If This Guy Can't Make Money on AdSense...

...then what are the prospects for the other 55 million bloggers out there?!  The "Guy" I'm referring to is Guy Kawasaki, well-known author and marketing guru. In this blog post he talks about the whopping $3,350 he made via AdSense in his first year of blogging.  Yes, Guy Kawasaki, owner of one of the most popular blogs on the planet only managed to make about $279/month in AdSense income.  As Chris Anderson writes in his own blog, the benefits aren't really the AdSense checks as much as the "indirect revenue" Guy incrementally drives through his blog from books, consulting, etc. I totally agree, but it makes me wonder about the long term prospects of the AdSense model...

New bloggers are featuring AdSense blocks with somewhat of a get-rich-quick mentality.  Most probably figure, "hey, everyone else is doing it, they must be making lots of money at it, so I'm going to do it too."  How long will it take before it becomes common knowledge that most bloggers probably won't ever make it to their first $100 check?

Before you argue that Google doesn't care about the little guy and they only want to focus on the blogs with all the eyeballs, look at Guy's traffic stats again.  We're talking about page view and feed rates that most of us can only dream of, and the revenue stream was to tiny for him that he ultimately abandoned AdSense altogether!

Comments

[Michael A. Banks]

This confirms what I thought would be the case with AdSense: micro-earnings. It would appear that the average Web surfer is less likely to click on an ad than was previously supposed or hoped.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com

[Carael]

Yes,

I can agree with you on blogging. I’ve been blogging for quite sometime now and I can say that blogging and EDC Gold has created a BIG smile on my face! I love money, especially when I can generate income doing practically next to nothing!

www.edcgold.com/?id=CKnight

[Dave Taylor]

Why is this some sort of dramatic surprise, Joe? If bloggers want to earn money, they need to be writing about topics that generate both high-value advertising and readers that are willing and interested in clicking on the adverts served up by the AdSense system. This is no different than, say, a magazine: magazines about "micro-topics" tend to do a lot worse than magazines about, say, the latest PC hardware and software, in terms of ad sales. Indeed, one way that a savvy blogger could research this topic would be to go to the magazine stand and simply research which publications are thickest. :-)

[Joe Wikert]

Hi Dave. I guess it's not so much a surprise as it is a question about all the bloggers who claim to be making a fortune with AdSense... It definitely makes you wonder who's telling the truth and who's inflating their results!

[Tari Akpodiete]

the types of people who read Guy's blog are not 'average' web surfers. and they are more so NOT the type to click on ads.

[Tari Akpodiete]

and a great many of the people who are making 'real money' with blogs/sites are people who make hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of blogs/sites, all with content (often stolen or recycled), and who run them up in search engines/directories using questionable techniques. these are MFA (made for AdSense) and Google is cracking down on them, delisting them as quickly as they find them. you find their owners in forums whining about the evil that Google is wreaking on their 'livelihoods'.