What is AdSense?

AdSense is a contextual advertising service offered by internet giant Google. The AdSense programme started in 1995 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. AdWords is the programme advertisers enrol in to have their adverts displayed on AdSense.

The distinctive 'Ads by Goooogle' can been seen somewhere on just about every website nowadays. The ads provide a very powerful, far reaching, highly effective method of delivery for advertisers participating in the AdWords programme. AdSense allows web publishers to place real time content-targeted adverts on their sites. AdSense delivers targeted ads by scanning a web page for key words before each page load.

The publisher receives payment, and advertiser pays out, every time an advert is clicked by a site visitor. Sometimes a payment is made for every thousand impressions of the advert bearing pages. The advertiser decides a monthly budget and sets a rate for each click or thousand impressions. Only the advertiser and Google know the value of a particular advert, but it is normally in the region of USD 0.20 - USD 2.00, of which Google keeps about 1/3 and the remaining 2/3 is credited to the publisher's account. Some advertisers are prepared to pay much more than that - figures up to $15.00 have been mentioned for very specialised adverts.

Publishers can keep track of their advertising income online. Payment is made by cheque or electronic bank transfer every time a publisher's AdSense account reaches USD100.00. Anyone with a web site, who can comply with Google's strict terms and conditions, can apply to join AdSense. Google monitor all participating website very carefully to guard against 'click fraud'. Anyone who joins the programme should ensure they are fully compliant with the terms and conditions, otherwise they'll face suspension from the programme and loss of any revenue accumulated.

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