Google Adsense

Google Adsense is a Google advertising system that feeds ads to host content providers throughout the Google Adsense network.  With Adsense, Publishers earn revenue for the traffic and content already on their site.

How it Works

 Adsense delivers ads through a number of existing content channels:

  • Regular web content - Google ads appear in frames on any web page.
  • Mobile - Google ads appear along with content on a phone.
  • Search - Google provides a site search which delivers ads along with site-wide search results.
  • Feeds - Content feeds, shared content from one web site attached (or displayed) on another site, carry ads to wherever they appear.

People who use it say it’s a quick setup process, and it works like this:

  • Webmaster (page owner) adds a small javascript code to their site.
  • When the page displays, the code generates a frame (called an iframe) containing the ad content.
  • Contextual ads - Google targets ads based on content.  It does this by rating a stored page version for keyword matches.
  • Site ads - Advertisers select the sites for their ads.
  • Google generates search results, then attaches ads to the generated search result page.
  • Adsense only counts clicks from pages the advertisers select.  This avoids fraud -  unscrupulous webmasters were copying the javascript from Adsense sites.

Other Abuses

Some webmasters create “zombie” web sites - sites with either computer generated nonsense content filled with keywords, or sites with nothing but feeds from other sites.  The webmasters attract traffic through these zombie or MFA (made for Adsense) websites.  When people report such abuse, Google drops the offending websites and webmasters.

 Success Stories

 Sites and companies report significant revenues through Adsense.  They began expecting a small, supplemental revenue but found Adsense became a significant or even majority revenue stream.

One of these  a home improvement site that added Adsense to a few pages on their site, but quickly expanded their participation when they saw the results.  Adsense now pays for the company’s’  overhead - salaries, business development expenses, and rent.  The increased traffic and the Adsense revenue made Hometips.com a very profitable venture.

Conclusion

Webmasters (and companies) leverage existing content and traffic with Adsense.  Partner sites pay nothing, and Adsense delivers revenue and drives more site traffic.

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