Written on March 31st, 2005 at 10:03 am by Darren Rowse
Bloggers Adsense Earnings Poll Results
Learn more about the AdSense program
My apologies to readers for the wacky results of the last poll (about how much people earned from Adsense) that I’ve been running the past few weeks - it seems someone hacked a way around voting more than once and voted 400 times across all categories last night which totally messed up the results making them useless. It always astounds me how a small minority of internet users with too much time on their hands can ruin the hard work of others so effortlessly.
Whilst I never intended the results to be scientific or highly accurate I found them to be quite fascinating. Before the hack happened last night this is what they showed (I’m reconstructing this from memory and some notes I took yesterday of the results at that point so please forgive me for the up to date accuracy).
- 33% earned under $30 per month
- 16% earned between $30 and $99 per month
- 11% earned between $100 and $499
- 9% earned between $500 and $999
- 4% earned between $1000 and $1499
- 2% earned between $1500 and $2499
- 4% earned between $2500 and $4999
- 3% earned between $5000 and $9999
- 1% earned over $10,000
- 13% do not use Adsense
- 4% did not wish to disclose their earnings
Here are a couple of graphs that help to visualize the break down.
I’ve taken the first two answers out of the results (ie those who do not use Adsense and those who do not wish to disclose their earnings have been removed from the results shown in these graphs. Click for enlarged graphs.
This first graph shows the breakdown of those responding in each category (372 total respondents).
This graph shows the same results with a percentage breakdown of each category.
Once again - keep in mind that this is only intended as a rough guide to show what a selection of bloggers (largely readers of this site - which will provide skewed results due to its nature) are earning through the Adsense program.
I hope to construct a more accurate survey that looks at this topic (and others) in the weeks ahead - in the mean time I hope this sheds a little light on the topic of how well bloggers are doing with the Adsense program.
35 Responses to “Bloggers Adsense Earnings Poll Results”
jim
March 31st, 2005 12:40 pm
I think it’s good to show that a plurality of bloggers (who read enternetusers) only pull in about $1 a day. It’s a reality check for people who think they can make tons of cash easily and quickly without hard work. It’s also inspiration for folks who are working hard and only seeing $1-$3 a day (like me!), we’re all in the same boat. :)
Trevor Cook
March 31st, 2005 4:02 pm
I’m interested in the click-through rate people get - I’ve only had mine on a week but with a click-through rate of X.X% at the moment it would seem that very few people who visit my site are attracted by the ads. Is this a normal click-through rate?
(% edited by Darren)
Darren
March 31st, 2005 4:22 pm
Thanks for the encouragement Jim. My hope is that we can shift the amount of bloggers earning $1 per day into the next category and above in the coming months - that is my goal here with enternetusers.
Trevor - Click through rate is one of those areas we’re not supposed to talk about - Google gets a bit cranky when we do. I might edit your comment to hide your CTR just because you can get in trouble for revealing it.
Speaking generally - CTR can vary a lot on sites for a number of reasons including:
- positioning of ads (obviously if your ads are unsighted or obscure this will decrease CTR)
- site clutter (again its about visibility of your ads)
- competing outbound links (the amount of outbound links on your site can impact what your readers click on to leave your blog)
- number of Adsense ads on a page. Each time you put an adsense ad on your page you decrease your CTR. You might actually increase the number of people clicking but the % will decrease because you’re doubling the impressions. ie on this page I have three adsense ads (one in side bar, one under the post and one at the top of the post). So when someone visits this page Google counts it as 3 impressions in their adsense stats rather than 1 impression. So two ads on a page can halve your CTR, and three ads on a page can reduce CTR to a third. This in my mind decreases the value of the CTR statistic in comparing site to site.
Not sure I’ve been too clear on that last point - feel free to ask for clarification
What is a normal CTR? I’ve heard of CTRs of anything between 0.5% and 10% - but most that I’ve heard of are around the 2% mark.
Trevor Cook
March 31st, 2005 4:37 pm
Thanks for editing my % darren - I forgot whoops
Ray
March 31st, 2005 5:22 pm
Whilst the 33% earning next to nothing is the most obvious result I’m more interested in the top end - 14% are earning over $1000 per month! That is pretty decent money. I might have to start myself a blog!
Will Spencer
March 31st, 2005 5:43 pm
There is no such thing as a “normal” CTR. CTR varies widely with the relevancy of the ads.
If your web page is about something that people can buy, CTR tends to be good. If your web page is about something that no one can easily make money off of, your ads will very likely be only loosely relevant and your CTR will be low.
Michael Pietroforte
April 1st, 2005 3:42 am
Was Blogger mit AdSense verdienen
Der enternetusers hat neulich eine Umfrage durchgefh"hrt, in der Blogger angeben sollten, wie viel sie mit AdSense verdienen. Jetzt hat er die Ergebnisse dazu ver"ffentlicht. Dass die meisten sich damit allenfalls ein Taschengeld verdienen, wird kaum eine…
Domain Blog
April 1st, 2005 5:04 am
Great Info. I hope to be in that coveted top 1% one day.
companice.twoday.net
April 1st, 2005 5:32 am
Werbung in Blogs - welche Werbung?
Nachdem das Thema ja aufgrund eines Artikels im PR Portal auf einigen Blogs kursiert, unter anderem dem PR Blogger, bei Martin R
C-blog - Das Weblog von Christoph H"rl
April 1st, 2005 6:08 am
How much do Bloggers earn by using Adsense?
Darren Rowse, the enternetusers, has started a poll for a few weeks, which has an interesting result. He asked his visitors how much they earned by Google Adsense. There are quite a lot people who earn really high amount by putting this advertisments in thei
Jan's Technik Blog
April 1st, 2005 7:19 am
Statistik des Tages: Wieviel verdienen Blogger mit Google Adsense
Und noch eine Statistik über Blogger: Wieviel Geld wird mit Google Adsense in Blogs verdient wollte Kevin wissen. Die Ergebnisse fallen erstaunlich hoch aus: [via Christoph Hörl]…
eckes
April 2nd, 2005 3:06 pm
How much do you usually get for each click through? So we can translate the numbers to impressions.
Darren
April 3rd, 2005 1:25 am
eckes - its against Google Adsense’s rules to give details of how much you’re paid per click so I’m afraid I can’t give you any answer to that question except to say that it varies greatly depending upon what the ad is for.
eckes
April 4th, 2005 3:00 am
Wel Darren, if you are in the 1$ range, whats your page impressions? Multiply this by 10000 and you can guess what a Blogger needs to get in the 5% category. Do you think thats realistic to have 15 Blogs with that size (among your readers)?
Bernd
Ambot ah! » Bloggers Adsense Earnings
May 25th, 2005 3:47 pm
[…] 005 Bloggers Adsense Earnings Posted by yuga under Gooooogle 0 minutes ago. enternetusers made a small survey from Bloggers about their Ad […]
Little China’s Silent Scream » Blog Archive » {website (blogs)} + {adsense (ads)} = money
August 28th, 2005 4:51 pm
[…] tho this is an old article (some March), here’s an interesting fact from enternetusers. It’s a poll of Bloggers’ Adsense Earnings, and here are the results: 33% earned under $30 per month 16% earned between $30 and $99 per month 11% earned between $100 and $499 9% earned between $500 and $999 4% earned between $1000 and $1499 2% earned between $1500 and $2499 4% earned between $2500 and $4999 3% earned between $5000 and $9999 1% earned over $10,000 13% do not use Adsense 4% did not wish to disclose their earnings […]
Healthy Lifestyle and Wellness | Ben Lynch
October 3rd, 2005 6:56 am
im finding my blog doing alright with adsense - i have an information blog - thus people obviously don’t stop at my site only - they keep lookin for more answers - so they tend to click on the relevant ads. my ctr is pretty good - traffic is getting better. ive been online only for a few months and in the 16% category that enternetusers reported. which, by the way, thank you for that! makes my goal more realistic as now i know how much traffic i need to get…
awesome service you have here - i keep coming back…
in health,
ben
Adsense Earnings for November - Poll Results: Blog Tips at enternetusers
December 19th, 2005 10:03 pm
[…] As you can see from the above graph the around half of those readers who do use AdSense earn under $30 per week (46%) with most of those earning less than $10 per day. This is up from last time I did this type of poll. Last time 40% earned under $30 per month. As I said last time I commented on this poll, this is a very important statistic to keep in mind as often the stories of bloggers earning big dollars can get all the attention. […]
Konrad Fischer
April 19th, surf zone.7:07 pm
A stimulating poll result! My website (about how to do with old buildings, restoration details etc.) is (after a poor beginning and much changes) in the 4% onto 1.500 $ monthly, but I try to improve more. Important is the same color of the ads and the site, maybe a picture above the ads will be good on some sites and on some sites not - I will test it furtherwards. Due to my layout I will only use leaderboards, perhaps I’ve to think about it.
Home Based Business - Adsense Earnings
October 1st, surf zone.4:51 pm
[…] Just to give an idea of how these reported earnings stack up against the average Adsense Earnings, Darren Rouse over at enternetusers.net ran a poll back in 2005, here is a summary of the results: […]
Home Based Business - Adsense Earnings
November 17th, surf zone.4:39 pm
[…] enternetusers - Bloggers Adsense Earnings Poll Results […]
Hammad
December 31st, surf zone.6:54 pm
Is adsense earning is good when less ads units are displayed on page or not…..
seoninja.info » Blog Archive » Does AdSense Suck for Bloggers?
January 21st, 2007 10:23 pm
[…] However - just because Guy’s blog doesn’t make much money from AdSense doesn’t mean that it sucks for all blogs. In fact I’ve surveyed my readers three times on their AdSense earnings (here, here and here) and while the poll showed the majority of bloggers don’t make much from AdSense it also showed that some definitely do. […]
AZ__
March 14th, 2007 4:36 am
I like the way you set up that your info is the homepage, nicely done. Thanks!
ThunderHammer
April 14th, 2007 10:04 am
“- positioning of ads
- site clutter
- competing outbound links
- number of Adsense ads on a page.”
Yeah, it’s true… but I still think that the content/subject of a site is a primary factor…
Rob & Linda’s World Views » Blog Archive » Google AdSense & Google AdWords
April 17th, 2007 12:31 pm
[…] How much bloggers make from Adsense, Poll; […]
lorla
April 30th, 2007 10:27 am
Great information.
It feels good to see that I fall in the 1/3rd of the blogger community.
:)
Thanks
shravan
May 1st, 2007 11:06 pm
hmm.. this is good that even bloggers are earning as website owners do i feel the day will come soon when bloggers will beat webmasters
www.privateprofits.info
Adsense Goal
May 19th, 2007 6:57 pm
Very interesting info, Darren. It seems the majority of bloggers are stuck in the $1/day dance so far. It took me a while to hit the $100/month mark, but it sure feels great to advance past that.
Interesting post, and keep us updated on your revelations.
Marcus Barn
June 1st, 2007 11:12 pm
Hey guys, adsense is very intriguing to me but i am still confused on how much earnings you can expect based on the traffic you pull in. I have read about ppc and total impressions but I haven’t come across anything that breaks it down by avg. income via traffic. I realise that its difficult to calculate because there are numerous variables but if anyone can give some ball park figures that would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Marcus
Fahad
June 8th, 2007 4:00 pm
Its realistic that most people are earnings less then 30$ with adsense. Yeah the main reason always remains the PR, which yields much less traffic resulting less revenue.
Filmtopdotnl
June 23rd, 2007 10:05 pm
But my site is listed at number one at some search termes, why would i need a high pagerank (I have 1) if my site is already above the rest?
I still dont make money with adsense (
Izwan
July 8th, 2007 12:59 am
Filmtopdotnl, you are missing the point here. People wants to read contents which are valuable to them.
The reason why they do the search terms is to get the answers which is valueable to them. Give it to them!
celshader
July 8th, 2007 7:15 pm
Excellent information.
Even a dollar a day is good.
How many people in poor countries live on a dollar a day.
adsense could potentially be a big earner for people in developing countries.
Beats playing World of Warcraft 12 hours a day or running Nigerian scams.
rotit
August 1st, 2007 10:41 pm
I think most of the blogger earning is nothing. You Have correctly said that is 33% may be 40-50%
Leave a Reply