Finally, Google Adsense revealed the Adsense revenue that every Adsense publisher earns. I was following this news when Italian authorities made Google to reveal the revenue that each publisher make money online from them.
As you may already know, AdSense is comprised of several products. The most popular are AdSense for content, which allows publishers to generate revenue from ads placed alongside web content, and AdSense for search, which allows publishers to place a custom Google search engine on their site and generate revenue from ads shown next to search results. Since AdSense for content and AdSense for search offer publishers different services, the revenue shared with publishers differs for each of these products.
AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites. The remaining portion that we keep reflects Google’s costs for our continued investment in AdSense — including the development of new technologies, products and features that help maximize the earnings you generate from these ads. It also reflects the costs we incur in building products and features that enable our AdWords advertisers to serve ads on our AdSense partner sites. Since launching AdSense for content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed.
We pay our AdSense for search partners a 51% revenue share, worldwide, for the search ads that appear through their implementations. As with AdSense for content, the proportion of revenue that we keep reflects our costs, including the significant expense, research and development involved in building and enhancing our core search and AdWords technologies. The AdSense for search revenue share has remained the same since 2005, when we increased it.
Source: The Adsense Revenue Share.
You gain 68% from adsense for content and 51% for adsense for search. That is amazing how much we can earn with adsense. Also remember that not every site has the same “price per click”. What I mean is that, if your site has quality content and is an authority site in your niche, Google Adwords advertiser will be paying more per click in your site, that means you will earn more per click.
Now, I can imagine how many other companies alike, will start raising their commissions to their publishers. If you remember, there are other companies that offers 50% of the revenue share. But my question will be, how Google Adsense can proof that since they opened Google Adsense they are giving what they state? What do you think about this?
Update: Reading around about this latest news, it seems that many publishers are not happy because Google gets a lot of their own commissions. Also many people are mentioning that larger publishers like New York Times get a larger share than normal publishers.
Some webmasters opinions:
Just got the tweet on my mobile. I’m surprised really, never thought it (content) would be that higher a share to publishers.How many ad networks have we seen claiming industry’s highest revenue share at 70%? 68% from the largest(?) ad network is excellent IMO
A positive one! Nice.
This is very interesting. First off, I thought it was higher (75-80%). Secondly, this makes me wonder if I should be using my own site search script with embedded content ads (68% rev share) versus the Adsense Search (51% rev share).
That 17% could make a big difference.
A negative one, but I agree.
Who thinks YOU are getting 68%? As I read it they pay out 68% of what they get in… I wouldn’t be surprised if that % fluctuates depending on your site’s traffic, conversion rate, IP of clicker, etc. etc…. a Few big players getting 70%+ can make the average 68% with some people getting only 50% or less… How else do you explain clicks worth a penny and sometimes even sub-penny? CPM targeting?
Totally wrong, as I stated before. If your site is an authority and unique content. Adwords advertisers will pay more per click in your site. So let me make the scenario here:
Site 1 is quality and authority. Site 2 is some spammy website.
Site 1 advertiser pays $1 per click. So adsense publisher earns $0.68 per click. Site 2 the same advertiser pays $0.2 per click, so you earn Approximatly $0.03.
Why is that figure surprising? People who calculated it, using Google’s financial reports, have always found it to be 65-70%.
Of course, that’s the overall share, so some publishers could be making more than others. I don’t see anything in the post that says all publishers get the same share.
Interestingly, Google also makes a point that is I’ve heard a few times here: “Additionally, when considering different monetization options, we encourage you to focus on the total revenue generated from your site, rather than just revenue share, which can be misleading. For example, you would receive $68 with AdSense for content for $100 worth of advertising that appeared on your site. If another ad network offers an 80% revenue share, but is only able to collect $50 from ads served on your site, you would earn $40. In this case, a higher revenue share wouldn’t make up for the lower revenue yield of the other ad network.”
Update 2:
It seems that many people don´t like to read and still they are confusing about this news, about “why I am getting $0.01 per click”. I gave you an example up there, so read it. Here is AdsenseAdvisor explain it very well:
I wanted to address a few of the questions in this thread. First, the 68% revenue share for AdSense for content applies to all online publishers. It is not an average revenue share.
If you show AdSense for content ads on your pages, you will receive 68% of the amount advertisers pay for those ads. While we have negotiated individual contracts with some major online publishers, these amounts are not averaged into the revenue share disclosed today. Further, there is no amount taken off the top. You get 68 percent, period, and this number has not changed since we launched AdSense for content in 2003.
Second, the AdSense for Content and AdSense for search revenue numbers mentioned in today’s blogpost are now being displayed in the new AdSense interface (still in beta). These numbers will also be available in the existing interface soon as well.
7 Comments
I’m not sure I’m getting why folks are saying publishers get paid different percentages.
Doesn’t the difference in what publishers get paid per click lie not in percentages, but in amounts advertisers pay for those pages?
It’s about smart pricing, right? If I recall correctly, the Google AdWords help pages say that smart pricing saves advertisers money – which would imply that the advertising fees are where the cuts are, not that publishers are paid less of a percentage.
What am I missing?
Minimum bid on Adwords is 5 cents (right?)
Revenue share of 68% means roughly 3.5 cents (right?)
Why do people (Adsense Publishers) report 1 cent clicks?
Well for one thing, your premise is wrong. There hasn’t been a five cent minimum on bids for years. I bid lower than that all the time. The ad served could have been from a different network with a different rev share. It could be a CPM ad. There’s rounding and fractions. All kinds of reason.
I don’t think it’s quite as easy to determine how much a click pays. Just because we may see a 1 cent click, that doesn’t really mean that’s all that was paid for that click. I think Google intentionally spreads out the reporting of clicks, amounts paid, etc., to obfuscate the true value of a click.
If they didn’t, it would invite abuse by some unscrupulous publishers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see high value clicks spread out over a period of days, including some 1 cent clicks showing up just to throw everyone off.
Nothing Google does is simple. It would be totally out of character for them to report 1 click = x amount on a certain day. They have some big algorhythm designed to confuse everyone.
Michael, under smart pricing, Google has said that the advertiser pays less for a click that Google has determined to be *worth* less, due to the site on which it appears. Google doesn’t necessarily change the percentage share on those: if a $1 click is smart-priced to be worth 50 cents, the average payout could well be 34 cents.
cwnet, to add to what netmeg said, another reason you could see 1-cent clicks is that that is what Google pays AFTER smartpricing. You don’t see smartpricing deducted in your reports, do you?
Overall, the way I interpret the impact of smart-pricing is that it reduces the amount charged to advertisers. The resulting money is then divvied up, with Google paying out 68%. You can argue that they pay the same % to all publishers, or a different one, but logically I think that the smart-pricing discount is applied first.
The point is, there is no $0.05 MIN, especially through the CONTENT (Adsense) Network. It has nothing to do with business/account size. It depends on ad/page view inventory and competition for that category.
Whether or not YOUR account sees < $0.05 clicks isn't the point. It is possible, and his explaination is correct that there are other factors (ex. CPM) that clearly shows the previous argument isn't sound…
I may be wrong, but I think smart pricing could also push down the value of a click. I’ll venture a guess that when a page gets a smart-price adjustment, the discount in the value of the click is shared equally between Google and the publisher. Could explain some of the $.01 clicks.
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