Google AdSense is one of the first programs that comes to mind when we talk about the various methods of monetizing a website. It went live way back in 2003 and is still going strong. It is used by hundreds of thousands of publishers every day. I too used it for a long time and have made decent money with it. I’ve shared the program’s pros and cons in the following paragraphs:
Pros
Easy to implement: In the early 2010s, you had to place advertisements in positions of your choice. To be honest, it was difficult to find the right spot and insert code in the article between paragraphs on the pages of the blog without ignoring the terms and conditions of the Google Ad network. If you used a plugin or a script that did this task, the script may add the code just below the image or near a heading. If you’ve read the program’s terms and conditions, you may know that displaying a banner near the image or heading is against the terms and conditions of the Google program.
Google solved the above-mentioned problem by introducing the auto ads feature. When you turn this feature on, AdSense will automatically display banners at positions on the website it finds best using artificial intelligence technology. How many ads will Google display? Well, AdSense allows you to limit the number of banners it should display on the page.
Easy to manage: Affiliate links are difficult to manage. In AdSense, you have to copy paste the code of the banner to the positions of your choice.
Displays banner according to content: Ad units you get from Amazon or any other affiliate network are static i.e. They will display the same image on all pages. The Google advertisement network shows banner according to the content on the page. For example, if the content is about dog food, AdSense will show dog food related advertisement on that page.
Can be highly rewarding: If your website gets good traffic and most of the traffic to your website is from countries such as United States, United Kingdom, Canada, etc, your earnings would be very good. Many established portals (sites with 1+ million monthly visitors) use AdSense as one of the methods of monetization. Imagine how much money their owners might be making.
Payments are sent on time: When your earnings go past the 100 dollars mark threshold, Google will send the payment. The same will be credited to your account within 10 days.
Cons
Difficult to get approved: There are very few people who got their account approved in the first attempt. For example, I had applied for AdSense more than 8 times. Before you apply, make sure you have added the about us, privacy policy and terms and conditions page to your site.
Can make a website slow: Once your account is approved, the step you have to take to monetize your portal is to create an ad unit. When you do so, AdSense will display a JavaScript snippet. You should edit the header or footer PHP file of your portal and paste the code in it or use an ad inserter plugin/extension to do this task. If you test the pages with and without AdSense units, you will notice some difference between the loading time of the two.
Earnings can be very low: Earnings of portals getting most of the traffic from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc will be very low. You can make $1000+ dollars with AdSense from such websites only if its traffic is more than 300k visitors per month.
Your account can get banned: If you don’t follow the terms and conditions of the program, your a/c will be permanently banned. You should be careful while placing units. You should also not depend on a single source of monetization.
