Introduction to Google AdSense

AdSense is an advertisement application run by Google. It is a program that can give you advertising revenue from each page on your website. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and more recently, video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis.

AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content. And when you add a Google search box to your site, AdSense delivers relevant text ads that are targeted to the Google search results pages generated by your visitors’ search request

History of google AdSense

The underlying technology behind AdSense was derived originally from WordNet, Simpli and a number of professors and graduate students from Brown University, including James A. Anderson, Jeff Stibel, and Steve Reiss.

WordNet is a semantic lexicon for the English language. It groups English words into sets of synonyms called synsets, provides short, general definitions, and records the various semantic relations between these synonym sets. WordNet was created and is being maintained at the Cognitive Science Laboratory of Princeton University under the direction of psychology professor George A. Miller. WordNet has been used for a number of different purposes in information systems, including word sense disambiguation, information retrieval, automatic text classification, automatic text summarization, and even automatic crossword puzzle generation. A project at Brown University started by Jeff Stibel, James A. Anderson, Steve Reiss and others called Applied Cognition Lab created a disambiguator using WordNet in 1998. The project later morphed into a company called Simpli, which is now owned by ValueClick.

A variation of this technology utilizing WordNet was developed by Oingo, a small search engine company based in Santa Monica founded in 1998 by Gilad Elbaz and Adam Weissman. Oingo changed its name to Applied Semantics in 2001, and Applied Semantics was later acquired by Google in April 2003 for US$102 million.

How to use google AdSense

1. Becoming an AdSense publisher is simple. All it takes is a single online application. Once you're approved, AdSense takes only minutes to set-up. Just copy and paste a block of HTML and targeted ads start showing up on your website.
2. You can maximize your revenue potential by displaying Google ads on your website. Google puts relevant CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) ads through the same auction, and lets them compete against one another. The auction takes place instantaneously, and, when it’s over, AdSense automatically displays the text or image ad(s) that will generate the maximum revenue for a page -- and the maximum revenue for you.
3. With Google's extensive advertiser base, they have ads for all categories of businesses-and for practically all types of content, no matter how broad or specialized. And since Google provides the ads, you have no advertiser relationships to maintain.
4. Google's ad review process ensures that the ads you serve are not only family-friendly, but also comply with our strict editorial guidelines.
5. You can customize the appearance of ads, choosing from a wide range of colors and templates. Ditto with your search results page. Your reports are customizable, too. Flexible reporting tools let you group your pages in any way you want so you can view your results by URL, domain, ad type, category and more to learn where your earnings are coming from.

Google AdSense Ad Formats

Google AdSense has four formats: Text Ads, Image Ads, Video Ads, and Link Units. For each format, there are multiple options for users to choose the size of their Ads. Users can also choose the placements for their Ads.

1. Size Options: Leaderboard (728x90), Banner (468x60), Half Banner (234x60), Button (125x125), Skyscraper (120x600), Wide Skyscraper (160x600), Small Rectangle (180x150), Vertical Banner (120x240), Small Square (200x200), Square (250x250), Medium Rectangle (300x250) , Large Rectangle (336x280).

2. Placement Ooptions: Ad on upper left, Ad on upper right, Ad in the middle, Ad at the bottom. The picture shows the Banner Ad (468x60) on upper left.

How much money users can earn?

The answer to that question depends upon three factors:
1. How much traffic your site draws
2.How many visitors click on your ads
3.How much those ads pay per generated click.
With some ads paying as much as $5 or more, it is possible that you can generate a serious income with AdSense. There are relatively well documented cases of some people earning as much as $500 per day and more. Numbers like that are rare exceptions however. Even so, there is no reason why you can earn somewhere around $1,000 per month, or more, once you get the hang of it.

Here is an examples of google AdSense on websites:
This picture is about a man showing his website-viewers how much money he has earned from June 2008 to August 2008.
June 2008 $6099.97
July 2008 $8689.57
August 2008 $8763.19

How does google know what ads will interest my audience?

Though you can't decide which ads appear on your site, Google does a very nice job of assessing your pages and supplying ads that might interest your visitors. For example, if you run a site about the history of window treatments, Google is likely to dish up ads for vintage blinds and specialty curtain rods. That kind of relevance is important, because Google doesn't pay you when somebody sees an ad on your site; it pays you when somebody clicks an ad. So you want Google to fill your space with blurbs likely to interest your readers.

Some tips from the AdSense users

• Ads can work well in-between other stuff. On a games site of mine, some of the games don't contain ads next to the game area; the AdSense ad will only be shown in-between game rounds. This is the time the visitor is not concentrating on performing a task but might take a small break, and be open to the option of visiting new sites.
• Put too much emphasis on AdSense and your site may be linked to less. The more available space you dedicate to AdSense on your site, and the less you differentiate between ads and content in your design, the more money you earn with the program, right? Not quite. While pushing the AdSense may result in short-term gains, it might also convince some visitors that the site is too crowded to be worth visiting again.
• Even if you get huge traffic, the AdSense income from the site is more dependent on the site type and audience. Google targets AdSense ads automatically to the site content. Or at least, it does so ideally – but some types of content fare better than others with this targeting. I noticed for instance that AdSense does better on a games site than on a technology blog. I also heard people say that AdSense does quite good on product oriented blogs; say, one post solely about the iPod; another post solely about Gadget XYZ, and so on.
• Image ads can be relevant and work for you, but they might also apall some visitors.
• Be aware of risks when you change ad layouts too much. I once had a system on the server to randomly differ between various AdSense layouts on the same page. Doing so I was hoping to add some good variety to keep the ads at least somewhat interesting and notable. Shortly after I stopped doing so and simply included a rather big static area for the AdSense to "do what it wants," the AdSense revenues for that site increased. Now, I don't know if this was a coincidence of some sorts, as revenues often go down or up even when you don't do anything, but it might well have been that there was a connection between adding too much homemade randomization, and lowered revenues.
• Consider using AdSense even when the page doesn't get any traffic yet. Who knows, some day the traffic suddenly explodes, and you might not realize fast enough and thus miss out on the action (as sometimes, traffic goes as fast as it comes).
• Making money with AdSense takes time. In my experience, it may take many months to years for a site to gain enough traffic to make OK money through AdSense... if ever. I have almost never experienced any site making quick and easy money with AdSense (though you may be getting quicker results than me of course, as it depends on so many variables!).
• I have been using AdSense on my Jims Tips site (where I post tips about topics that interest me.) Though I certainly don't make a living from AdSense, it does pay for the site. I have found that what drives revenue is content that is useful. After all, people aren't visiting a site to click ads, they want to see content that's worth their visit. Add fresh content, and the revenue goes up. let it stagnate, and the revenue goes down.
• I suggest the background of the ads should match the blog background color.
• My experience with any advertising, including AdSense is to allow them to compliment your content. don't try to "trick" people into clicking on them. You may get a few cheap click-throughs at first but in the long run you'll piss off your audience and they may never come back. Stick with the out of the box design Google provides and concentrate on good relevant content.