AdSense Stole My Money!

Wow, I bet that got your attention!

No, AdSense didn't steal my money, but we are in fact seeing a lot of posts like this in the AdSense forums. And there is a reason for it. Since about April of this year (2010) there have been some display issues with some of the reports pages within your AdSense accounts. Those of you who get cheques every month and don't actually check your stats all that often may not have noticed these issues at all, but they are probably there, in  your accounts. In the past month or so a second display issue has cropped up, also relating to earnings, but on a different page.

The first issue (the one from April) is on your Payments History Page. When you open that page it displays the "default" view, which is usually for the past three months. The earnings displaying at the end of the previous month (right now since it's Sept. that would be earnings for Aug. 31) are probably wrong - some are off by only a little bit, while others are off by a larger amount.

What we're finding in the forum is that people are looking at the default view, and seeing earnings over the payment threshold (that's $100 US) but aren't getting their cheques or payments...and of course wondering why. In order to see your actual earnings (ie: the correct earnings) on the Payments History Page you'll need to reset the view method from the default 3 months to "all time". To do that, select "all time" from the drop-down box at the top of the Payments History Page and let it load. Now check your earnings for the end of August (or the last month earnings are recorded for). There's a good chance that it is under the $100 threshold - in some cases it might only be a few cents or a few dollars under, but being under at all means you won't get your payment until those earnings are at least $100 or more.

The second more recent issue appears on the Reports Overview Page. That's the page you land on when you enter your AdSense account. If you are noticing the earnings in the "Since Last Payment" option disappearing and re-appearing and fluctuating wildly from hour to hour or day to day, then you are probably being affected by the display issues for this report. And it is a display issue - when your earnings are validated at the end of the month and posted to your Payments History Page, they will be the actual earnings. Unfortunately, at the moment, you really can't hang your hat on the "since last payment" report on the Reports Overview Page.

These issues can be found, with their work-arounds, on the "Known Issues" page for AdSense. Publisher's should bookmark this page, or add it to their Google Reader and check it regularly - particularly if you are seeing anything unusual in your AdSense account. If other publisher's are experiencing the same issues you are, you may find the answer on the Known Issues Page in the AdSense Help Center. Even though the issue might still be inconvenient, you'll probably be relieved to find you are not the only one experiencing it...and that AdSense is aware of it and working on it.

The two display issues mentioned above are being worked on by the techs and engineers. It's probably pretty easy to think the one that began back in April should be fixed by now, but the AdSense systems are fairly complicated and getting the same thing to work the same way for everyone probably isn't as easy as we think it should be. The "Known Issues" page will also tell you when these issues are corrected, so don't forget to check it.

How Much Money Can I Make With AdSense?

Now that is a question that everyone would like a solid answer to. The problem is, there really is no standard answer. You can make a few cents a month to a few thousand dollars a month, but there's a whole lot of difference between the two, and how to get from one to the other is a long, hard job. At least if you do it honestly.

There are very few "ordinary folks" making thousands of dollars a month, and almost nobody who is new to AdSense will make this kind of money. Forget what you've read all over the internet - especially in those blogs that are all about making "easy" money.

Ordinary people (like me, and like you) can and do make a few thousand dollars a month (I don't), but not by sticking some ads on a couple of half-finished or just started blogs. THAT kind of money takes work, and usually multiple websites (of the dot com kind, seldom blogs), as well as long hours of hard-earned knowledge on the correct way to optimize for search and get real, organic, non-paid traffic.

There are organizations (such as large media sites, for instance) that do make thousands of dollars on their advertising, but many of these have been invited to be a "premium publisher" due to the sheer volume of daily visitors. That's a hard thing to come by, so while you might set your goals toward becoming a premium publisher, it isn't something you should count on early in your AdSense career. Work towards that goal, but in the meantime, don't forget to be realistic about your earnings.

The average blogger who writes their own articles (not copying work from elsewhere) once or twice a week (every week, regularly) can earn some pretty nice pocket money - anywhere from $100 to $500+ a month. But ONLY WITH WORK AND TIME invested in the project at hand. You can't open a dozen blogs with two or three posts on each one and expect to earn much more than a few cents a month.

Part of the reason people don't earn much (or in some cases almost nothing at all) is the advertiser's and what they are willing to pay. If you don't have much of an interest in your blog/website, the advertisers probably aren't going to be willing to put their ads on your site. Those that do may be some of the lowest paying advertisers, and of course, with very little content to interest visitors, you won't get much traffic and without traffic you aren't going to have much chance of getting anyone whose interested in any of the ads.

Getting started the right way can help you build up to a better income. The right way is not to create a blog just to earn money from. That might work for a month or two months, but there are so many "made for AdSense" blogs (blogs/websites designed around nothing but the advertising or earning fast cash) that sooner or later the traffic peters off to very little. Why? Because there are thousands of blogs out there doing the very same thing. The ones that are successful are the ones that really are making their income the right way, and have learned the best and most honest ways of keeping that income. All the rest who are riding along on the coat tails of those types of sites usually fail after a while. Partly because the author's of the blog aren't actually making much money and partly because they copy articles from other more successful blogs.

Copying articles from someone whose work is successful doesn't guarantee you the same success. After all, the original writer is already getting all the traffic you are hoping for, and that isn't likely to change.

You need to provide something other people aren't, or at least provide something fewer people are doing.

So when we see questions like "how much am I going to make on average" in the forum, the answer is essentially "nobody knows". How much you might make depends on how much work and time you are willing to put into it.

If you aren't willing to work for your money, you aren't going to keep getting it for long. There is no free money, and very little easy money. Nobody is willing to pay money for no work these days, not even AdSense.

How to win? Stay on the right side of the AdSense policies and terms and conditions, work hard, produce original content and articles, research SEO techniques, stay away from paid links, and work hard. (Yes, I know...I said that twice to make a point.)