- Mar 21, 2013
- 24,786
- 31,565
All of you adsense publishers could be making 3 to 4x more.
It's no secret that I've been saying "Stop using Google", but this is actually practical, straight up actionable advice.
Stop using Adsense. Just stop. Why? Because Barto said so? No, because you could be making lots more with the same traffic.
Why Adsense was Created
Adsense was created because Google had leftover ad inventory.
In the early days, Google only published a couple of ads on their search results. Back when they used to still pretend to respect the "do no evil" motto (while researching killer robots LOL).
These few ads on SERPs were unable to circulate their entire ad inventory, so they needed a way to push out the less valuable ads they didn't show on the SERPs.
The solution? You guessed it.
Ringtones
In the early days of Adsense, Google didn't mind shallow + "low quality" content.
In fact, one of the most famous Adsense cases was a guy who built a website for cell phone ringtones. Black background, basic early 2000's design and tons and tons of ringtones for all sorts of phones. A lot of these ringtones were converted from MID files which were widely available in the 1990's. (There were MIDI exchange sites in the 1990's)
Ringtones. Zero content actually, just .... ringtones. This guy made over U$ 100k a month from Adsense and made the program very very popular with online marketers.
Low CPC Ads
What nobody told you was that the ringtones guy made this much $ with Adsense because he didn't want the trouble of monetizing using some other more profitable means, like a direct contract with a cell phone company or something. Adsense was fast and cheap to add and made $$$.
But there's a catch.
The ads were really cheap. The real good ads were shown on the SERPs, obviously. Google wants the high CPC for themselves.
So they kept the users on the SERPs as much as they could, then when the user HAD to click through, they showed the low CPC ads on the target page.
Enter Zero Click Age
Things looked bad for SEO and adsense in the 2010's but nobody could have imagined what would come next.
Not even historical google fanboys could believe it.
I won't name names but to give just one example, the guy who owns a famous SEO tool and who was always a major Google fanboy, posting pro-Google BS (that didn't work) is now enraged about it. Says it's absurd we have zero click searches. Which is just hypocritical tantrum because lots of people, including myself, warned about this years earlier.
And, just like that, we entered the zero click age. Which is now.
Google scrapes your content and shows it directly on the SERPs, you get zero. Then they also show AMP loaded straight from their server. You also get zero. Wonderful eh!
There's still lots of Google fans in this very forum who seem to approve all this BTW. Crazy how anyone who supposedly makes a living from IM could approve any of this, unless they work for Google or are one of the "trusted" guys who can post whatever and rank.
Leftover Ad Inventory
Finally, having said all that, I hope you can see now how Adsense is leftover ad inventory.
When you're working hard to publish content for Adsense, you're basically ad dumpster diving. You're going for Google's leftovers.
Here's the flow:
1) User searches google
2) Google shows your scraped content, next to 10+ ads.
3) User reads top snippet straight at google, does not click or
3.1) User clicks on ads on the SERPs or
3.2) User clicks on product search on SERPs which takes them to Google again or
3.3) User goes to Youtube, in which case they're still on Google property or
3.4) Insert tens of other paths within google here, all using your content for free or
4) User clicks through to your site
By the time the user reaches #4 above, they've seen all the valuable ads straight on Google properties. Your content was just a filler because Google doesn't produce any content.
User came looking for your content, stared at Google property for several minutes and, in the end, for some miraculous reason, a minority decides to click through to where they actually see YOUR ads.
But. Your ads are leftovers from the experience at Google properties. All the good ads were shown at the SERPS, Youtube, Gmail, etc.
The visitor finally reaches your site and sees leftover ad inventory.
When experienced internet marketers tell you adsense is not a smart way to monetize your work, this is part of what they mean.
When you work hard to publish content for adsense, you're getting leftovers. Keep that in mind when you're putting 10+ hours of hard work just so you get clicks on leftover ad inventory.
It's no secret that I've been saying "Stop using Google", but this is actually practical, straight up actionable advice.
Stop using Adsense. Just stop. Why? Because Barto said so? No, because you could be making lots more with the same traffic.
Why Adsense was Created
Adsense was created because Google had leftover ad inventory.
In the early days, Google only published a couple of ads on their search results. Back when they used to still pretend to respect the "do no evil" motto (while researching killer robots LOL).
These few ads on SERPs were unable to circulate their entire ad inventory, so they needed a way to push out the less valuable ads they didn't show on the SERPs.
The solution? You guessed it.
Ringtones
In the early days of Adsense, Google didn't mind shallow + "low quality" content.
In fact, one of the most famous Adsense cases was a guy who built a website for cell phone ringtones. Black background, basic early 2000's design and tons and tons of ringtones for all sorts of phones. A lot of these ringtones were converted from MID files which were widely available in the 1990's. (There were MIDI exchange sites in the 1990's)
Ringtones. Zero content actually, just .... ringtones. This guy made over U$ 100k a month from Adsense and made the program very very popular with online marketers.
Low CPC Ads
What nobody told you was that the ringtones guy made this much $ with Adsense because he didn't want the trouble of monetizing using some other more profitable means, like a direct contract with a cell phone company or something. Adsense was fast and cheap to add and made $$$.
But there's a catch.
The ads were really cheap. The real good ads were shown on the SERPs, obviously. Google wants the high CPC for themselves.
So they kept the users on the SERPs as much as they could, then when the user HAD to click through, they showed the low CPC ads on the target page.
Enter Zero Click Age
Things looked bad for SEO and adsense in the 2010's but nobody could have imagined what would come next.
Not even historical google fanboys could believe it.
I won't name names but to give just one example, the guy who owns a famous SEO tool and who was always a major Google fanboy, posting pro-Google BS (that didn't work) is now enraged about it. Says it's absurd we have zero click searches. Which is just hypocritical tantrum because lots of people, including myself, warned about this years earlier.
And, just like that, we entered the zero click age. Which is now.
Google scrapes your content and shows it directly on the SERPs, you get zero. Then they also show AMP loaded straight from their server. You also get zero. Wonderful eh!
There's still lots of Google fans in this very forum who seem to approve all this BTW. Crazy how anyone who supposedly makes a living from IM could approve any of this, unless they work for Google or are one of the "trusted" guys who can post whatever and rank.
Leftover Ad Inventory
Finally, having said all that, I hope you can see now how Adsense is leftover ad inventory.
When you're working hard to publish content for Adsense, you're basically ad dumpster diving. You're going for Google's leftovers.
Here's the flow:
1) User searches google
2) Google shows your scraped content, next to 10+ ads.
3) User reads top snippet straight at google, does not click or
3.1) User clicks on ads on the SERPs or
3.2) User clicks on product search on SERPs which takes them to Google again or
3.3) User goes to Youtube, in which case they're still on Google property or
3.4) Insert tens of other paths within google here, all using your content for free or
4) User clicks through to your site
By the time the user reaches #4 above, they've seen all the valuable ads straight on Google properties. Your content was just a filler because Google doesn't produce any content.
User came looking for your content, stared at Google property for several minutes and, in the end, for some miraculous reason, a minority decides to click through to where they actually see YOUR ads.
But. Your ads are leftovers from the experience at Google properties. All the good ads were shown at the SERPS, Youtube, Gmail, etc.
The visitor finally reaches your site and sees leftover ad inventory.
When experienced internet marketers tell you adsense is not a smart way to monetize your work, this is part of what they mean.
When you work hard to publish content for adsense, you're getting leftovers. Keep that in mind when you're putting 10+ hours of hard work just so you get clicks on leftover ad inventory.
