"AdSense is dead" is DEAD wrong.
September 15, 2006
I've been getting a lot of emails from my readers about a new report proclaiming the death of AdSense as a revenue maker. Since it's made such a stir I figured I should respond to it.
The short answer is that the report is bunk. Joel Comm, an AdSense guru, made a great response that refutes the report as well.
I'll quote part of his response, since I couldn't word it any better:
… if you focus on building garbage sites
… if you put no effort into creating your own original content
… if you expect to get rich quick
The author of the report says that he created 3,000 web sites, slapped AdSense on them and expected to make a huge amount of money.
- He didn't say anything about doing any search engine optimization of those sites.
- The speed in which the sites were created makes me think he was putting up spam sites.
- He attributed his lack of revenue to people being able to bid on AdSense clicks separately from Google search clicks.
If you want search engine visitors, you need links. You can't just throw up thousands of sites and exepct to make money. And with trash sites, even if you get links, the engines are much smarter about kicking you out of their indexes now.
As for advertisers being able to bid separately on AdSense clicks, I guess the author of the report didn't read my post about my very high dollar clicks.
So yeah, AdSense is dead for those who were building trash sites and dumping them into the search engines. Those sites did really well for about two years, and many people made a lot of money from that fact. But that method just doesn't work anymore.
For those of us who are building quality sites with quality content, AdSense is alive and well.
Comments
22 Responses to “"AdSense is dead" is DEAD wrong.”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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Yeah I agree, adsense isn't dead, but I also agree with him a little. One of my sites I have adwords sending me traffic, and like other advertisers I found that traffic coming from content websites weren’t as targeted to my needs as search engine traffic, so I listed all my content ads at 10 cents to 15 cents per click, compared to my $1-$2 search engine clicks. I totally understand where this guy is coming from; our business in total spends $800-$1000 a day in google ads, not just on that one site but several sites. Anyways advertisers who care anything about their business won't pay the same for content websites as search engine searches. One can clearly see the quality is in Search Engines as they are 100% targeted and I would say websites with adsense are about if we’re lucky 50% targeted to what we’re selling. So in other words, it’s not dead but as time goes by, content websites are making less money from adsense then before the change.
I agree that advertisers being able to bid on AdSense sites did have some impact on AdSense sites (especially those that did not convert well). But the author tries to turn that into "AdSense is dead", when really what died was the fortune-making potential of spam sites.
And it wasn't the bid change that killed the spam sites, it was the search engine algos changing to remove spam from their indexes.
That’s true too, if you create quality websites with original content, the search engines will reward you with traffic, the more pages of quality content you have the more traffic you'll receive and by default the more clicks you'll have. It’s all about traffic. You won't get traffic with spammy sites and duplicate content. You actually have to do some work to get paid, like you said the days of get rich quick spam sites won't work anymore.
I think the key point in the rebuttal is the final point: Adsense is not a get rich quick scheme. Just like any other business, you have to put in a lot of hard work and hope that it pays off in the end. For some people, they will become multi-millionaires, some people will make nothing and most of us will be somewhere in between. The moral of the story - work hard, learn all you can and then work some more.
I think the writer of the report was pretty up front actually… he said he was buying junk traffic to junk pages and making a killing.
Since the 2nd half of the report doesn't come out till the 21st whether he has something better for the average web site owner remains to be seen.
I think it's worth getting the report and reading it.
I think it would be more appropriately titled "Why lots of adsense sites are dead".
But if I were the website owner judging what keywords to build a site around based on $2 clicks and my "customers" had chosen 15 cent clicks, I had better be writing something I'm crazy about anyway not just to get adsense clicks.
That goes back to making sites you're passionate about.
This guy was honest…he's not passionate about content. He's just passionate about money.
If the second half of his report can tell me how to make something else work really well, I look forward to reading it.
We have a diversified mix…YPN, Adsense, paid text links in case any one of them zaps us!
While it may be true that some Adwords advertisers are paying less for bids on the content network, many still don't know the difference or have too much money to blow so they don't lower their bids on the content network. I'm still making $1.00+ per click in certain niches. Once I find those sites with high paying clicks, I spend all my efforts sending traffic to those pages that pay the most.
- Gary
Dear All
It is no brainer. If you are dependent on your income on systems (e.g. adwords, adsense and even affiliate marketing) not owned and control by you, you cannot relax - the "gurus" reply is to diversify, but they do not tell the real power of the internet. If they do they will loose their followers. Do you know the real power of the internet, where you call the shots?. Go and check what Brad Fallon, Andy Jenkins are doing. I see "guru" master John Reese also jumped on the bandwagon.
Think for yourself!!!!
Never having got on the 'Built for Adsense' Gravy Train of 2 years back I have no sympathy with the guy. Sure people made money and now they don't - well Boo-Hoo!
I concentrate on building Authority sites full of good content and don't just rely on Adsense for my revenue.
As internet surfers, and Search Engines algorithms, become more savvy the dinosaurs should possibly stop trumpeting their woes as to how they can no longer rip off Adword Advertisers by churning out 1000's of garbage pages.
I'm waiting for his follow up: "Why Nigerian Letter Scams Are Dead"!
I have spent a long time studying various aspects of making money online Jonathan, and I agree with what has been said here.
Many people believed adsense was an easy way to make money by putting together poor quality sites.
To be successful requires planning, good keyword research, good unique content that offers visitors information relevant to their searches. Also content and building of links to your sites needs to be a continuous process.
I think the author who made the report : "adsense is dead" is simply trying to get our email address . That is just a junk report.
Not dead for sure,
but I do notice huge fluctiations between daily revenue these last few weeks.
I agree with "Trung", the moment I saw that he insist of getting our email address, I close the page without 2nd thought. I'm sick and tired of marketers using hyped topics just to get hold of our emails and then bombard us with loads of affiliate products after that!
It's quite true that the so called "mini-site" stuff is pretty dead now (or soon will be). Unfortunately, there are still dozens and dozens of marketers trying to push their "get-rich-quick" adsense sites and templates membership and packages out there. I pity the unsuspecting ones who continue to be sucked into them.
You gotta love this:
This guy comes out with a report and gives it a name that raises heads, at least those heads that are depending on AdSense.
I would guess there are a sufficient number of people whose income rely totally on AdSense and they're going to be fairly curious and afraid to be missing out on something that may affect their income.
Then, all sorts of blogs and newsletters start mentioning his report and how dead wrong he is.
Now THAT is a product I need to see: a product NOT being endorsed but quite the opposite!
I bet sign-ups to his site are through the roof, anyway much higher than they would have been with a conventional endorsement of the report.
Good lesson in controversial marketing
I do not think AdSense is dead. If you are really working hard. I think you still can make handsome money from this!
My website put google adsense abaut 3 month, but today my balance have only $39 . Help me to using Google Adsense Success than.
Thanks!!!
Does anyone have Scott Boulch's contact information? I've been searching everywhere online and can't seem to find anything. For a guy who has turned internet marketing upside down, he sure is tough to get a hold of.
Thanks for quoting me Jon. Furthermore, I've got a new report out at www.adsenseisalive.com. I Think you'll enjoy it.
Joel
Ha! Love it Joel, thanks.
Thanks
Wow. Some rather cool people frequent this blog.Great to see Joel comes here.
If adsense is dead then I am seeing ghosts…..Ka ching.
People always see what they are looking for.You buy a red car and suddenly you start noticing red cars everywhere.
If you are thinking adsense is dead you must inevitably be correct as you will undertake the actions to make that statement true for you ie you will stop promoting,developing or innovating with your adsense sites.
On the other hand if your statement is that adsense is alive and well that will work powerfully in your favour.
I agree that there is some potential in getting Adsense to work some income. I recently put reasonable 20 -page site with good content etc and have no results, probably due to lack of quality backlinks. I see a problem here - in order to get Google system to work for one, a large amount of work is required and the income is not too certain or may represent not really secure income potential. Foget demagogy of making some software working for you in creating sites - it may or may not work as efficient and softwrae itself cannot think ideas to well.
I rather prefer ideology of making your sites standing on its own without Google support. The Google concept is obviously very good, where one can sell advertising space, there is not too many PURE concepts available on net. But the bottom line of success in my version is amount of hard labour you involve into making the income on net. If you don't labour too much for your earnings, you've got it right, if you are spending a lots of time in order to get income, you need to seeek refinement to your methods ( perhaps better automation?!)
Is anybody into making money thru PURE methods - say like making profits without exchanging produts
at all?
All ideas are welcomed. Seeking tips. Will respond if the tip will be good.
Jan
http://zen-planet.com