$500 Per Year

This week marks my one year anniversary using AdSense.

It's been a decent relationship.

I don't like the ads that run on my blog for the most part.

But its been a great learning experience.

And I made just over $500 in the first year.

All of that goes to the Grameen Foundation so that they can loan money to women in Uganda who are setting up cell phone businesses in their homes.  I figure that at least 10 women are in the phone business in Uganda because of this blog and that's a really good thing.

Here are some stats that come from my Adsense account.

My daily earnings have steadily increased throughout the year. It's been about $2/day in the past month.

Traffic has also grown pretty steadily over the past 12 months.

And click thru rates have been a mixed bag.  They moved up nicely in late 2004, but they've been coming down recently. At this point, it appears that 1% is about what I can expect from Adsense.  This is directly related to the bad ads that I don't like and nobody clicks thru on my blog.

And finally, the cost per click is pretty low at less than $0.20 although there is a recent uptrend which I hope will continue.

After running through all these charts, I come away thinking that $500 per year is great but way less than I could earn if I really wanted to optimize the ad revenue on this blog. I've learned most everything I can about AdSense in the past year and if I am willing to spend some time on this, I may well end up moving to something better suited to my blog going forward.

I am sure that the phone ladies would appreciate that too.

Comments

[Joe]

Don't forget that officially the adsense T&C's prevent posting of this info!

[Graywolf]

Interesting and very noble gift, but you can't share stuff like this it's against the Adsesne TOS ...

[Thomas Hawk]

Fred,

Thanks for breaking the Google "code of silence" and sharing. So what if they kick you out of their "adsense program."

Following is a post I wrote on your story on my blog today:

Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson has a post out explaining how he's made $500 in the last year with Google's Adsense (which is being donated to charity). While I thought that Google didn't allow people to talk about how much they made with Adsense this hardly seems compelling.

From the graphs on his site it would appear that if your traffic is about 1,700 hits per day that you'd end up with about $2 per day. His click through rate is about 1% so I'd assume that would translate to about 17 a day.

I'm curious as to 1. Why Google thinks it's so important to keep all this adsense stuff top secret. I've always felt more transparency is better than less and 2. Is Google giving bloggers a fair shake? If they are paying out less than 20 cents a click to Fred, what are they getting for the click and how does this compare to other advertisers? I'm all for Google making money, but is the split 10%/90% is it 50%/50% is it 80%/20%?

I've always been surprised at how easily the blogosphere has just let Google go top secret on this one. I'd hope even some "anonymous" comments could better clarify the situation.

Oh and one more thing. I do have to say that I like the adsense approach. It seems unobtrusive and a really acceptable way in my opinion to advertise. On the other hand, recently I've begun seeing Vibrant Technology's IntelliTXT annoyance and I really really hate it. If you haven't noticed it yet, these are where ads are actually tied to words in articles as annoying green links and push pop ups out at you as your mouse goes over the text word. Ugh, it's really ugly, distracting and creates a pretty negative impression.

I can't believe that The Green Button has begun using these. Can't someone at Microsoft just write TGB a check to help subsidize their program -- the whole TGB concept while very helpful to the Media Center user is still one big ad for Media Center really.

I understand that bloggers and website operators have to make a living somehow but I really hope that the horrible IntellitTXT approach is not the way they do it. Honestly it turns people off and if anything will drive away traffic.

Best,

Tom

[johninspace]

Finally someone breaks the Google "code of silence" !!! What a ridiculous rule. Of couse the usual nitwits will all post warnings like "oh my Fred that is illegal ..tsk tsk". Who are these people?
Bloggers should rebel against this rule, not cower. Google needs us the same that we need them, why should they control what we can say?

[anonymous]

Posting anonymous so as not to risk my own AdSense account. My site is iPR6, just like this one. With minimal updates and little optimization, I have never had a month where I received less than $100 from AdSense. I'm sure that A VC can do better than my site, based on its popularity alone. Thanks for sharing!

[Anonymous Blogger]

If your weblog was more focussed on a specific niche (ie, venture capital) rather than just a random slice of your life, Google would show better ads and you'd earn substantially more money.

I blog on a tangential subject and make $500 a week off your traffic.

PS, I'm posting anonymously because I take the Adsense T&C seriously and don't want to jeopardize anything.

[anonymous]

That previous comment should have read, "My site is PR6, ..." PR == PageRank

[anon]

What software of script did you use to generate those graphs ?

[Tom Norian]

Thanks for starting the conversation and getting other people to share information..

I learned about tribe visiting your site too...neet idea.

[Ron]

Thanks for answering the question that everyone wants to ask, and no one ever wants to answer.

[Oliver Thylmann]

Suggestion: add an ad to the end of your posts before the comments and you will likely see your CTR go up, hence CPM increasing.

[Fred Fabro]

Thanks for taking the lead and opening up a discussion on this topic. One thing that does amaze me is the same people who advocate an open and transparent blogosphere are afraid of crossing the boundaries with Google for fear of losing a small bit of revenue. Wouldn't being open and sharing some of the information on how to maximize your earnings through boosting the performance of the ads you place in your blog improve the game for everyone, including Google?

[anonymous]

I find it interesting how little everyone claims to make from AdSence. My experience is that you can make perhaps $500 or more a month. I guess it depends on the kind of site you have and the amount of traffic. For example if your site focuses on, say, digital cameras, you can probably make $500 a month even if your site doesn't get that much traffic. Having a focus for your blog matters a great deal. If it's just a personal blog about who knows what, well, ya, I could see how you could make only $500 a year. This is just my experience as an AdSence customer.

[anonymous]

I too experienced that blogs are only served with low paying, general ads. Although it's probably from the broad range of topics that are written about in blogs, I feel that google should try to do something about that. I personally never had a click pay out more than 3, 4 or 5 cents.While my site has occasional clicks up to 5$.

[anon]

Actually, generating these sorts of graphs from stats is easy: download the stats in csv format, then import them into a spreadsheet program to make charts.

[Anon]

I know that this is of course relatively meaningless as I am posting anon, but I average well over $500 / day and have had a few at $1000+

I started in Jan on brand new URL's so no PR at all. Big problem is of course all eggs in one basket and there is no way of course knowing if Google one day will simply at whim turn me off. Im not doing anything wrong - just that google isnt clear and like paypal makes up the rules as they go. I cant wait for MSN or Yahoo to offer contextual just so I can diversify income risk.

Very few people seem to know how to build websites particularly for adsense. One of key factors at the moment is MSN is delivering 90% of my traffic, but google is paying up which I find kinda cool :)

Short answer is Adsense does work. It does pay way better than any other sponsor I have tried with same types of sites.

Stick at it.

[anon again]

Oh - and just for the record, I know 3 others doing over $1k per day. One guys record is $2k for a day. Im trying to beat him, but he has been running 12 months :)

[anonymous]

Many people are making peanuts from Adsense.
Don't go out there thinking that it's all gold and that easy.

[Jordan]

Good work! Today, Google changed the Adsense TOS to allow the sharing of revenue stats.

[David]

Right! Good work Fred! Check out the new terms:

"You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: (a) all Google software, technology, programming, specifications, materials, guidelines and documentation relating to the Program; (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to You by Google; and (c) any other information designated in writing by Google as 'Confidential' or an equivalent designation. However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google's gross payments to You pursuant to the Program."

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[Jon Payne]

Hi Fred, First, check the three to five previous comments on this post, someone either hacked in or added some spam comments that somehow made it onto your $500 Per Year post.

Second, I realize this is a year after your original post - but I think it now allows some reflection. I noticed you now have Yahoo ads instead of Google Ads. Was Google made about your disclosure? According to John Battelle (the way I came across your site), you can now actually disclose this according to AdSense updated TOS - so you may wish to shift back.

Lastly, AdSense allows you some options to steer the ads in a particular direction, especially to weed out ones you don't want. You could also give them a bit more prominent placement and that might help increase the CTR and thus your revenue. Best of luck!