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The Internet The Almighty Buck

Rise of the Professional Blogger 231

Posted by Zonk from the who-knew? dept.
Victor Cheng writes "Robert Scoble today points to a blogger who is claiming he earns between $10,000 and $20,000 per month via Google Adsense." From the article: "The cheque was the biggest cheque I've ever held onto (well the biggest I've held onto that has my name on it). The amazing thing is that in the month of May I earned more than I earned in a whole year in 2003 from a 'real job' (of course at the time I was only working a 3 day week while I studied part time) and well over half as much as I earned from Adsense in the whole of 2004."
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Rise of the Professional Blogger

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  • And now he gets even more money... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:28AM (#13085665)
    You just had to link to him on Slashdot, didn't you. Come on, he's making enough already ;)
    • I thought you only make money from AdSense when someone clicks on an actual ad?
      • " I thought you only make money from AdSense when someone clicks on an actual ad?"

        This is true, but if you have say a 1% clickthrough rate, and suddenly have a couple hundred thousand new/extra folks stampeding through your site... you stand to benefit ($$$) from that temporary boost in traffic/exposure.

        e.

    • Re:And now he gets even more money... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BoldAC ( 735721 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @05:35AM (#13085921)
      Money, money, money...

      What in the world ever happened to building a web site to help people, to spread information, and to build a "community." Even more so, when did money become the primary goal of a web structure?

      For example, slashdot was built for fun and information spread first. Only after it became successful did it start making lots of money. Now people do just the opposite... they design the web site for money first and if the site turns out to be useful, then it's an accident.

      In college, I designed the Moan and Groan Page [google.com] (now very dead) where people could bitch about their hardware. It was the hardware/software explosion time and all the major players were pushing a ton of junk into the marketplace. People could search my site before they purchased anything. I got threatened my tons of companies... and lawyers who used the site came to my defense. The hosting was donated, etc. Then I started my real life (job, family) and had to leave it all behind.

      Once I established all of that, I returned to the web to start another project. What a difference those few years made. I wanted to start a similar site helping people with computer problems and tech-recipes.com [tech-recipes.com] was born. No thrills, no fluff, no pop-ups... just helpful computer hints. We make enough money from google to pay our server costs... nothing more.

      Despite the fact that we just provide raw information, we have never developed a huge community around us. Sure we receive a ton of hits from the search engines, but I miss that feeling of having tons of users helping and supporting each other.

      Now I have to worry about everybody stealing my information and slapping their ads all over it...

      What a difference a few years make...

      AC
      • There are a large number of SEO webspammers out there churning out often useless cookie cutter sites designed mostly to get good positions in Search engines. I'm an editor of DMOZ.org and find it frustrating that 2 out of 3 sites submitted have been created for no other reason than to make money.

        Part of the blame lies with our beloved Google. They are actually funding a problem that they used to fight. It would be nice to see them put some effort into the problem instead of just cashing in like the do.

        A
        • Adsense pays my server cost. Google gives me the majority of my traffic. I can't knock google too much.

          However, I hate seeing people still sniplets of my website and then paste adsense code all around it knowing that some users will get confused and click the ads instead of the links to my article.

          DMOZ is another issue altogether. The majority of my sites have been placed in there... although sometimes in odd positions. I certainly can't knock someone willing to sacrifice his time in an attempt to kee

      • Re:And now he gets even more money... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bigman2003 ( 671309 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:51AM (#13086361) Homepage
        Okay, I have to answer- with a shameless plug and a short story.

        I run a site called InsideWoodland.com (in my sig). So far I've written about 70 stories. Each one takes me about 8 hours to do- with photos, interview, etc. This is a major chunk of my free time.

        This is my main 'hobby', I spend a lot of time working on it, and a lot of time talking about it. Everyone I talk to wants to know why I am doing it, and most importantly, 'how much money do you make.' I haven't made a single dime. Monetary rewards were never my focus. (Although I do have an area where people can advertise, but nobody has done it yet, and I don't really push it.)

        My real reward is just the knowledge that people really do read my stories, and look at my pictures. AND, I get to make other people 'famous' along the way.

        The only people who have really understood this yet, were the gang-banger types that I met at low-rider car show while doing a story.

        While a guy is telling me that he has devoted the last 4 years of his life, and $50,000 into his car- he has no problem understanding that I am doing something just because I enjoy it. But sadly, most 'normal' people just think I am a nut for not trying to make money.

        I have looked into Adsense, but my traffic is to small since the website is tightly targeted (people in my small town). And, I don't like the way the ads look.

        My only real goal is to somehow make a little bit of money to pay for my hosting fees. And if I paid for my current hosting fees, the first thing I would do is upgrade my hosting plan, to make the site perform better- even if it did end up costing me more money.

        So yes, there are people out there who set up websites just for fun, and not for the money. So if this is a good thing, why do so many people tell me I am stupid for doing it?
        • So yes, there are people out there who set up websites just for fun, and not for the money. So if this is a good thing, why do so many people tell me I am stupid for doing it?

          No mystery there. Lots of people believe that you should only do things that are profitable, and by "profitable" they mean you get money. They don't understand that there are other kinds of profit.

          Much of this can be understood as the "economic" model of human behavior. Some years ago, my wife was working toward a degree in econom

          • Myself, I like another illustration: If you consider it stupid to do things for fun and not for money, you would never have children. If humans actually worked that way, our species would be extinct within a century.

            For the very poor - particularly in places with limited rules about child labor and mandatory schooling - having children is profitable because they are able to gather additional resources for the family in excess of the cost of their individual upkeep.

            And in traditional societies where

        • You enjoy what you are doing, Never let anyone tell you different. I have a small site that I have updated daily since 2000, it does not generate alot of traffic but it helps my in my hobby. Also it's nice to recieve a thank you letter from people ( that's the best reward from my point of view ). so keep up the great work.

          Onepoint
        • Hey, I am completely in the same boat as you.

          I started a site to share (and as an excuse to continue my interest in) my love for the city where I live - every two weeks I would add a new section with a map itenerary covering a new section, some new photos and a bit of text describing the history of the land covered. It began simple but became much more... shall we say important.

          Some told me that I should have people pay for all the info I give out for free, but I don't think the web is ready for that yet

      • Would paranoia.com exist today? Probably not, because it doesn't exist today.

        I'm suprised thirdworldtraveler.com doesn't have ads all over it yet.

      • Without attempting to whore this topic, I strongly agree with the above sentiments.

        The information that my company publishes is NOT supported by ads.

        That's right, there is absolutely no advertising on the site, unless you regard the content to be advertisements for the company.

        A decision was made when the site was being established that the company would wear the hosting costs for the goodwill of providing advertising free content.

        Yes, it does cost, but that is an accepted cost for doing business / prov

      • What in the world ever happened to building a web site to help people, to spread information, and to build a "community." Even more so, when did money become the primary goal of a web structure?

        Who says they're building it just for money? Money does a lot of things. For one it pays for your webspace, domain name, and all that crap. Secondly, it pays your costs of living, so you don't have to get a second job, so you can focus on your website fully. Surely the quality's going to be higher when you're spend
      • Is that his original intent? I don't think anyone ever goes into blogging or site building ( outside of porn, maybe ) to make buckets and buckets of cash. It's just a consequence of a succesful site. I am building a site ( not a blog - since the format doesn't work well with the content ) to help men figure out the basics of a wardrobe and organize their closets. ( Plug - http://www.swaggerinc.com [swaggerinc.com] ). I find that having Amazon links and Google ads help subsidize the hosting fees. Your main purpose can be
      • What in the world ever happened to building a web site to help people, to spread information, and to build a "community."

        One word: Greed

        People are greedy. They, for the most part, don't send in payments to help support a free website. They expect it to operated 24/7, to be quick, to have great, timely, information that's easily accessible.

        But they don't want to pay for it.

        Hence, services like paypal, adsense, etc. Atleast it helps pay the h/w and electrical costs.

    • Re:And now he gets even more money... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That was until now. If we all add this to userContent.css he can go back to his previous job:

      iframe[src*="googlesyndication.com"] { display: none !important; }

      If you don't want to see similar stuff on Slashdot, just do enter this:

      iframe[src*="googlesyndication.com"], iframe[src*="industrybrains.com"] { display: none !important; }

      I think this explains why I post this as AC. Further reading: Blocking Advertisement [mozilla.org].

    • I use Adblock, you insensitive clod!
    • All I see is a bunch of wannabe critics who obviously ooze with jealousy because they've never been able to achieve this level of success outside of their mere rantings they contribute to the comments section of Slashdot. Of course some of those who are posting such harsh criticisms are probably guilty of nothing but ignorance because they have yet to figure out how to do what many are doing... Personally, I believe the opportunities that come along with ads on blogs and websites are a win-win situation.

  • *Cough*RolandPiquepaille*Cough* (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Atario ( 673917 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:32AM (#13085672) Homepage
    'Nuff said.
    • Hah, more like professional plaigiarist (I realize he has changed his evil ways significantly but I don't think that makes up for his wicked, wicked past)

  • The best part... (Score:3, Funny)

    by locokamil ( 850008 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:33AM (#13085678) Homepage
    is that his blog doesn't even render properly in my browser (Firefox, Unbuntu). Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen. Spew out your opinion and throw internet standards to the wind... it's all okay because you've got a big AdSense cheque coming your way.
    • I compared it with Safari and Firefox - they look the same and I think it's the intended look.
    • his blog doesn't even render properly in my browser (Firefox, Unbuntu). Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen. Spew out your opinion and throw internet standards to the wind... it's all okay because you've got a big AdSense cheque coming your way.

      Exactly. You nailed it. Good for him.

      Geeks are funny sometimes. (OK, all the time...) We praise the Internet and the Web cuz it lowers the barriers to publication, democratizes punditry, allows any schmo from Podunk to make a name for himself doing whatev

  • Google's terms of service explicitly forbit Adsense members from revealing details about how much they make.

    Adsense is great, and those figures are probably accurate. But if Google finds out this person broke the TOS, they might just take those payments away.

  • ...I read this, and I swear, I half expected 'ol Roland to have submitted it...

  • Now I'm curious (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AntiGenX ( 589768 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:36AM (#13085684)
    Since this has been posted to /., is everyone looking at his blogs clicking on a adword? If so his check next month might be even larger. Perhaps that would constitute another definition of the /. effect.
    • Gee, if that's the case then my site could sure use a slashdotting (as long as you click on something I'm not supposed to ask you to click on) If I was making that kind of nearly free money I'd be giving a go 20% toward OSS projects.

  • On logging webs. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hyperm0g ( 867446 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:42AM (#13085696)
    Honestly what on earth is with this 'blogging' craze? I refuse to even acknowledge 'blog' as a legitimate term. Web log perhaps, and I'm barely into my twenties! These web loggers seem to think they have stumbled onto some hertoforth undiscovered treasure -- compensated authorship! Wow, it turns out that a very small percentage of 'bloggers' have the writing ability to generate income doing said activity. Color me serpryzed. Oooh. I just invented a word. Serpryzed. I'm going to go append this to my meta-blog about blogging with a headline stolen from an obscure band from my assumed hometown.
    • yup, I agree - blog = diary. Whoopee, people have been keeping diaries for hundreds of years. People have been writing diary columns in newspapers for ooh at least a hundred years, and receiving mails in response to their "postings" which they in turn may respond to and discuss. Can somebody tell me why blogs are so different? (medium aside)

      • Diaries are meant to be private...I've never seen a "diary column", but it doesn't seem like it's a diary in the original sense of the word.

        Blogs are meant to be public, and the fact that they're online gives the author the feeling that it *just might* be read by thousands of people. Yes, the diary columns you're talking about are essentially the same thing on a local level (though a true diary isn't).
    • Honestly what on earth is with this 'blogging' craze? I refuse to even acknowledge 'blog' as a legitimate term.

      I agree. What is the difference between a blog and a service like livejournal? Places where people write down their thoughts.

      I don't waste time on blogs. I have never found anything that interesting to read in them. Most are ramblings by people. It is too much work going through them until a good one is found. Then, with my luck, that person shuts it down and moves on. One of my favroites was

      • Re:On logging webs. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        As someone who has been employed by one of the major news organizations you mentioned as a news writer, I disagree that "they" have any better insight than you or I or some blogger. The majors have an AP wire and subscriptions to the NY Times and the Wash Post.

        Then they rewrite it.

        Nothing, nothing is reported on a radio or TV network that is not a rewrite of a wire service or newspaper story. The sole exception might be a fire or hurricane where a network affiliate has sent a camera crew. But as far


      • The ones that post about news, I'd rather watch the big 3 network news programs. I can't believe some guy in his basement will get better insight into what's happening in the world than ABC, NBC, or CBS news. I like solid news, not spinning

        Especially when they're reporting on what the bloggers are saying! I just love those little segments ;)

    • Indeed. I use the term "wiaries", a clever mix of "web diaries". Unfortunately when I use it in conversation it a) sounds like I'm saying something relating to "wires" and b) confuses people because they have no idea what it means. :(

      Oh well, at least it's not as retarded as "podcasting"..

    • Re:On logging webs. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by FoXDie ( 853291 )
      This is all a product of our collective Attention Whorishness. We all want people to pay attention to us, we want to look cool. People make blogs because they think people care, and that they will read their totally creative and interesting life stories.

      The kind of self-indulgent bullshit [xanga.com], pathetic emo ramblings [xanga.com], and general hollow angst [xanga.com] that was usually safely confined within Diaries and Journals are now being broadcast to everyone with Webernet access.

      But that's not even the worst part. Here's an ex
      • Are the same guy that was spitefully linking to his ex-girlfriend's blog last year? If so dude, that really isn't cool.
    • Here's what our thoughtful, considerate critic Maddox has to say about the issue: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ba nish [thebestpag...iverse.net] . Amusing read, as is all of his stuff.

    • The best web page in the universe [thebestpag...iverse.net] is squarely in your corner, buddy. FTFA:

      In observation of all these shitty phrases and acronyms, I've decided to coin another phrase that can be used for "blog" called: comment-log or CLOG for short. What users do is labor over documenting their inconsequential lives, trivializing man's greatest invention, the microprocessor, until the Internet is so CLOGGED that commerce comes to a screeching halt. Anyone contributing to the congestion would be known as a CLOGGER. I ha

    • You do realize you're commenting on a weblog right now, right?

    • I feel the same, so I wrote: I am not a blogger, this is not a blog [baheyeldin.com].

  • $10,000 - 20,000? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by j_philipp ( 803945 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @03:43AM (#13085699) Homepage
    I'm missing the part in his blog post where he speaks about earning $10,000 - $20,000. He only talks about a big paycheck. Only in the comments is this figure mentioned. So I wonder where exactly the figure's coming from...
  • I'm sorry, I've just had a look at this blog, and why would anyone bother? It's self referential, a little self indulgent, and there's nothing either interesting or insightful on the front page.

    Perhaps a regular reader could tell me - is it usually better than this?

    • Re:But WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17, 2005 @04:11AM (#13085759)
      He does what always pays best in a new market: He shows a way to make money.

      The spammers who make the most are those who sell spamming tools. The people who earned the most with the web in its early days were the ones who built the tools to make websites. The bloggers who make the most are those who blog about making money. The podcasters who will make the most will be the ones who tell others how to make money podcasting.

      He's a pro-blogger blogging about making money with blogging. He's right on the money and tells you to do something else, because if you started to blog about problogging, you would start to cut in on his action.
      • Having just read that whole site, I understand he operates 17 blogs. Problogger accounts for a very, very small portion of his income. You can find links to his othre blogs interspersed on Problogger.
    • ProBlogger (i.e. the blog that the ./ article links to) is not the same blog in which he has made all this moolah. He mentions that he has made the majority of his 10-20k from 3 other blogs.

  • Self fullfiling prophesy? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TapeCutter ( 624760 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @04:09AM (#13085756) Journal
    A blog about how bloggers can get rich, gets him get rich from blogging.
    • Sorry, there are a few too many "get" words in that last (hic) post. BuuUURRRRrrPPPP!

  • Did google ruin the internet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @04:10AM (#13085758) Journal
    It seems to me, there are more websites now with the intention of making money than with the intention of fostering a community.

    The strategy has changed. 10 years ago, if someone wanted to talk about tv shows, they might have started a website called TvTome, and let members contribute, and it was a real community. You would not believe how many knowlegable star trek fans are out there, same goes for quantum leap. These people wrote some great insightful episode summaries, which had great attention to the shows history, philosophical meanings, and excitement. While I did not see them all, I bet there was a nice battlestar gallactica section. Those posts are gone.

    Then someone got the idea to start advertising, and nothing has been the same since.

    Now websites have a plan, get members to contribute for free, and take those contributations and make money. Isn't that crooked? There is no "thanks", no respect.

    In the case of TvTome, cnet came and purchased them for a cool $5 million dollars. The owner of TvTome did not care about his community anymore, he wanted the money. And all the posts, everything the community contributed was lost. How many people want to put the effort into rebuilding what they already made?

    I'll give another example. AVS forums is a place where people talk high end projectors and plasma televisions and the such. The owner sells projectors, and made a new rule, only MSRP prices can be quoted. Yet, if it was not for the 100 or so very insightful members who offer great advice, his forum would be nothing, meaningless. People go to his forum because there is a smart community there that is willing to offer good advice. Meanwhile, the owner capitalizes off this and makes a profit. Seems to me, the people who should be making a profit are the ones giving their free advice and building the community.

    And then there is one DVD website where the admins went bezerk. They lost their minds. They started banning people left and right, people whos posts are still there and posts that are valuable. Why were these people banned? Your guess is as good as mine, I think one admin said he banned a guy because he had a link to amazon, and did not use the forums link to amazon which generates some money for the forum.

    I love the idea of a community, where people exchange their knowledge and friendship. I hate the idea of 1 person owning these communities and getting rich off the free work and contributations of the members.

    • Re:Did google ruin the internet? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DoktorTomoe ( 643004 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @04:26AM (#13085780)

      The world is neither black or white, and the sades of grey it is painted with are mostly the lighter ones.

      Of course there are sites that only exist for a quick buck. There also are a lot of valuable "communities" (albeit it has come to my attention that communities tend to make a lot less ad-related income than websites with litte or no user-interaction).

      However, running a popular web project is not for free - there are hosting costs, and there may be a point when you need technical assistance from a professional (geeks as we are, we know how much we are billing). And after all the work the site maintainer has put into a successful site, I really think it is legitimate if he wants to get something back.

      I am running a fairly popular german-language download site. Adsense does pay for the bills of hosting and for my work. It even allows me my rather costly taste for good coffee. I am not feeling like a criminal - after all, I've had and have most of the work with this project.

    • Re:Did google ruin the internet? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Eminence ( 225397 ) <akbrandtNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @05:05AM (#13085856) Homepage
      Yeah, money is evil [cpusa.org], it destroys communities and pretty much everything.

      But seriously, you exaggerate. Only few would make any money from their blogging or sites yet many sites appear. For most of the bloggers I know putting an ad link is something extra, something that you do just for the heck of it. You can easily tell those who blog for money (or try to) from those who blog to express themselves - the former usually don't have anything to say. And if someone has something to say that is so interesting to people that he is able to get real readership and thus ad revenue then what's wrong with that?

      Same goes for forums etc. - no one forces you to post on a form whose policies you don't accept. And if there is no forum/community that would suit you start one with the policies exactly the way you want them to be.

    • ### I hate the idea of 1 person owning these communities and getting rich off the free work and contributations of the members.

      Yep, thats the problem, you however can't blame google for that, since 1-person-owned forums where there even before google. I think the problems which we see are for most part the result of the fall of the usenet. Today most people no longer use the usenet, heck, most people doesn't even no it ever existed, so its a lot harder to form any kind of community there when the web is a
    • Dude, that's a great rant, except for one thing...

      Advertising predates Google. By, like, ...a lot.

      If you changed the subject line for this post to "Did advertising ruin the internet?" I think many would agree.

      Did google ruin the internet? Hell no. Google actually made advertising that doesn't completely suck ass. Nice, inobtrusive text-based ads, that don't blink at you or animate, what a concept. It's easy not to click on them if you don't want to, they don't suck down a lot of bandwidth the way a
    • Yeah, you're right. There are no more websites for people to talk about Star Trek for free anymore. [memory-alpha.org]

      Be for real man. In 1995, all of 10 people had the web. Whatever the internet was like then, it was bound to change. Anyhow, servers cost money. Are you really so opposed to people making websites without going broke if their site becomes useful to others (and thus has a higher bandwidth fee). Anyhow, we have GNU and Creative Commons licenses for stuff now anyway, so matter what happens no one will be able t
    • Seems to me, the people who should be making a profit are the ones giving their free advice and building the community.

      But the owner is the one who expended resources to set the site up in the first place. Without him, there would be no free advice or community.

  • Live and learn ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Richard W.M. Jones ( 591125 ) <rich@anne[ ].org ['xia' in gap]> on Sunday July 17, 2005 @04:17AM (#13085769) Homepage
    We had the opposite experience with Adsense. We set up a site (j-london.com [j-london.com]) with an agreement that we'd develop the back end (discussion, place for people to put adverts, etc.) in return for taking revenue from Adsense adverts on the site.

    Well, I think we earned about $600 last year from that one :-(

    It's not helped by the abysmal state of the dollar-pound, nor by the fact that Google pays with dollar checks and the bank takes a huge cut along the way.

    Adsense gives us hardly any guidance as to what fees we get. It seems like Google takes a large cut. We're looking at replacing it with a commission junction advert slot [cj.com].

    Rich.

    • Of course Google takes a huge cut from it! I mean, it's their main business model. They need to take a large cut.

    • Well, of course Google takes a large cut. That's their business model, and that is what makes them survive.

      If your site made $50 per month, you are doing something wrong, and quite possibly you just have too few visitors. It also seems you only show one ad per page, when you can show up to 4. Why is this? What if the second, third or forth would have made a click? Use a larger banner format (skyscraper?) and try again.

      • Well, of course Google takes a large cut. That's their business model, and that is what makes them survive.

        I think you and Hyperchicken misread GP's post; he said the bank takes a large cut when cashing checks, something I have first-hand experience with too.

        It also seems you only show one ad per page, when you can show up to 4. Why is this? What if the second, third or forth would have made a click? Use a larger banner format (skyscraper?) and try again.

        Eww, it doesn't sound like you're making h

        • Eww, it doesn't sound like you're making his pages prettier..

          Well, as someone who actually holds a Master Degree in Japanese, I fail to see how some rather stupid and childish ad to a fortune telling service does create income of significant magnitude.

          If this really is the only ad he/she is going to have, maybe the OP should really check other means of getting his work paid.

  • ...from all the web traffic that is gonna come flowing in from Slashdot.
  • i remember i got rejected for this reason...

  • Numbers Game (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ray Radlein ( 711289 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @05:16AM (#13085874) Homepage
    Wait a second... his site gets a piddling 3000 page views a day [sitemeter.com] (/. gave it that many in the last hour, in the middle of the night!), and he claims to be making big bucks?

    WTF?

    Technorati has 16 links in the last three days [technorati.com] (many of them this current story), which is nice, but not exactly Boingboing, is it? Alexa has it at a nice, but not spectacular, rank of 32,764 (compare to TalkingPointsMemo's rank of 19,893 or Juan Cole's 19,776), and it barely shows up on Daypop [daypop.com]. I don't see where the money comes from with those types of numbers.

    • He claims to have 20 blogs, and some generate more traffic than others. Of course, when Google decides to no longer advertise on blogs, he can apply for a nagging housewife position somewhere, since he seems to be successful at giving his opinion when nobody's ever asked him for it.

    • Re:Numbers Game (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hankwang ( 413283 ) * on Sunday July 17, 2005 @06:24AM (#13086013) Homepage
      Wait a second... his site gets a piddling 3000 page views a day ... WTF?

      Read. He says that he has around twenty blogger web sites; he just doesn't tell which one is generating most of the revenue. For example his digital camera site has 20k views per day.

      Apart from that, Adsense revenue depends a lot on the type of advertisements. Advertisers only pay $0.05 for clicks on ads for small niche products with little competition. It can be over $10 for a single click on high-competition, high-profit products. See all the bogus web sites that are stuffed with "information" about debt consolidation, loans, online poker, etc.

    • Searching on his Google ID

      http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p= p ub-7461244205906982 [yahoo.com]

      Shows only 2 entries
      http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalPhotographyBlog [feedburner.com]

      and the ProBlogger one.

      Since he's not allowed to have multiple Google Adsense accounts, he must only have 2 sites.
      • That's not a blog, it's a cut and paste review site.

        Gah....

        Why are on earth does anyone encourage this.

        I've got a really good one too... try to search for a game cheat.

        Oh that is indeed quite a laugh.

  • Sickening. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BubTheZombie ( 900418 )
    It's things like this that prove that humanity as we know it is getting increasingly asinine. (As if that weren't already fucking apparent.) Blogging is the most redundant form of emo droning on the net.
  • Pretty much 1/2 the content on this guys page is Google Ads and/or ads for something else, I'm not surprised.

  • Total infomercial vibe. No longer do you have to place those tiny little ads in newspapers to make millions -- it's all about the power of blogging combined with teh Google ads! Tony Little ain't got nothing on this guy.

  • He already posted a new blog regarding this Slashdot in which he clarifies some issues, misunderstandings and other things.

    http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/07/17/prob logger-slashdotted/ [problogger.net]
  • this guy's blog is equivalent to those "make money off Ebay" books. Sure he makes tons of money selling his advice on how to make money... which is the only way to make money.

  • Has anyone here ever clicked an adsense ad? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sark666 ( 756464 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @08:49AM (#13086352)
    I have never, and learned to mentally block out ads years ago before adsense existed probably like many of you here. Now, you might say that average joe six pack hasn't learnt this skill yet and might click through, but who is average joe six pack these days.

    For example, I have quite a few friends who never used a computer in their lives until the late 90's. I'd see them confused by webpage layouts, clicking ok and cancel on boxes which obviously are ads, but they'd see it as a functional part of the page. In not too short a time, they were surfing 'like pros' in that they'd never click any ads and I could tell they had just learned to mentally ignore them. Now these guys are still highly ignorant on computers in general (in dealing with software/hardware issues, spyware, adware etc). I've helped them with that with ff, and all the other tools etc. But with browsing with ads they just picked that up on their own. I didn't have to teach them how to filter out ads. It seems pretty much anyone, computer literate or not, will soon enough learn to filter ads all on their own.

    So who's joe sixpack these days? Our moms and dads? If so, I wonder as this generation gets older and the previous generation passes on, and an even more tech savvy generation comes online, how will any of these ad models sustain themselves.
    • ...when I was searching for a product, and the ad was relevant and useful to me, and offered a good deal on the product. Why not?

      AdWords can even be _more_ relevant than the main search results if you are in a small European country; the main search results can tend to be from USA sellers that won't sell to you anyway, while the AdWords are targetted, from local sellers who will...
  • I think, although technically correct, calling him a "blogger" is slightly misleading. You don't make that type of scratch from one blog (even a high traffic one) via adsense. Unless it's an asbestos lung cancer mortgage blog or other high ticket keyword. He's more a blog publishing mini-mogul.

    This guy is making this kind of scratch from running a network of blogs. I don't blame him for that, in fact *kudos* for creating a mini-self publishing empire/network!

    But if you or I want to replicate his succe
  • A lot of people use software such as clicking agent [clickingagent.com] to scam advertisers. I have discovered many attempts of people (mostly from chinese IP blocks) trying to proxy through Apache mod_proxy instances to connect to CGI proxies which create thousands of bogus ad impressions per hour. I won't advertise online unless they can find a way to cut this junk out.
  • YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)
  • Using ff and adblock, I find it pretty easy to block the javascripts that put even text ads on pages for people.

    One sneaks by now and again, but it is trivial to open up adblock and find the script that is doing the ad placement.

    For example, one entry for: *googlesyndication.com*

    will block all the adsense text ads.

    I know it probably isn't helping keep content free to the consumers like us, but I have my rationalizations to make me feel better about doing it, and Im sure most of everyone else does too.

    R
  • I have a site that "massages' Australian stockmarket data for downloading in various formats. I've been getting adsense income for years. For me, increasing revenue just means adding extra features to the site. Its easier than writing a blog every day.

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