Light-Hearted Holiday Season Post #1

In this time of chaos, tumult, and constant change, I’ve decided that a little light-hearted Holiday Season levity is in order.  With that in mind, during this week of Christmas I’m posting a small series of somewhat strange and superfluous oddities for your enjoyment, until I come back to the regular posting schedule in 2011.  Enjoy…  And Happy Holidays…

Sub-Title:  Google Ad Cents

I started this blog in May of 2007.  About a year or so later (Aug 2008), somebody asked me about integrating Google Ads (Adsense) into his blog; and I implemented Adsense ads in my own blog to quickly figure it out.  Once it was set up, I thought, “…why not just leave it up and earn a little money…?”

As the months went by, I implemented the Adsense code on a couple of my other hobby blogs.  So by late in 2008, the ads were active on 2 highly-trafficked sites (this included), and two mostly un-used ones.

One other important note:  Google does not pay out the ad revenue until you reach $100 in earnings.

And now the big news:  Yesterday, on Sunday, December 19, 2010, I earned 22 cents on one click, finally reaching the magic $100 amount in Google ad revenue.  You read that right, a little more than 2 years later.

Historically, I would usually get like one or two clicks per week, even though I get hundreds of views per day, and thousands of views per week on average.  I assure you, there is simply no correlation between views and clicks!  In the early days, I earned less than a dollar a month, and sometimes nothing at all.  My highest-earning month so far was September of 2010, coming in at a whopping $13.63.

Each click would earn me like 2 to 20 cents apiece (the 22 cents for the final heave was a nice treat).  I never clicked the ads myself (nor asked anyone to);  since to me, it was an interesting experiment that I did not want to spoil.

I’d love to go into all my theories about the differences in the advertising models between broadcast mediums and the ‘Net, or about the different view/click ratios between this tech-related site (low) and my other motorcycle-related hobby site (high), but I won’t.  It’s the holidays.  Put simply, nerds don’t click ads…  much…

Heck, according to the site stats, a great many of you run FireFox, probably with AdBlockPlus.  So you didn’t even notice them…

And to be fair to Google, I did choose the option to leave charitable organizations and non-profits in the mix of ads, so of course there is not chance for revenue or paying clicks on those.  I don’t know how much that affected the outcome, but I thought it was the right thing to do…

So I want to thank all of you who *did* click the ads over those 2 years.  I hope you were well-served by the links provided here, and not too bothered by them.  And thanks to Google itself, for allowing me to participate in the grand experiment.

Now, according to Google policy, I should be paid in January, the month after cresting $100.   So when that money arrives, I plan to put a part of it aside (it is taxable, and reported to the government!), and spend the rest on something decadent.  Like a few gallons of gas.

😉

201012201343:  Edited for factual correction.

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