Can one really make lots of adsense money on big, real sites?

[slobizman]

I keep reading about how people just aren't making big money with Adsense. But then I see sites like AsktheBuilder.com that supposedly makes $30,000/month on adsense. So, I'm confused.

I am a former successful print magazine publisher. I'm thinking about creating a new online magazine in a big niche in the health industry. It would be a real authoritative site. Let's assume I can get it to be the number one online magazine on the subject with tens of thousands of hits a day, on hundreds to thousands of pages of original information. Can't something like this be a six figure annual adsense earner? Or is there something I'm missing?

Of course I'd add affiliate programs and perhaps some of my own products eventually, but for now I'm interested in understanding the adsense potential.

[Gerry]

I recently added adsense to one of my sites. It does have heavy viewership. I was reluctant at first. But after about 20 days I have made 89 bucks on that one site thus far.

This gives me hope for improvement as well as take other parked domains live.

I will start by considering names with high traffic. Then I look at the number of backlinks as well as the age of the domain into consideration.

As far as affiliates like CJ and LinkShare, I will try a few again. Previously I had no commissions but I do believe it was due to poor placement.

In these days of falling parking PPC, anything is worth a try.

[melmunch]

You can certainly make real money with adsense. However once you have a site that can make that type of money, you usually find that there may be other better easier and more lucrative ways of monetizing it.

[draggar]

I have 4 sites that are making $>regfee with adsense (and all are less than a year old). I'm sure things will only go up as time goes on.

Tens of thousands of dollars a month with adsense? I don't know about that, I think if my site was getting legitimate traffic bringing in that much I'd be looking at better paying advertisers.

[domainplus]

Adsense was always and will remain the way to go...I have seen a lot of people complain and talk about adsense since the day it was launched but have never seen any program even come close to the payout adsense makes...

I have 3 sites serving adsense ...medium traffic but I make about 350 $ a month from them without much maintainance...The good thing is the traffic is all organic and from google...So google sends me traffic and on top of that pays me too...isn't that great....i say hell yeah

[Makis77]

Adsense will definetly pay you some good money in that niche and if your content is unique.
After stabilizing traffic and Adsense earnings try to find alternatives way of monetizing your website because its too risky depending only on Adsense.

Thats what i m trying to do now.

[stock_post]

Adsense work if you get different users every day.

if you get repeat visitors you will be better off with double click/burst media kind of ads.

[slobizman]

Can I hear some stats you guys have your sites' number of visitors and revenue from them. Don't have to mention site. Just trying to get a handle on all of this.

[Gerry]

Run google analytics on the site. VERY GOOD stats provider.

It has only been running a month or so.

Last year this particular site had over 540,000 users/viewers. On par for the same this year.

But here are some great stats that I like to see:

* 00:02:31
Avg. Time on Site

* 82.19%
% New Visits

Time on site has been as high as over 12 and a half minutes.

It is a specialty niche site.

The beautiful part is these same users will be back year after year.

It is also VERY IMPORTANT to have updated content. Google loves this. Good appropriate RSS feeds usually can accomplish this.

And these stats are important:

* 12.83%
Direct Traffic

* 26.13%
Referring Sites

* 61.05%
Search Engines

Stats like this will enable me to court sponsorship.

The majority of advertising is and has been word or mouth.

The key for me is finding a void and fill it. Stay within a niche that you are familiar with. Know the market and know the customer you are trying to reach.

I have done equally well with link ads and the ads for content. Ad for content sometimes can be too revealing and the viewer can make up his/her mind whether to visit. Link ads are almost a "teaser" and draw people in. I may start experimenting with some CJ and LinkShare link ads as opposed to banners.

[slobizman]

Doc Com, those are great stats. What's the revenue like?

[ezimedia]

HI

here are my google analytics stats for the last 12 months for a site that makes about $6-$10 per day on adsense..

# 00:02:13
Avg. Time on Site

* 82.53%
% New Visits

# Search Engines 107,012.00 (64.22%)
# Direct Traffic 31,812.00 (19.09%)
# Referring Sites 27,777.00 (16.67%)

All traffic sources sent a total of 166,640 visits

I also checked for the 12 month period before the stats above and it looks like the site has grown 3 fold... from my marketing efforts.. and I remember the site use to only make about $3 per day on adsense...

The site is a Link Directory.. thus the small adsense income but it adds up with all the other sites I have adsense on... and still working on more sites.

Thx
Tom

[slobizman]

How many visits is that per day, on average?

HI

here are my google analytics stats for the last 12 months for a site that makes about $6-$10 per day on adsense..

# 00:02:13
Avg. Time on Site

* 82.53%
% New Visits

# Search Engines 107,012.00 (64.22%)
# Direct Traffic 31,812.00 (19.09%)
# Referring Sites 27,777.00 (16.67%)

All traffic sources sent a total of 166,640 visits

I also checked for the 12 month period before the stats above and it looks like the site has grown 3 fold... from my marketing efforts.. and I remember the site use to only make about $3 per day on adsense...

The site is a Link Directory.. thus the small adsense income but it adds up with all the other sites I have adsense on... and still working on more sites.

Thx
Tom

[ezimedia]

HI

Well by going with the Google stats it would be around 450 visitors per day, but when I check my website traffic logs... it says around 1400 visitors per day... so not sure if Google is wrong or my traffic logs..

anyone have any ideas why the huge differences..

Thanks
Tom

[tldrental]

HI

Well by going with the Google stats it would be around 450 visitors per day, but when I check my website traffic logs... it says around 1400 visitors per day... so not sure if Google is wrong or my traffic logs..

anyone have any ideas why the huge differences..

Thanks
Tom

What does it say when you go here http://www.statbrain.com/,

[ezimedia]

HI

7,124 visits per day... going by statbrain.com

I can only wish..

Tom

P.s

One day I guess

[tldrental]

Yeah....it's real hard to tell which is more valid. Seems like everyone uses different metrics on what qualifies as a visit.

Googles is probably counting only the visits that really mean something, the other stats most likely have bot traffic mixed in, is my best guess

[glw]

My ad revenue comes out to be about $2-$3/thousand page views x 3 ad blocks per page, with a content site you can mix in things like VibrantMedia or Kontera for in content ads for another little boost. So for every million page views a month you get around $6k-$8k.

Google analytics only counts actual viewers, robots and such are not counted, but only on the pages where you have installed the analytics code.

Quantcast.com and compete.com are a couple of other sites that can give you general ideas about website traffic.

[David G]

.... Good appropriate RSS feeds usually can accomplish this....

Can you say which ones are the best in your opinion?

[draggar]

Can I hear some stats you guys have your sites' number of visitors and revenue from them. Don't have to mention site. Just trying to get a handle on all of this.

October stats:
Channel -----------Impressions --Clicks --CTR -----Earnings
Site for a real person
Up about 6 months------ 2,025------- 7 -------0.35% ---$2.63
+ I've sold two of his books for him

Radio Show fan site
Up about 6 months ------1,588 -------9 -------0.57% ---$1.88

Animal health related blog
Up less than 2 months --150 --------3 -------2.00% ---$1.43

Personal blog
Up about a year ------------675 --------8 -------1.19% ---$1.33


Not a huge turnover nor a huge money maker but at this rate each site will pull a profit over a year's time.

(Edit: Tables copied and pasted look so nice in the prview...)

Ask me again in 6 months when my new network starts to get indexed well from Google.

[TwoStep420]

Can someone explain where to post the google analytic code if I am using Wordpress? Google instructs to paste the code before </body>...but that tag is not used in my wordpress code. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

- Zander