So, does Google Adsense Really Suck This Much?

First of all, I am by far a big Adsense earner. I have several Adsense sites but the money I make with them is nothing to write home about. Yet, after a recent article I wrote on one of my sites apparently describing what happened to become the next sort of mini internet craze I came to the conclusion that landed me in to a situation where I had to ask myself whether or not Adsense had to suck. And, more importantly, if it was costing me FAR more than that it was bringing in…

Wait…

Adsense is something you make money with…

But, what if it is costing you? And, all the time you are so happy that you earn a few hundred dollar per month. But, could you not be earning thousands of dollars instead?

WITHOUT Adsense?

Don’t get me wrong. It is a great way for many people to simply earn some money online.

Some money…

But hey, it doesn’t take much effort! You sign up for Adsense, you pick your ad color matching your site(s) and you copy and paste their ad code into your sites with indeed the greatest ease.

Google then published content related ads right on your site. Once a person clicks on your ad you make cash. I am sure it is a great solution but recently I was forced to feel a bit different about it all… And, looking at it now, maybe for the better!

What it is that happened just didn’t feel good and made me doubt about Adsense and its possible successes normal people can have with it. And, whether or not there are better opportunities with which normal people can make a lot more money with…

I am sure there are those of you who still earn their full time income and a bit (thousands upon thousands so to speak) per month but I got quite disappointed in the whole Adsense program and am getting close to undertaking action in removing Adsense from all of my sites.

Let me explain what I mean with them and a bit more about how I came to this all:

As said, I wrote an article on one of my sites (news related) about something that became a little bit of an internet craze.

The article was one of the first articles to be mentioning about the possible UFO at the inauguration of President Obama. I had made print screens from the CNN video with the flying object clearly visible, adding to the post’s value. Considering the fact my site was a ‘newspaper themed site’ many people saw it as actual news I am sure.

At first, I did not do this out of commercial reasons but just to get my point of view out over something I had seen on the CNN camera. Something I felt could be news. You never know, you might hit something big…

I bookmarked the post on some sites and it sort of hit the main stream for a good few days resulting in more than 66,000 visitors in less than 3 weeks or so. Lots of sites decided to link to my article, certain news papers did and it was bingo. Traffic, traffic and traffic. It was craaazy.

Besides the fact that my site went offline for a while due to its bandwidth exceeding (which I never had before and luckily only lasted for 4 hours) I noticed something else what was rather disappointing.

Since the site initially did not have a commercial value to me as in such I was still curious to see what this traffic would bring in clicks and of course revenue.

The site in question is monetized with Adsense but has more of a different kind of purpose as to why I own it. It provides news and that is it for now. But, since none of my sites go un-monetized so to speak I placed Adsense. Some money is always better than none.

While I checked my Adsense stats daily a certain drop in income per click was clearly noticeably. This was about half way into the certain traffic spurt this site had received.

Where the site had one top day of $75 income out of Adsense clicks (With thousands of visitors per day, which is not much, I know… Actually pathetically low if you ask me…) the other days it would come to $50 or a bit less.

Until the day that brought the certain drop of income per click.

Not just some little drop, no… The traffic remained the same as in thousands per day , I received about the same amount of clicks yet, the daily income went to $12 or even less! That is not just sad, it is silly too. I mean, who possibly wants to earn that per click.

How close to insult can you get?

So, as this is now an ongoing incident while we speak… In my opinion Adsense Really sucks.

The site still gets only a much smaller percentage of income per click as compared to what it used to do in the beginning and nothing on site has changed during the whole time. I also know that the UFO niche most probably is not the best paying one either yet a ‘certain drop’ of income from what it was making during those days is unexplainable to me.

It is not clear to me how that could have happened all of a sudden. Anyone here an idea that you would like to share about this?

Then of course, I know if you target the higher paid keywords you can make some serious money. And, in all fairness, I have sites totally targeted and niche related which bring in several dollars per click. But, it is in these segments that it is harder to compete. So, not always reachable for the starting marketer.

For instance, I own a site which is highly ranked on ‘private jet’ related keywords with surpluses of $4 per click. Since I have no jets this might as well be the only site I could imagine having Adsense on. Simply cause there is no affiliate program for private jets. (Well, there is eBay and some charter companies with affiliate programs but unfortunately in the private jet market they do not convert that good)

But, on these sites I do own with higher earning clicks it is also in these segments that I have noticed a drop of income per click. Anyone who has noticed the same?

Basically it can possibly become much worse…

Adsense does not only possibly suck, it potentially robs you from a lot of money as well. Imagine owning a site promoting online surveys. (You are welcome Elise ) They pay something like $34 per sale and are popular by many people so I have heard. (I’ve used the example of Online surveys for no other reason than to be able to plant a link to Elise since she is such a nice person )

But anyways…

Eager as you are wanting to make money you start building your website or blog and since you have heard of the BIG Google and the Adsense (With which you can make milllllllllions of dollars) you of course go ahead and sign up for an Adsense account.

You then spend time to actually get targeted traffic from the search engines and are welcoming people to your online survey site who are indeed looking for an online survey program with their credit card in their hand, ready to buy.

Great! The hardest part done, you have landed a visitor interested to buy!

Then they see your clever positioned ad (Since Google even tells you where to put it) and…

Click …

Your visitor just clicked on your Google Adsense ad.

Congratulations my friend! You just earned yourself around $0.85.

But, he clicked AWAY from your site and you have earned Google around $1.50 on the go and even worse, most possible, you have earned the person who was using Adwords to advertise on your Adsense ad a nice commission of about $34 or so. Minus his cost per click of $2.35 is a net profit of $31.65

So, basically, you have been robbed $33.15 by making the click yes, but not making the sale.

So, my question is (and it is one I am seriously asking myself AND testing out):

Am I better off without Adsense?

If you look at the above image, hmm.. maybe we are! These are two screen shots taken from Adsense and a clickbank account over the same period of time. Where Adsense recorded 45 page views this resulted in 3 clicks. Within these same 45 page views Google saw 26 hops where made. (Hops are clicks to the vendor site recorded by Clickbank)

Clearly, the $0.60 is less exiting to welcome in to your bank account than its counterpart income, the $22.84 that was made while making the sale yourself, resulting in a lot more profit!

I think the question you need to ask if you have as well Adsense as your own promotions going on what it is that makes your visitor click on the Adsense ad INSTEAD of your promo.

And, why he or she does not click on your promotion making you $34 per sale? Instead it is a meagerly $0.85 you gain with Adsense.

Ok, cool once you get thousands of clicks.

But, what if  you could make hundreds of sales out of those thousands of clicks instead?

Sure, easy to solve this, we remove Adsense. From now on it won’t happen again! No more deceiving click away from Google.

But, if you still don’t know why visitors do not click your promotions on your site to buy the products and simply close your site to go back on Google for another search; you have yet another problem.
Because now you earn nothing.

I decided to go and do some testing with sites that get the same kind of traffic in niche and amount and have one site with and one site without Adsense. I used to earn money with Adsense and product sales on those sites so I can compare it after a while. Does the income without Adsense drop or will it generate more sales simply because the visitor has no other choice than to open up one of the offers.

Does a site without Adsense earn more than a site with Adsense?

It may be simple for some, but if you are unable to make your site’s own advertisements and promotions (read affiliate programs) convert better (with or) without Adsense you get a lot of site closers.

They will not click and buy.

Once again, if you would have had Adsense on there they might have clicked that earning you some cents.

However, how do we make our sites so that we do not need Adsense but that it will look after the $34 or more per sale commissions that are coming in from the sales that the site directly is making?

So…

Does Adsense suck THAT much that it in fact costs you money? The more I look at it, the more I think it does.

Although I come to the conclusion that this does not entirely depend on Adsense. Once you are able to make your site convert better with direct offer promotions instead of Adsense, you WILL be better off. This also means that if you are not able to do so you will lose money.

There are people who will argue that it is all in the numbers of traffic (targeted) and the higher paid niche markets. However, in most cases, even if you had thousands of visitors to your sites, if you could divert them directly to an offer YOU promote, you do not only cut out the middle man (men) you also make hordes of more money, so that one does not go up.

So, what is it that I still have Adsense on my sites for?

I don’t know. It does look good. Kind of gives trusted look. Will that be it?

I just do not know… (yet)

I said you will lose money if you are not able to make your site convert better but, this count as well for not trying to improve and answering the question.

If you do not try it for your own sites and you would be able to improve conversion then you too lose out on more money as well. Or?

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