Is AdSense Making YOU Lazy?

by brettb
64 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Time for some soul searching...

IS ADSENSE MAKING YOU LAZY?

Last week I got an AdSense smackdown from the Big G. They didn't close my account, but they disabled ad serving on one of my sites . Seems they've made some new rules for catching content they don't like, because I'm not the only person was hit.

Anyway, to be safe, I took AdSense completely off 4 of my niche sites, and replaced it with CPA offers.

The result?

August's income is looking to be 34% higher than it was in July!

I don't want to extrapolate a few days to an entire month, but it's looking very good.

So I'll ask you all - have you put AdSense on your sites because it's easy? If so, you could be leaving significant money on the table :confused:.

And I can now sleep easy, knowing that AdSense is now less than 50% of my online income. In fact, I might take it off more sites.

If you want to follow my action plan, then this is what I did:

1. Last year I signed up to a load of CPA affiliate schemes. They're all directly with the vendor rather than being ClickBank/CJ schemes.

2. I replaced a little bit of AdSense with CPA offers. This allowed me to determine which advertisers converted best. Unsurprisingly, the market leaders do best, even though poorer quality offerings pay more.

3. I've rolled my own version of AdSense - ads for green widgets show on pages about green widgets. I've got an ad server, and I include the ads on sites using iframes or HTTP calls. So much for Google's PhD's - my ad system shows much more appropriate ads than AdSense ever did.

4. I've made non-standard ads, such as text ads to go at the top of a wordpress post. These convert like crazy .

Another course of action you could take is to sell text links (e.g. $10 a month via a PayPal recurring payment). I've got a friend who does this, and it's a big earner for him. This works very well if you've got an authority site or forum in a good niche. A few links could easily make more than AdSense ever would. Just make sure you don't link to any bad neighborhoods.

So, I'd like to see less "how do I get back into AdSense" threads round here, and more Warriors making use of the CPA sub-forum !
#adsense #lazy #making
  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    No comments? How do you AdSense guys sleep in your beds at night, knowing you could be banned at any time?

    Oh, and I have a new tip for you - HIDDEN affiliate schemes.

    I want to sell something to my site's visitors who want to buy yellow widgets. I couldn't find an affiliate scheme for yellow widgets. So I emailed the leading supplier of them. Guess what? They have an affiliate scheme! They just don't have a public web page about it.

    Day 6 into my experiment, and my earnings are up 23% since I took AdSense off most of my sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Becker13
      Banned
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      No comments? How do you AdSense guys sleep in your beds at night, knowing you could be banned at any time?

      Oh, and I have a new tip for you - HIDDEN affiliate schemes.

      I want to sell something to my site's visitors who want to buy yellow widgets. I couldn't find an affiliate scheme for yellow widgets. So I emailed the leading supplier of them. Guess what? They have an affiliate scheme! They just don't have a public web page about it.

      Day 6 into my experiment, and my earnings are up 23% since I took AdSense off most of my sites.
      Your mom uses adsense
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  • Profile picture of the author dadamson
    Congrats on your improved conversions and commissions! Looks like you made the right move experimenting with CPA offers to bring in more income.

    AdSense is easy, way too easy, and I think a lot of people are only using it because of this. But you gotta remember that is really depends on how the site is structured, what it is about, and what the target audience is. These things are what influences the conversion rates so depending on the site AdSense may still be the better performer.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Andy
    I also aware for my Adsense because it is running very slowly. Can anyone tell me how we increase clicks on my Adsense account.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    I should just add that I've still got AdSense on a few sites. It's a good way to monetise sites with a wide variety of niches.

    But if I was building a niche site (and most people here are) then I'd look for some CPA offers to build the site around.
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  • Profile picture of the author codecreative
    I'd like to add its probably best to keep some of your adsense sites. You want a diverse set of income streams if possible so that your not dependent on one single source which leaves you very vunerable. Have a plan b c d and e and your playing to win
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  • Profile picture of the author proximang7
    I do not think so, Google Adsense can make us lazy or not depending on us, if we want increase income, we must develop our site for Adsense, it is one of working everyday!
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Yes I have still got my AdSense sites. However, in the next month I'll probably TAKE ADSENSE OFF two more sites!

    This would take my AdSense income down to about a third of my online income. This is what a single income source should be, and not 80%.

    I'm also finding that my AdSense blowing up has been a huge opportunity for me. I'm finding more and more good CPA offers out there. Why do so many warriors settle for 6.5% Amazon commission? My latest affiliate pays me 50% commission lol.

    My friend has swapped his AdSense for AdBrite. I think he should really sit down and draw up a big list of what his visitors might buy, then go out and find some advertisers himself (although he does well by selling links and text ads).

    By the way, if you've got an AdSense site in a particular niche, then write down a long list of your major advertisers, then see if they have affiliate schemes or are interested in buying links on your site.
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  • I tried with adsense. But i can't able to make money there. Now i am moving
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    I always test CPS, CPA and Adsense on my niche sites. You never know what might come out of it: one of my sites was making $3/day with Adsense... switched to CPS and boom - $1500+ a month.

    Adsense doesn't make you lazy. Being lazy makes you lazy, lol.

    And congrats man - good work!
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    If you sell BMWs & Mercedes, you'll make even more money, where does it stop?
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    • Profile picture of the author bolocancristian
      Congrats on your improved conversions and commissions! Looks like you made the right move experimenting with CPA offers to bring in more income.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        ROTFLMAO!

        Adsense has made me WORK FRIGGIN HARDER!!!!

        No other program on the net has had that effect
        on me. Man I am writing, posting, uploading, adding,
        backlinking, shmoozing, abusing, conning, scamming,
        scheming, learning, earning, yearning, burning, you name it!

        Lazy? Hardly.

        Maybe lazy people are just too lazy to read any rules
        google publishes. That's the first thing people should
        do. Get off their butts and read the TOS from top to
        bottom, then read the adsense blog for updates.

        Lazy? Man that's rich.

        Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    All that work. Lol.

    Monetise your site better and maybe you won't need to work so hard.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    I think some of you guys are missing the point here. Here's how I read the OP:

    You have a site that gets traffic. You monetize with Adsense. Have you tried other options (besides Adsense) and if not - why?

    Nothing to do with Adsense TOS or selling cars (or whatever). You can't sell cars to your shitty - existing - diet traffic, but it might just make you 5x more monies with a good CPA or CPS offer. So why not try it?

    Changing direction completely and trying to optimize your existing revenue streams are two very different things.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      I think some of you guys are missing the point here. Here's how I read the OP:

      You have a site that gets traffic. You monetize with Adsense. Have you tried other options (besides Adsense) and if not - why?

      Nothing to do with Adsense TOS or selling cars (or whatever). You can't sell cars to your shitty - existing - diet traffic, but it might just make you 5x more monies with a good CPA or CPS offer. So why not try it?

      Changing direction completely and trying to optimize your existing revenue streams are two very different things.
      Lol, at the cars.

      I get what your saying & have tested multiple ways to monetize my traffic. Personally If I wasn't running Adsense I would be selling my own niche products, mainly because there's not a lot of options for the niche I'm in.

      I've sold my own products on my sites & they did ok, but they are time consuming & people always want support. With Adsense it's pretty much auto-pilot once everything is doing good, a few updates every now & then but nothing drastic.

      I had a damn good deal going on with my competition, I sent him 100% targeted traffic & he made sales (I had all his sales data) then after a $4k+ payout he started changing things up & removed my links from his site, so I removed all his links from my site. The links were all for moving traffic back & forth between sites. Basically he wanted my traffic but didn't want to share his traffic (not going to happen).

      It was good while it lasted, heck I didn't even have to do anything (besides place a few links on my sites).
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      • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
        Good information, thanks

        I just started IM a few months ago, like most probably signed up with adsense for my initial leap into it. I always planned for a long term solution to not put all my eggs in one basket and as I am now crossing the made 100 dollars with adsense line I am looking into doing something similar so I found it helpful to read how someone with more experience handled it.

        I wouldn't say Adsense made me lazy, it allowed me to learn though
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        • Profile picture of the author Vine Whip
          Damn good job bro. I really hope Google doesn't slap me like that. Subscribed to this thread.

          Oh and lol @ the tags, "lazy marketing"
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  • Profile picture of the author ownergolan
    Yep, using Adsense is mostly because you set and forget, especially for webmasters with multiple websites. Not to mention everybody is using those CTR theme and such, which practicly make you to put the adsense code and forget about it.

    Congratz for the optimization.
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  • Profile picture of the author viveksuper
    Adsene is best, m i loving it
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Well half-way through the month and my earnings are holding up. This is a quiet month for my niche, but I think moving some eggs out of the AdSense basket has been worthwhile. I'm certainly sleeping better!

    My image ads have been performing well, and I've now rolled out my own text ads system.

    What's also nice is that I've been able to forge relationships with some of my advertisers. One sent me some new banners, the other one gave me some free photos in return for backlinks.

    What I've also been doing is to make sure I have more affiliate links in text, rather than just ad blocks. Text affiliate links can be good performers.

    Next month should be better, because at the end of August I'll take off all the CPA offers that haven't converted.

    Not being tied to the AdSense T&C's is also good - it means I can spice up my content and be much more of an opinionated jerk (in my niche this is a good thing).
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  • Profile picture of the author allen12
    Great story! Shows how resourceful you truly are when you were faced with adversity. You managed to turn the game around into your favor. Bravo.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ambassy
    Whether to use adsence or CPA seriously depends on your niche.
    I've never used adsence myself; but I have been doing lots of CPA.
    If you got a site on low CPC keywords then I'd definately go with related/semi-related CPA offers such as email submits etc.

    However if you're ranking for high CPC keywords (weight loss, insurance, gambling, health, dating etc.) then I'd definately go for adsence and possibly mix it up a bit with CPA (for stuff such as dating and gambling)
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  • Profile picture of the author BAC
    oh...what a point you got...ill say yes in reply.

    i left my jobs due to earnings from adsense and work to maintain it per month!
    i becomes lazy by using adsense as you will get $$$ check per month if you are providing quality content to your visitors from your seat...!!!

    Adsense is king of all online earnings sources worldwide.

    Thanks,
    VGM
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  • Profile picture of the author Ducksauce
    Thanks heaps Brett, re-opened my eyes again. Cheers, Ducky
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  • Profile picture of the author bkat52
    I like this. And i suspect it IS making me lazy. I need to explore some possibly better converting methods like CPA and start testing. I like my trickle of adsense revenue but if something else makes more money Im there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mosa
    I like the idea of split testing it in there to see which comes out on top. Personally I have a few sites which should definitely be tested with CPA. Been meaning to test it, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.
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  • Profile picture of the author gtone
    Thanks for the information. It's very helpful. However, I think why some people use google adsense is because they do not know any better. Neither do they know about CPA. So, really I don't think it is because they are lazy. It just that, that's all what they know.

    Personally, I did not know about CPA until recently.......And i guess there would be other people like me out there that are in the same situation.

    I am happy for you that your commission increase overnight.......... keep it up. And thanks for sharing.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    2/3rds of the way through August... I'm comfortably beating AdSense. I've also been able to suspend my AdWords campaign, as I can now send enough of my own traffic to my own product sites to make up for not using AdWords.

    And yes, split testing is a good idea. What I did with my original site was to take off one AdSense unit and replace it with CPA offers.

    Next month of being AdSense-less should be even better, since I can boot off all my CPA offers that don't convert, and focus on the really good ones. Some of my offers have recurring billing, so that should help as well.

    As far as the LAZY thing goes, AdSense *was* making me lazy. It's taken some effort to find all the CPA offers out there. I've had to build a traffic profiler to show the most lucrative ads for different audiences, and I had to roll my own version of AdSense. Looks like that work will pay off though.
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  • Profile picture of the author mOrrI
    I'm using adsense in a couple of mainstream sites and the conversion is :p (crap)...

    I also noticed that some types of traffic give like almost a euro per click...

    But again not enough traffic of that type to make bank!
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  • Profile picture of the author vCr8
    I've done this too before, and moving out some of my sites one at a time... Split testing is the way to go,checking out which would work and will not, I guess everyone have different situations and testing it on your own will be the best way to go...
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  • Profile picture of the author pepelino
    The best thing to do is to not put all your eggs in one basket. I must admit adsense is getting tough these days with the whole change in TOS. I have had my ad serving disabled by google just as i started making over $130 a day... but i have moved on since with a new income stream that makes as much as adsense.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Well it's nearly the end of the month and I've comfortably beaten AdSense by switching to CPA offers! Maybe I'll take it off all of my sites.

    I basically have 3 smoking hot vendors that I'm working with. I tried a few others, but poor products are harder to sell. I'm sure one vendor is ripping me off, but that's kind of hard to tell.

    Oh, and one other tip. If you have niche sites with AdSense on them, then TURN OFF interest based ads. Despite all those PhD's, the big G is simply awful at demographic profiling (I learned this from advertising on AdWords!).
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    • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      Oh, and one other tip. If you have niche sites with AdSense on them, then TURN OFF interest based ads. Despite all those PhD's, the big G is simply awful at demographic profiling (I learned this from advertising on AdWords!).
      Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

      While still very early from reading this and applying the change but since that point my CTC has increased x3. This is why you read every post in a thread because you never know when a little nugget of information might be lurking.
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  • Profile picture of the author umbraco01
    last year i tried more with Adsense. But i didn't get success. So i moved other
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    • Profile picture of the author rajivwebads
      Yes,Gradually and a little bit I became lazy because of the Adsense.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    OP here again...

    So August has come and gone. Here's what happened to my blog ad income:

    July (AdSense on all sites): $1140
    August (AdSense taken off half my sites and replaced with CPA offers): $1300

    So if your AdSense account is b& then you really don't have too much to fear.

    Some sites are easier to monetise with CPA offers than others, but remember that if you have a site that is or was making good money with AdSense then you can simply sell it on Flippa then use the proceeds to build more sites!

    CPA needs a bit of a different mindset, but luckily having a software business I know that sales do come and go - you can go a whole week with nothing, then get 4 sales in a day. With CPA you need to pay attention to MONTHLY earnings, not DAILY like you can with AdSense.

    Anyway, this has been a good experiment. Going forward, I'll try and build more sites round some other CPA offers I manage to find.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
    I have really given this some thought, more so lately I find as my adsense sites are reaching the $1000+/month mark. It does seem a little foolish on my part to trade a gold egg for merely another gold egg. I know zero about Amazon but going to start taking a look at what is needed to get things together for that route of branching out sooner rather then later.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Amazon is popular, but ask yourself why you would slave away for 6.5%. That's more hard work than being one of the warehouse staff they employ to ship the stuff to their customers. Some of my CPA programs are paying me 65%!!!
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    • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      Amazon is popular, but ask yourself why you would slave away for 6.5%. That's more hard work than being one of the warehouse staff they employ to ship the stuff to their customers. Some of my CPA programs are paying me 65%!!!
      Because if there is one thing I have even less knowledge of then Amazon it is CPA. It isn't a matter of why don't I do this, it is more or a less of having zero knowledge of even where to start with CPA. From what I can tell from CPA it is you sign up to some mysterious affiliate and no clue what they offer, then only after you are accepted you find out what they are offering for programs.

      (Keep in mind I am fairly new at IM)

      What I do know is sticking with only Adsense is not a good thing, it isn't a matter of trust it is just pure business. So I need to take steps to diversifying my income streams.

      Your thread is a good example of many CPA threads, doing CPA I earned this. It assumed a base knowledge level which I don't have yet. Good example is I would love to find a CPA that deals with games because I have a gaming site that already has a solid base of organic traffic, I have looked even but these sites have so little detail it is blind luck finding it. So I would rather spend my time working on 6.5% with an achievable goal then 65% that I have no clue if even exists.
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  • Profile picture of the author whiterock
    I dont think it makes us lazy because you have to work hard continuously on your content and on your traffic
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    • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
      Originally Posted by whiterock View Post

      I dont think it makes us lazy because you have to work hard continuously on your content and on your traffic
      I agree lazy is not the right word.. in my opinion based on what I see and even experienced Adsense can make you complacent though. I think to achieve long term success with IM you need to treat it like an investment portfolio. The more diverse your income streams are you will be able to handle the problems and fluctuations.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheBlueWizard
    We still use adsense, but only as fluff. Honestly, we always back our monetization methods up with various CPA offers, or even better, we flip the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author CourtTuttle
      I increased the earnings of one of my sites by over 1000% by switching from Adsense to my own product. Yes, Adsense DEFINITELY makes all of us lazy.
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      • Profile picture of the author webdeveloper25
        You're right. Adsense makes us lazy and we want to see only increasing in dollars and don't want to work hard to make them permanent. Sometimes we hope for a high CPC but Google is smart enough. I think Affiliate marketing is very good source to generate online income instantly from a clean and SEO optimized blog.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    One major problem I have with CPA is that so much of it is such scammy trash - all that bait and switch, offering iPads, borderline trickery and smallprintery to get people to sign up for recurring payments with their CC and goodness knows what else. It doesn't sit right with me at all.

    However, if you are talking about CPA in a wider sense, including legit lead-gen etc. then that is definitely something I want to look into, especially programs that can be negotiated without too many middle men. It's just finding the right match - as people have pointed out, some niches do not easily lend themselves to other types of advertising. Adsense IS the lazy option, but sometimes it MAY be the only option - perhaps I am wrong about that.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    All my CPA offers are directly with the merchant. Use something like CJ and you'll lose 20-25% of your commission to middlemen!

    I'm only using high quality niche offers, not broad CPA things like filling in surveys and other junk (though these have their uses).

    I'm pretty sure a couple of merchants are ripping me off, but there's just so many to choose from and they are now competing for the right to show their offers on my sites. One line of code in my ad manager turns their ads on or off, plus my ad manager code will boost their priority if they make me money.

    I've already been paid by the best merchants so I know they're not gonna sit on my earnings!

    AdSense has been terrible for me this month - I'm glad I'm making the switch into CPA.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Quick September update.

    Meh, September has been so-so. For some reason my remaining AdSense earnings tanked this month. RPM and CPC are down a lot, and all I can think is that this is a bad month for my niche, or advertisers are cutting back.

    My CPA offers are doing well, though not as well as last month. I'm definitely making around the same as I was with AdSense alone. My best CPA offer will payout $100, so obviously if I get 3-4 of those in a month then it changes the situation massively.

    I think my niche will do better over the coming months and the good thing is that I have now sorted all the CPA offers and ditched the ads for the non-performers.

    I want to build up my AdSense, and to do that I'm testing out some new niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesColin
    Banned
    Which ad manager are you using?
    Have you developped your own in which you send a few keywords?
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    I rolled my own version that just uses the keywords from the URL, plus user's IP address. I'm calling it AdSenseLite.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    By lazy I mean that it takes 2 minutes to add AdSense to your blog. Hunting out CPA offers takes time. My best new offer doesn't even advertise their affiliate programme - I had to get off my ass and actually email them.

    Anyone with a good site in a moderately competitive niche can easily earn more from CPA offers than they can with AdSense. Plus you'll sleep a lot better at night.
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  • Profile picture of the author jerrywhyte
    I also got hit by adsense July this, they stop serving ads to the site that is fetching me over 80% of all my web traffic.

    I removed all the contents that seems to be conflicting with their program policies as claimed, the only email i received was that my site can not be restored, i wrote more than 10 fresh replies after taking off all the post links that seems conflicting with their policies and for sure, they were contents that were fetching me all the money.

    i now did a domain change and use htacess 301 to redirect my site, ever since i have lost my earnings and now almost starting from square one, i wish i can know good adsense niche to enter now and rank easily so that i can start making money to run my online biz empire?
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Another update:

    Wow, my niche sites got creamed by the Google update!

    The good news is that CPA offers are still making money, it's just that I'm not selling so many. Google traffic is the most valuable traffic you can have, Yahoo/Bing users aren't so warmed up when it comes to selling them stuff.

    One good thing though is that I'm learning valuable experience of how to convert these offers.

    Next stop, buying traffic and pulling in $$$$ from offers I know people will spend money on.
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    • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      Another update:

      Wow, my niche sites got creamed by the Google update!

      The good news is that CPA offers are still making money, it's just that I'm not selling so many. Google traffic is the most valuable traffic you can have, Yahoo/Bing users aren't so warmed up when it comes to selling them stuff.

      One good thing though is that I'm learning valuable experience of how to convert these offers.

      Next stop, buying traffic and pulling in $$$$ from offers I know people will spend money on.
      I have spent the last 2 weeks making the transition from Adsense to other income streams and have to admit, it was far easier then I expected. I think the toughest part was changing the mental aspects of it all. I have to admit at first I thought I was crazy walking away from what was 100/day during the last few days I had Adsense on the site but it was shockingly simply to get back up to there.

      The irony is yes Adsense allowed me to be lazy but dropping Adsense made things much simpler.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    lol...never saw this thread before

    As to whether adding adsense to your site will make you a lazy person if you are not - of course not. But there is no doubt whatsoever that adsense as a business model is a lazy model and its an indisputable fact as sure as the sky is blue on a clear day that how it is used by Imers particular here at WF has made many people lazy.

    Doesn't really matter though. The more important thing is (as you have seen) it just downright SUCKS for making money. Even among those who try hard most make only chicken feed.
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    • Profile picture of the author markowe
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      Even among those who try hard most make only chicken feed.
      ...and if you start making any serious money, you'd better believe you will appear on Google's radar and quite possibly lose your account.

      Another of my sites got creamed in this update, it's not even an EMD, I got away from all that keyword-heavy stuff and worked on quality content, but still got whacked. Maybe it was a few old, shady ALN links that did it. However, I think it's more like some kind of footprint - long article on homepage, overly keyword optimised etc. Must admit, I am scratching my head a bit now and thinking in some completely different directions - Google's on a serious mission, never mind Adsense, I am really glad I was not just relying on niche sites in general for my income, because I am just a tad bemused. Back to square 5, if not 1...
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      Who says you can't earn money as an eBay affiliate any more? My stats say otherwise

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    • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      lol...never saw this thread before

      As to whether adding adsense to your site will make you a lazy person if you are not - of course not. But there is no doubt whatsoever that adsense as a business model is a lazy model and its an indisputable fact as sure as the sky is blue on a clear day that how it is used by Imers particular here at WF has made many people lazy.

      Doesn't really matter though. The more important thing is (as you have seen) it just downright SUCKS for making money. Even among those who try hard most make only chicken feed.
      I don't even view it as a business model any longer because you have 0% control over anything with regard to it. Only by stepping away from it I can look at my site and say it can make this much money per month and has a potential to do this much. With Adsense I was at such a whim, you could see a $10 day only for the next to be $190. Granted I am well aware all busineses fluctuate however you at least have statistics to back up what is going on with regard to your day to day. There was none of this and no real way to expand your growth other then, hope and see.

      I am not saying no one should use Adsense, if it works for you and what you want to accomplish.. your choice However your goal is to create a business doing IM, not sure there is a worse choice possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    AdSense is easy in that you don't have to think about it a lot, other than being sure not to violate the TOS.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    October update:

    Well I got smacked hard by the Google machine, so I hope more people start using DuckDuckGo.

    Anyway, I'm still doing well with CPA offers, although I guess I should really call them CPS.

    I've continued to whittle down my list of advertisers to those who convert, and I've ditched the rest.

    I'm also tinkering with advertising on other peoples' sites through the world of CPA offers. I think in the long run this might be easier than writing 1000 pages about widgets.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
    @Brettb

    I went an entirely different route with my break away from Adsense. Since I knew I was doing it I was able to plan a bit more but probably not nearly enough, I was listing those that display ads on my site through Adsense. I experienced a great conversion rate getting them to buy into a flat monthly rate rather then Adsense costs. I talked with a few people who sell magazine ads and approached the sales side of things with that mentality. Basically went from 100/day with Adsense to 200/day doing this. The real kicker has been the refocusing of my time. No longer am I am working on things to drive up that "click", now pure and simple it is all about traffic and dominating niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Wow, cool story Nelapsi!

    Yeah, getting in touch with your major advertisers is a great thing to do.

    Anyway, October has been good for me, although my income is down ~40% because of the September Panda update.

    My AdSense income is now around 40% of my online income, but it's easily replaceable.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
    I do think you have stumbled on something though, because people are always looking for a Google Alternative. The thing is there isn't one, it is impossible to keep the same mentality for running Adsense and move to a different advertising model without something changing. The change that most complain about is they want to keep things the same, so they take a hit on the income side because nothing pays as well as Adsense.

    I have found if you focus on building a solid base of organic traffic dealing with subject matters you clearly control then finding advertising seems to be easy. Sure I get some no's or rather use Adwords but as I always leave that door open because Adwords usually gets one of two things, more expensive or less effective.

    The key is traffic, this isn't very effective if your site is getting under 30k UV each month and I personally view that on the low end.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    If anyone wants a detailed walkthrough of what I did after my AdSense ban, here's my in depth guide to replacing AdSense with other sources of income:

    Life After AdSense - Survive an AdSense Smackdown.

    Plus I've thrown in a FREE guide on the future of niche sites.
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