Google AdSense

Targeted ads for content-based sites.

Content-based Web sites have had a difficult time over the last few years. Advertising on the Net declined drastically after the “Dotcom Crash” and still hasn’t picked up. Banner ads and popups, which are usually the main source of income for content-based sites, are unpopular and intrusive. The one bright spot Web in advertising is text-based ads, and a recently introduced service from Google promises to further increase the popularity of this type of advertising.

How Google AdSense Works

Google AdSense displays a number of unobtrusive text-based ads on participating Web sites. These are cost-per-click ads, i.e. the advertiser pays Google a pre-determined amount each time someone clicks on the ad. Google pays a proportion of the revenue to the hosting Web site. Nothing revolutionary so far you might think, however the main difference of AdSense compared to other services is the way in which the ads are selected. AdSense is a form of contextual advertising.  Participating sites are “crawled” by the Google search engine and the results are used to determine which adverts would be relevant to the site. Effectively, the advertising is targeted to the same audience as the Web site. This results in greater click-throughs for the advertiser, increased revenues for Google (and the Web site) and a better experience for the user, as irrelevant adverts are not displayed. 

Advantages of Google AdSense

• Highly effective targeted advertising.
• Simple to set up ( requires only cutting and pasting some HTML code)
• Monthly payment of all revenues over $100.
• Easy to administer and to track pageviews and click-throughs.
• Ads can be in either banner or skyscraper format, and colors can be customized.
• Unwanted ads (e.g. competitors) can be filtered.

Disadvantages of Google AdSense

• Restrictions on other advertising services that can be run alongside AdSense.
• Not all sites that apply to run the service will be accepted.
• Payments only by check in US$.

At first sight AdSense looks to be an ideal way for small and medium-sized content sites to increase revenues.  Easy to use and low-risk, it would certainly be worth giving it a try.