I started this post over on Griz’s Make Money Online for Beginners blog as a comment to his post about Adsense. As usual I started rambling and decided to go ahead and make it a post on Lost Ball. Sorry Griz, but my material is running thin these days and your topic inspired me to write a couple of much needed paragraphs.

Griz’s article is on Adsense for Feeds. I’m not using them. And I don’t really have a interest in ever doing so as many of my blogs are click and go. I don’t expect to have any repeat visitors much less anyone subscribing to my feed. For the blogs that I actually care about I think most of my repeat visitors have become Adsense blind. And that is the crux of Adsense for me.

Adsense in general simply baffles me. Maybe because I’ve been in the game and know what it is, but I don’t think I have ever clicked on an Adsense ad. I’m certainly glad people take the time to click on the ads I serve, but I just don’t get the allure. If I want to buy something I go straight to a source. There must be tons of bored people on the web just clicking around. Thank your god for Internet browsing at work. My stats are almost always better on work days.

I wonder if people view Adsense like I do. If I have a favorite blog, I go to read then I’m gone. The first couple of visits I might look around and check out the navigation, but after that I’m blind to anything but the posts.

Is Adsense still growing? I realize that bloggers continue to stuff their blogs with Adsense, but is the revenue per site trending up or down? Bloggers are told to build, build, build so the quarter a day made on 1,000 blogs amount to something. My guess is Google hopes you build, build, build too. But will that contribute to further dilution? I dunno. I guess the marketing whizzers at Google have thought through all this. But I’m at the point where if I see Adsense on a site I’m thinking that it is less authoritative. It’s an unfair characterization of course, but Adsense just seems cheesy to me. I’m a hypocrite, of course, as I spray it across many of my sites. But they are built for a click and go. Whether it’s an Ebay cookie or Adsense, stop reading my stuff and click the link, man. There are so many people out there who, thankfully, do not view Adsense the way I do.

You know, what would happen if Google said that for each Adsense account that you were only able to add Adsense to 25 sites? Interesting thought huh? It would force you to only put the code on those sites that you feel are your best. For all of Google’s bluster about quality and doing only good, they could certainly put a stop to a lot of the spam on the web. My guess is they care more about the money.

Adsense is a money maker. I make enough each year to go snowboarding and buy some toys. I’m happy to serve the ads and take the money. I hope it continues. I just wonder about the continued success of the program. Google is looking for more sources of revenue like adding it to feeds. I have to ponder why? Is the effectiveness of Adsense decreasing as the web matures? My earnings have remained consistent so maybe it’s just my jaded view clouding things. As a consumer I just don’t use Adsense, and I wonder why anyone else would bother clicking them too.