Tewha » AdSense

Good bye AdSense!

Steven Fisher — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:36:27 +0000

Back in October, I decided to run Google AdSense ads on my site. I wasn’t expecting a lot of money, but I was hoping to see enough for the site to pay for its hosting.

Unfortunately, AdSense isn’t going to do it.

I added AdSense on October 20, 2007. On November 7, 2007 it broke $1. On November 21, 2007 it broke $2. On November 24, 2007 it broke $3. On December 5, 2007 it broke $4 and hit $4.26. It hasn’t moved again since. That’s over two months.

I wondered at first if I’d broken something. I refreshed all the AdSense code, and even expanded the number of ads I was serving. Nothing. Since December 5, 2007 I haven’t seen a penny.

Oh, sure, maybe it will get better, but it isn’t going to get that much better. Maybe I could reasonably expect to see a hundred dollars by the time my boy wants higher education (he’s nine months old now), but I don’t think it’s worth looking at the ads (and their ever-decreasing quality) until then.

And so it comes time to bid AdSense farewell. It was a compromise that simply wasn’t worth it, but I’d like to think I learned something from the experience. Although other than AdSense doesn’t work, I’m not sure what that would be.

More Adsense fun

Steven Fisher — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:24:05 +0000

I’m definitely keeping Adsense on my site, even if I never see a dime. This is just too funny to pass up:

It’s like Cliff Claven on Jeopardy: “Who are three people who’ve never been in my kitchen?”

Toilet AdSense rules!

Steven Fisher — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:41:27 +0000

I’m going to have to mention toilets more often, because the ads are far weirder.

How to get a free Dr. Pepper

Steven Fisher — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:00:36 +0000

I’d love to have my site pay for its own hosting. Failing that, a free lunch would be nice. But if I can’t do that, at least I could get a free Dr. Pepper.

So here’s how I got a free Dr. Pepper:

Run DreamHost referral ads. This took me a few minutes to set up. It has earned me about $8 over the last few years. It would have earned me more, but I’m a secondary referral to someone who doesn’t have an account anymore. ((Thanks a lot, Tim.)) Anyway, this would buy me about 16 cans of Dr. Pepper, except that it was applied to my Dreamhost bill automatically. That’s just as well — 16 cans? I’d probably go into a diabetic shock. ((Ahem. Proudly hosted by Dreamhost. Host your dreams today!))
Run AdSense ads. This took me a few hours to set up. So far, I’ve earned about $0.54. I could buy a Dr. Pepper with that money, except that I need to reach $100 before I can cash out. I figure that will be some time in 2036.
Tell stories for quarters. So far, I’ve only done this once. “Buy me a Dr. Pepper, and I will tell you a tale of government beauracratic incompetence and disorganization that spans three years.” He nodded, waved me at his horde of change, and I bought my Dr. Pepper. It took about 3.5 minutes to tell the story. ((To be honest, this reminded me a bit of Smaug.))

So far, telling stories has got me the best ROI ((That’s return on investment for you non-technical people.)). So I’m officially announcing ((As in, announcing but not doing.)) that I will from this time forward earn my Dr. Pepper money by telling tales of woe at bus stops. Wish me luck!

Update: mx informs me that Google sends out cheques once a year. If true, that’d mean I’m probably a few months away from another free Dr. Pepper. Oh, the sweet, carbonated rapture!