AdSense from Google is the best known, and arguably the most widely used contextual advertising network. Adsense initially offered only CPC (cost per click) advertising where the publisher gets paid for each click on the ads displayed on their websites. Recently they have also introduced CPM (cost per thousand impressions) campaigns where you get paid for each view (impression) of an ad. This is enabled when an Adwords advertiser identifies your site as a site on which they want to run a CPM campaign. At this stage, unless your site is very well known, you won’t come across this too often.
The ads are contextual which means that they are relevant to the content of your pages. This makes it more likely for your visitors to click on ads because they are already interested in the products or services advertised. On occasion some ‘off topic’ ads might be displayed, but this is far and few between and if your page is properly optimised you shouldn’t have any problems.
Requirements:
Adsense is one of the easiest advertising networks to get accepted to. Their main requirement is that you have a quality website. So sites with low traffic can very easily join without any problems. Once you have been accepted to the network you can place Adsense ads on all your sites, provided that they adhere to the Terms of service and don’t contain any of the following:
- Excessive profanity
- Violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any individual, group, or organization
- Hacking/cracking content
- Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
- Pornography, adult, or mature content
- Gambling or casino-related content
- Excessive advertising
- Any other content that promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others
- Pop-ups, pop-unders or exit windows that interfere with site navigation, obscure Google ads, change user preferences, or are for downloads. Other types of pop-ups, pop-unders, or exit windows may be allowed, provided that they do not exceed a combined total of 5 per user session
- Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
- Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank
- Incentives (monetary or point-based) to users or third-party beneficiaries for online activity including, but not limited to, clicking on ads or links, performing searches, surfing websites, reading emails, or completing surveys
Performance:
If you have a high quality site in a niche that has relevant advertisers you should see some very good performance. The higher your traffic the more likely it is that you will receive more clicks and subsequently higher revenue.
There is no limit to the your revenue potential. Some publishers earn a few dollars; others have reached the level where they earn hundreds of dollars per day. It all depends on the effort you are willing to put into your sites.
Payout:
Adsense pays on a net 30 bases at the end of each month where your account has generated $100 or more in revenue. You can choose either cheque or EFT (if available) as payment method. International publishers can have their cheques issued in the currency of their country of residence, allowing them to save on bank fees.
Adsense is an excellent advertising network provided that you strictly adhere to the terms of service. It is very easy to implement, not too obtrusive to visitors and offers very good income. The best way to see if Adsense will work for you is to apply and implement it on your site for at least one month. You won’t be disappointed.
