Dropping Adsense - Saying Goodbye to $100K Per Year in Easy Income

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/dropping-adsense-saying-goodbye-to-100k-per-year-in-easy-income/

by hhm • 18 years ago

28 42 18 years ago

Good for him :) It takes balls to just pull all ads off your site. That being said, how in the world does a guy get $100K+ a year from AdSense? My blog got Slashdotted (and reddit'ed) a while back and I think I made <$1 that whole day (while serving some 200K+ views)... Even multiply that by 100x that readership (20M a day?!) wouldn't make the math work...

wayne• 18 years ago

Quality can be as important as quantity. Slashdot traffic is notoriously bad... people view the content, often using an ad blocker, and then bounce without clicking any ads.

netcan• 18 years ago

It depends on your readership & your topics.

If you are writing constant posts on personal finances: remortgag, consolidating, getting a financial advisor etc. & the ads that get posted are reasonably relevant (very dependant on the industry) & the readers are 'get a cup o coffee & read' type (digg/stumble/slashdot are reportadly click happy 15 second visitors), then you can get a good amount.

Its important to think about this from the advertisers perspective. The industries where click costs are high are where a large number of clicks can become substantial sales. Services are a biggie: everywhere from mortgage consultants to plumbers.

davidw• 18 years ago

The ones that seem to make money often appear to me as the "high income bloggers that blog about making money by blogging about moneymaking blogs and bloggers and how they made money" type of individuals.

imp2• 18 years ago

I was curious also so I ran some numbers:

He's the #1 search result for "personal development", which averages 90,500 searches per month from Google. Assuming he receives 60% of those visits, that's 54,300 visits per month. Since it's search traffic, which would be people willing to click and look for info, he might get a CTR of 2%, which is 1,086 clicks per month. The estimated CPC for that term is $1.92, so that is $2,085 per month, or $25,021 per year.

Since that's a rough estimate of $25k/year for one search term, I think $100,000 per year is reasonable.

wmeredith• 18 years ago

A number one ranking on a Google SERP will get you far more than 60% click through. It's usually 90%+. Even if its clearly something different than you were searching for (in the description, etc.) a lot of people just click the first link reflexively. <-- Obviously, that traffic doesn't convert well, but it's interesting.

jwesley• 18 years ago

Your assumptions on this are off. He may be making $100K per year, but definitely not $25K for one search term. Google takes at least 40-50% of the CPC as rev share. Also, the traffic estimator you used is broad match, meaning it includes every query that somehow includes "personal development" such as "Tony Robbins personal development" or "personal development workshop". Many of these Steve will not rank for, even though he is number 1 for the exact match.

I've run a site with similar content and good search rankings that gets around 50% of the traffic of Steve's site (according to Compete), and our AdSense revenue was nowhere close to $100k per year. Even though Steve was using AdSense more aggressively, it makes me wonder how he was able to earn so much. The average earnings per click for us was only 15 cents or so.

cabalamat• 18 years ago

$1 for 200k views is very little. Typical CPM with adsense is between $1 and $10, so for 200k views you might typically expect between $200 and $2000.

Having said that, Slashdot readers are more likely than average to use ad-blocking software.

Jasber• 18 years ago

Steve is a great guy and some of his work really resonates with me:

- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-ea...

- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/08/the-law-of-attracti...

But lately his stuff seems too "out there"--even for me. I fully respect what he does, but his way of life seems too extreme for me.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

polyphasic sleep is potentially revolutionary. I heavily suggest it for those that want to do their own startup but can't break away from their job. Get a part time job, go polyphasic. You'll suddenly have plenty of time to work on your own stuff, work part-time, and still have a social life.

palish• 18 years ago

But it seems like you'll also go nuts. If you impose a polyphasic sleep schedule on yourself, you must follow it without fail. And that means a 15-minute nap every N hours. It doesn't matter if you're watching a movie, or out with friends, or "in the flow". If you slip up, the whole sleep pattern comes crashing down. So not many people have that much discipline, for one.

But even if you do, it doesn't seem possible for a human to work 100% of the time. Each time I've tried, I simply end up wasting time rather than using it -- e.g. I'll stare at my computer screen for awhile thinking, try some minor change that doesn't work, then repeat the cycle over for a couple hours. And the next day, my work has often proved to be shoddy at best when I was forcing myself to work.

On the other hand, I've had plenty of experiences that went like: There's a bug to fix. Can't seem to fix it. Go to bed. Wake up refreshed. Spot the bug in ten minutes.

That seems pretty valuable as a time saver, so it doesn't seem wise to sacrifice your "unwind" time lightly.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on you. I'm merely trying to point out that, in the end, polyphasic sleep seems like a form of masochism -- and perhaps that's why Steve himself stopped doing it.

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Here's a William Dement protege on polyphasic sleep:

http://www.akbars.net/?p=31

I tend to trust the scientists who have compiled statistics by watching thousands of people sleep under various conditions. And they say that polyphasic sleep is a crock.

Why, then, does this polyphasic thing seem to work for some people? Let me suggest some hypotheses:

* Many people are raised on lack of sleep: Early rising for school, late nights, packed schedules. One can be sleep-deprived for so long that one really has no idea what being fully awake feels like. They say that it can take a month or more of active oversleeping to work your way out of sleep debt. (I'm not sure I have ever been truly out of sleep debt. Just because I know this stuff doesn't mean I'm always good at living by it. ;)

* Chronic sleep deprivation manifests as chronic sleepiness. If you can lie down at any hour of the day and fall asleep within a few minutes, you're sleep-deprived. But it is perhaps more psychologically satisfying to allow yourself to take those periodic naps that your sleepy self craves than to drive yourself through that sleepiness with coffee and determination. Compared to merely being sleep-deprived, being sleep-deprived polyphasically might feel really good.

* Polyphasic sleep is a ritual that requires discipline. The advantage of adopting such a ritual is that it forces you to change your life around (lose your strict 9-to-5 job, stop commuting two hours each way) and encourages you to do things you enjoy (e.g. have a social life). Dare I suggest that it is these side effects, rather than the polyphasic sleep, that make people happy? Dare I go on to suggest that it's better to adopt a different disciplined ritual -- based on, e.g., exercise, diet, or meditation -- that actually lets you get some sleep?

* It may be that a few people really do work better when they sleep polyphasically, or that a few people have associated health or social problems that tend to benefit from a polyphasic schedule. Something tells me, however, that many of these people have not really taken the scientific approach, by adopting the no-sleep-debt schedule for a few months and seeing what the difference is.

sireat2• 18 years ago

Steve has a lot of great motivational posts, has been a hacker/indie developer himself and seems to be a rational guy for the most part. However, he has those "full of crazy" posts, plus I do wonder whether he really believes his wife's job: http://www.erinpavlina.com/ Anyhow, I am sure he will do alright without Adsense.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

has been a hacker/indie developer himself

has anyone ever played the game (Dweep) he supposedly made all his money off of?

enra• 18 years ago

I found Steve's site about three or four years ago, I don't read it anymore though but he got me into this personal development. I'm not attending any crazy seminars or spend all of my time on self-help books, but he shifted my thinking to that I can change and control myself and my life general. Which is quite rare here in Europe or in Finland at least.

josefresco• 18 years ago

Keep the AdSense, donate the money to charity.

Asshat.

breck• 18 years ago

Not a bad idea. No need for the second comment.

swombat• 18 years ago

If the AdSense was something, as he says on his site, that made him feel uncomfortable about his own website and his self-image, then that suggestion is dumb.

It's a bit like telling someone who's trying to stop being a prostitute: "Keep whoring, donate the proceeds to charity."

You're the asshat, my friend.

run4yourlives• 18 years ago

Until you can safely scratch $100K from you income, you can't call people who do asshats.

jrockway• 18 years ago

It appears that he just did.

lacker• 18 years ago

Remember that the money is coming from somewhere, from whoever the advertisers are making money from. In Steve's case the money probably eventually comes from suckers for get-rich-quick schemes. So it's not clear that by accepting that money and giving it to charity, the world would actually be a better place.

mhb• 18 years ago

Interesting that he has a donation link on the sidebar.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

He doesn't give a strong reason for getting rid of the ads other than that they aren't directly for products he endorses.

It's nice that he makes so much money that he can afford to have principles. :P

cbrinker2• 18 years ago

Never heard of the guy before. I checked out his bio on Wikipedia and it says this:

"After being arrested for grand theft in Sacramento, CA and given 60 hours of community service, Steve claims that this was the impetus he needed to turn his life around. He claims to have earned two college degrees in three semesters from California State University, Northridge - he says that he partly achieved this by attending a college that was generous in awarding advanced placement credits for courses he had taken in high school, thus reducing his required course."

The citation links to his article where he claims he did 30-40 units per semester and no summer school. I don't know, that sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Very hard for me to believe he earned 2 degrees in 3 semester on technical subjets of mathematics and comp sci.

sireat2• 18 years ago

I am a little dubious myself, but it seems doable, considering a couple factors: Steve was going to UC Berkeley before he got popped for that theft charge, CSUN is quite a bit lower on the pecking order than UCB (no offense any CSUN graduates!) Second factor is that if you don't do any partying, girl/boy chasing, don't have to take care of your family, don't have to hold a job, you have plenty of time to do a double/triple load of studying. Thing is most of us don't want to do that...

jodrellblank2• 18 years ago

Never heard of you before. I checked your bio on Wikipedia and you don't have one. Sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Very hard for me to believe you're even a real person.

Casting aspersions on his character? Why? It's very hard for me to believe people can know enough to earn a Nobel Prize for Physics, but they do.

See: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/12/rules-are-no-obstac... for how he did it.

omouse• 18 years ago

Sometimes the character of a person casts doubt on what they say. Have you never heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?

cbrinker2• 18 years ago

I'm not the one going around claiming to have done certain things that are rather ridiculous to believe without seeing a legit degree and a student record. Forgive my skepticism.

There are a lot of snake-oil salesmen out there that are going to sucker you in with their smooth words. Hey, if he writes about things and it helps you, that's great. Still doesn't convince me he graduated with 2 degrees in 3 semesters. It does convince me he knows how to make some money, though.

Even if you had nothing better to do in your life at that time, taking on 30-40 units is beyond a full time job. You'd litterally be looking at something like 60-80 hours of work a week. That's unreasonable by any standard. It's just like some other articles posted on here saying, working super long hours and little sleep isn't something that is productive or something worth bragging about.

Also, after reading through some of his articles he doesn't sound like a very logical person. I won't argue with results, but some things said on their don't exactly vibe with reason imo.

yummyfajitas• 18 years ago

I believe it, having done something similar. I got 2 degrees after spending 2 years at a 4 year college (plus 1 year at community college, I assume this is similar to his AP credit). It's not as hard as you think.

Math and computer science (or math and physics, in my case) have a lot of overlap. Intro courses (Calc 1-4, Physics 1-2, Chem 1-2, English 1-2, etc) are identical. Do a couple of course substitutions (Functional Analysis and Complex Variables == Math Methods for Physics Pt 1&2), and the work might only be 25% more. For me, 1 degree was 120 credits, 2 degrees was 150.

Another trick is to jump right into advanced courses. Quantum mechanics + organic chemistry (8 credits) is a lot of work. Quantum mechanics + organic chemistry + Chem 101 + Intro to Probability (16 credits) not double the work. In QM you derive energy levels for the Bohr atom, in Chem 101 you memorize them. 40 credits probably means 12 credits worth of difficult classes, and a bunch more where he shows up for tests and maybe crams for an hour beforehand.

debt• 18 years ago

Complete moron.

noonespecial2• 18 years ago

I like Steve and have found some of his postings in the past quite inspirational. I found a large part of me responding "you go Steve" while reading this.

It wasn't quite enough, though, to silence the part of me that was responding "you elitist prick" when reading things like "Given the choice between having an extra $100K per year of free money vs. becoming the kind of person who can kill off that much income without fear or worry...".

Many people have lost their livelihood by losing a small portion of this amount of "free money" and are facing dire economic circumstances in their lives. This blog post may just be 6 months too late considering the current world economic status.

Steve usually blogs "way out there" and I suppose that sometimes when you reach hard, you miss the mark. I hope he keeps going, I just thought this one was a miss.

arien• 18 years ago

Yeah, I was kinda feeling the same way. I mean it's his blog and can do whatever he wants about it, but things like this aren't too nice to read in some circumstances.

noonespecial2• 18 years ago

The only thing I find more socially awkward than someone bragging to me about how much money they are making is someone bragging to me about how much money they could be making and are choosing not to.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

At one point about a year ago, he said he was making $40,000 a month, so he's still making tons. Plus, now he's got more real estate for higher paying display or joint venture ads that he can sell directly because of the scale of his traffic.

weegee2• 18 years ago

how about keeping adsense and give the entire amount to charity? sheesh.

weegee2• 18 years ago

amazing this comment gets voted down.

Angostura• 18 years ago

Summary: Turning to a wholey raw vegan diet appears to have affected my cognition adversely.

Dropping Adsense - Saying Goodbye to $100K Per Year in Easy Income

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