Plenty of webmasters wonder how much site ads really earn. I was curious too, but few seem willing to share — maybe because income is a sensitive subject. The big players can’t be bothered, and those doing poorly are embarrassed to admit they make a few cents a month. I have no such shame, so let me lay it out for other webmasters: how much can you actually earn running Google AdSense?
Types of Site Advertising
Site ads generally fall into two categories. One is self-sold: you sell the ad slot directly with no middleman, but that only works once your site is big and well-known enough that buyers come to you — your average small webmaster can’t. The second type is ad networks: advertisers upload their creative to the network, which distributes it across sites — essentially an intermediary. Common networks include Baidu Union (Bai Qing Teng), Google AdSense, and Alimama.
Baidu Union and Alimama
I’ve used both. Baidu Union’s ads don’t support responsive sizes and the creatives don’t feel very polished, so click-through is very low — with my small traffic, revenue was essentially zero. Alimama pays per completed transaction: if someone clicks but doesn’t buy, you get nothing. So I dropped both and moved to Google AdSense.
Google AdSense
I picked AdSense initially because it supports responsive ads — my sites use responsive layouts with fluid sizes. In use I found it massively outperformed Baidu’s network: Google’s ads are mostly well-made, responsive units blend into the site, and you earn not only from clicks but also from impressions alone. So I’ve stuck with Google ever since.
Another factor: Google pays much more per click. A Baidu click might earn a few tenths of a yuan; Google pays in dollars, so one click converts to close to 1 yuan.
Search Engine Optimization
Traffic quality differs by search engine. In my years of running sites, Baidu’s traffic has been low quality — visitors stay a few seconds or a few tens of seconds and leave. Perhaps Baidu can’t precisely identify what a searcher actually wants; or maybe Baidu’s traffic is almost all domestic, and domestic users trust ads far less, barely looking at them and never clicking.
Google’s traffic is higher quality: longer dwell time and more visits to other pages. Maybe Google better understands what a searcher wants and hits the need precisely; and Google’s traffic skews international, where people click ads more readily — visible in my analytics. So I now optimize mainly for Google.
Traffic and Revenue
Summarizing my current ad revenue, converted from USD to RMB, measured monthly — the relationship between a site’s monthly organic IP traffic and earnings:
- Under 1,000 IP: essentially zero
- 1,500 IP ≈ ¥1
- 3,000 IP ≈ ¥2
- 5,000 IP ≈ ¥5-10
- 10,000 IP ≈ ¥15-20
- 13,000 IP ≈ ¥20-30
- 15,000 IP ≈ ¥25-40
- 30,000 IP ≈ ¥70-90
- Beyond that I don’t know — leave a comment with your own numbers.
What the Future Looks Like
With the rise of mobile internet, more people have stopped using computers in favor of apps on their phones — Toutiao, WeChat official accounts — which hit websites hard. Webmasters I used to know either sold their sites or shut them down; the ones left are sustained by hobby alone. The days when you could throw up any site around 2000 and make money are gone, and it will only get harder.