going. Some people dedicate all their energies to maximizing their AdSense income but I think it has to be a decision for each webmaster: everyone needs to decide what they really want their site to do. If getting a message across is most important then AdSense needs to be used cautiously if at all.
If income generation is your thing, then use AdSense wisely but plastering AdSense ads everywhere will probably not maximise your income. Instead it will annoy your visitors and, even if they click once and you make some money, they won’t come back again whereas most sites want repeat visitors which is why content matters so much.
Of course the great thing with AdSense is that in general the ads that Google delivers are automatically relevant to your visitors and they genuinely can enhance the visitor experience. If you spot ads you don’t like, you can stop them showing up using the AdSense competitive ad filter. To do this properly you need to use the Google AdSense Preview tool (free from Google) and check the ads that will appear for each country because they will vary.
July 7th, 2005 at 8:04 pm
William: You said “If getting a message across is most important then AdSense needs to be used cautiously if at all” - agree with this completely. Thx for the rest of the info.
July 9th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Strange that you have blogged about Adsense.
I remember taking of the ads of the Forum then.
But, I don’t see anything wrong with it. It brings in a decent income. No, I don’t get rich, but it does help pay for some of the costs involved in hosting and running my sites.
I guess William gets it right when he says:
As for me. Will just continue using it.
July 15th, 2005 at 11:54 am
Continue using Adsense by all means! Was not suggesting anyone stops or starts… just voicing out my opi, that’s all.
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:20 pm
The returns from Adsense in turn depends on the type of ads that are displayed, which in turn depends upon your content. Not all ads pay the same. As for user experience, if I were to be reading a blog about say a trip to African wildlife sanctuaries, I would be interested in in seeing ads relevant to the blog to get more details. Here, targetted ads work well in extending the user experience.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:53 am
It is right to a certain extent that ads do have a hindering effect on user experience, but that annoying effect can really be minimised if the ads are really well woven into the design of your website. Just for example http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1100256
on the other hand we have sites that fill up all possible advertisement and donation options on one page…that ends up into really crammed up pages… rather… it is just aggravation of the effect mentioned above
I totally agree with what william says though about ads when you want to get a message across…rather i say…you should not use ads in the first place if your only motive is to get a message across
But then it is upto the individual/organisation..to show ads…or not to..