Comments on: NYT reports that AdSense pays publishers 78.5 cents on the dollar

By: Leo

Leo — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 15:42:10 +0000

Great Post.

By: fivecentnickel.com

fivecentnickel.com — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 04:58:08 +0000

Doesn’t BlogAds take a 30% cut? In light of that, 21.5% doesn’t sound too bad.

By: Inside Online Advertising

Inside Online Advertising — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:41:29 +0000

How Much Money Does Google Keep From AdSense Clicks?

When a user clicks on an ad on your site you receive a certain amount of money. This amount is based off of how much an advertiser bid for the keyword, but how much of what the advertiser bid do…

By: George

George — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:57:37 +0000

Thats just bull. Remember NY Times are known to publish fake stories and I bet this is just one of them to help sell paper.

No way Google is paying that high of a split.

By: Microblogger » Google Pays Out 78.5c On The Dollar

Microblogger » Google Pays Out 78.5c On The Dollar — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:57:34 +0000

[...] An article today by Bob Tedeschi talks about something we’ve all been speculating – the revenue sharing in Google Adsense. In the article, which I heard about at Problogger and JenSense, reveals that Google pays out about 78.5% of each dollar of revenue to publishers. [...]

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 21:01:41 +0000

Then it’s time for me to get to 20 million hits a month!

By: Trent

Trent — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:35:55 +0000

The payback averages 78.5% but includes partners such as AOL that likely receive a much higher percentage. In addition, certain high-traffic partners receive guaranteed minimum payouts, and in certain cases these result in payouts in excess of 100% (this is all in the regulatory filings, by the way.) The average payout for a blog owner is likely significantly lower.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:31:23 +0000

I emailed Bob Tedeschi (author of the article) about where he got the numbers and he said that he gleaned the figures from Google’s 10-Q. Of $675M in revenues from the Google Network, they paid out 78.5%, or $530M. Then he mentioned that the company emphasized that 78.5% is an average payback… so each publisher gets more or less than that (smart pricing?).

By: Dan Marques

Dan Marques — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:45:01 +0000

That is way higher than I had ever expected. My best guess would have been somewhere in the 25-50% range. Although, could that 78.5% number be what Google pays for site tageted ads on a CPM basis? It may not necessarily be what google pays for CPC contextual advertising.

Of course, the great debate could be ended easily enough. Create ads with very specific keyword targeting and set up a site on a different publisher account with a keyword rich site for that targeted ad. Once clicks come in, see what the difference between the two are.

Here’s another interesting thing to think about. If I have some clicks that I only earn 1-3 cents on, yet Google’s minimum bid for advertisers is 5 cents. On any ad paying me less than .03 per click, they are keeping drastically more than 21%….

By: jim

jim — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:43:05 +0000

If true, I think their split is very generous considering the technology behind it.

By: News

News — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:36:35 +0000

AdSense pays publishers 78.5 cents on the dollar

Problogger points to a NY Times piece that claims that “AdSense pays publishers 78.5 cents on the dollar”. Ahh, the mythical number of rev-share that has eluded publishers for the past few years, finally exposed? ‘the article clearly states Google…

By: Kelley Ritchey

Kelley Ritchey — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 15:53:09 +0000

Interesting. I don’t think 21% give or take is unreasonable at all. I think Big Guy’s comment ignores that part of the number (whatever it actually is) is a return on the Google’s context technology.

Now as many have said, the technology is not perfect for all websites, but gives many small publisher a chance to make a little or a lot of change with little or no effort

By: big4guy

big4guy — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:18:07 +0000

This means Google retains 21.5 cents in a dollar. I see Google as a commission agent, who brings advertisers and the prospective customers together. As far as commission rates for advertising go, 21.5 % is pretty huge. Anyone know similar rates for Yahoo!

big4guy

By: Mihai

Mihai — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:14:10 +0000

I think the actual value is much lower.