Google AdSense
Google AdSense has been started in January 2004 in the german market, and has before been implemented in the English speaking parts of the world in the year 2003. Google Adsense provides the possibility for webmasters to earn money through implementing Ads provided by the Google AdWords netzwork on your websites.
Differences of AdSense compared to other advertising
Adsense provides the possibility to integrate topic-related ads on your webpage. This means, if you own a website about printer devices, Google AdSense will show ads about buying printer devices, printers, and printer drivers.
Another feature of AdSense is that it provides many different formats, like banners, and even textlinks, instead of the usual 468*60 banners that have been provided and are still provided by other marketing companies.
Google also allows using their AdSense program on result pages, so you can include a site-wide search form on your webpage, powered by Google.
How to apply for Google AdSense
If you are a webmaster, and you want to include Google AdSense on your website in order to make profit out of it, you need to apply to Google Adsense. In order to prevent customers from paying for traffic/clicks that are not within Google guidelines, the terms of service for Google AdSense are strictly observed.
Guidelines for AdSense
First of all, webmasters that are to apply for Googel AdSense are not to use any search engine spam techniques, and Google requests to follow the given guidelines for webmasters. Also, websites that are considered to be problematic, e.g. that provide the illegal download of mp3, drugs, hacking, alcohol, tobaco,..
In addition, it is not allowed to include AdSense on websites without content, or on parking domains to gain profit, nor to provide incentives for any actions that could lead to the click on AdSense advertisements.
Including AdSense in your website (s)
After the AdSense support team has granted your website to take part in the Google AdSense program, you can log in into your member area, where you find further information and the possibilities of Google AdSense. In order to receive your earned money, AdSense pays as soon as you have reached the amount of 100 $ on your account. If you can’t manage to gain this money in a month, your earnings are transfered to the next month, until you reach the limit.
Google AdSense does either pay per cheque or through bank transfer, which arrives on a regular basis.
I would recommend to use the bank transfer option, because you don’t need to carry your cheque to the bank and wait another month (usually, as I experienced), until the cheque is confirmed and you have the money on your bank account.
Amount of money that can be earned
The amount of money your website can earn with Google AdSense can very between nothing and more than 100 $ per day, but this does depend on many different factors.
Factors that influence your possible earnings
- Number of visitors on your websites
- Topic of your website
- Mood of your customers to click on advertisement
- Place where AdSense is implemented
Possibilities of Google AdSense
If you are creating your ad to implement on your website, Google provides you with the choice between Google AdSense for search pages, AdSense for content pages, and, a feature that has only been provided some weeks ago, a referal system.
For most webmasters, Google AdSense for content pages is the most important feature, this is why I am going to explain it in more detail here.
The first choice you have to make is the choice between google advertisement blocks, or Google Link Ads. The main difference of link ads, as compared to the advertisement blocks, is the missing of text in the link ads. In order that you gain, a visitor first has to click on the link ad, and then on the provided advertisement for this given keyword.
The advantage of link ads is that these can easy be implemented into a navigation, where the user thinks this links are belonging to the original webpage content.
AdSense offers text and image advertisement, you can chose if you want to display both, or either image or text advertisement on your webpage. Some of the possible formats include Leaderboards and Skyscraper, but there are many other banner sizes available.
The feature, which most webmasters like, considering Google AdSense, is the possibility to create Ads that fit to the websites design, either using the build in Color schemes, or creating new ones.
Filter and Channel Options
AdSense provides the possibility to provide different channels, in order to track the success of different web pages or websites.
If you are a company, and would like to include AdSense on your websites, you have the possibility to stop other companies in your field from providing advertisement on your webpages.
Google allows up to 200 URLs to be entered from which it is not allowed to show advertisement on your webpages.
Adsense Referals
Google provides the possibility to refer new users to Google Adsense.
As soon as a webmaster who subscribed to Google Adsense over your referal link has gained his first 100 $, you get 100 $ yourself on your AdSense account. Nevertheless, it is quite hard to gain new webmasters for Google AdSense who are likely to reach the 100$ limit within a meaningful amount of time.
Google pays up to 1 $ for new downloads of Firefox which the included Google Toolbar.
Adsense Summary
In general AdSense provides a lot of possibilities to earn money with a webpage about any given topic. Nevertheless, Google is very strict with its advertisers, and many of them, like me, became excluded from the system without any proof of misusing the system, which can, as every system, be manipulated.
In each case I would recommend Google Adsense to any webmaster in order to check the value of his traffic and visitors.