A piece of Google's action
May 24, 2010 8:43 AM   Subscribe

Have a website? Use Google AdSense? Ever wonder what your cut of the ad revenue was? Google just revealed it this morning: 68 percent for content ads, 51 percent for search.
posted by mcwetboy (33 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Was this in response to some competitor publicizing their numbers?
posted by smackfu at 8:50 AM on May 24, 2010


Could one have figured this out by buying an ad for a sockpuppet site and then clicking it a few times?
posted by kaibutsu at 9:25 AM on May 24, 2010


"A piece of Google's action"

If you look at it objectively, it's actually Google that gets a 49 % (or 32 %) commission on selling your ad space.
posted by NekulturnY at 9:29 AM on May 24, 2010 [5 favorites]


Was this in response to some competitor publicizing their numbers?

The numbers for Apple's iAd system were released when it was announced. I imagine Google management wants its service to appear more attractive to customers than Apple's service.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:33 AM on May 24, 2010 [2 favorites]


The numbers for Apple's iAd system were released when it was announced

For the record, it looks like the iAd split is 60/40.
posted by mhum at 9:45 AM on May 24, 2010


The breakdown: 32% of revenue from publishers in the AdSense for content program, and 49% from those who run AdSense alongside Google search on their own sites.
posted by fixedgear at 9:46 AM on May 24, 2010


Huh, people always guessed that Google was keeping more, with the split usually referred to as 50/50. I know this because an advertiser once claimed they had a special rate with Google of 60/40 and that I'd make 10% more if I allowed them to resell my space.
posted by mathowie at 10:03 AM on May 24, 2010




mathowie: "Huh, people always guessed that Google was keeping more"

I'm pretty surprised Google's cut is this low too. It's not a bad rate for what's arguably the most sophisticated and targeted advertising system ever devised.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:08 AM on May 24, 2010 [3 favorites]


I'll admit I was curious to see if there'd be outrage or... well, frankly, this is Metafilter. I expected outrage. Won't somebody please think of the outrage?
posted by LD Feral at 10:16 AM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


LD Feral, I expected to be outraged by this post, but now I'm just bemused. Apparently Google sells a compelling product at a competitive price point -- and it's not even powered by the harvested souls of orphans.

Am I missing something? Are there really no orphans?
posted by a small part of the world at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2010 [4 favorites]


Adsense pays you: (# of clicks) x (how much the advertiser paid for that ad) x (your share)

They told us the 3rd number, but we still don't know the 2nd, and the 1st is whatever Google says it was. My Adsense payments are essentially random, as far as I can tell.
posted by smackfu at 10:37 AM on May 24, 2010


Apparently Google sells a compelling product at a competitive price point -- and it's not even powered by the harvested souls of orphans.

Not the souls of orphans so much as every single machine readable detail of their lives.
posted by public at 10:49 AM on May 24, 2010


John Battelle notes that Google keeps first a 15% "serving fee", so 68% of 85% amounts to 57.8%.
posted by bru at 10:59 AM on May 24, 2010 [2 favorites]


They told us the 3rd number, but we still don't know the 2nd... how much the advertiser paid for that ad

The cost per click paid by the advertiser depends on a number of factors including the type of ad (banner/text), and the keyword the ad was exposed for. From what I recall when I was inputting ad purchases at a company many years ago, if the system is the same as it was then, this cost is largely determined by how many bids have been placed for said keyword. Here's a site that tracks some of the cpc by keyword for some of the top $ by CPC, the curious-minded.
posted by tybeet at 11:06 AM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


John Battelle notes that Google keeps first a 15% "serving fee", so 68% of 85% amounts to 57.8%.

And Battelle updates his post with a note from Google that explicitly says this isn't true.
posted by GuyZero at 11:09 AM on May 24, 2010 [3 favorites]


*tries to supply outrage*
You plutocrats actually keep money that could have bought milk for starving orphans?

There. Is everybody happy now?
posted by Cranberry at 12:54 PM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


tybeet: Here's a site that tracks some of the cpc by keyword for some of the top $ by CPC,

Fascinating! It must chap Google's hide that 5 of the top 9 are variations on Yahoo + domain.

Max CPC ($) Avg CPC ($) Keyword
520.52 97.44 domains yahoo
418.63 79.81 domain name yahoo
145.71 68.91 dc hair laser removal washington
119.63 66.15 law lemon wisconsin
135.94 51.14 hair removal washington dc
493.73 41.97 domain registration yahoo
262.02 40.36 benchmark lending
438.23 38.05 domain yahoo
330.50 37.86 yahoo web hosting
121.86 37.29 hair laser removal virginia
121.27 36.59 peritoneal mesothelioma

posted by msalt at 1:16 PM on May 24, 2010


I'm not sure I believe them when they say that the revenue share has never changed.

I'm no financial analyst, but there have been many murmurs over the years that Google more often than not beats analyst guestimates in part by slightly moving the revenue share around.
posted by ejoey at 1:37 PM on May 24, 2010


35.94 51.14 hair removal washington dc
135.94 51.14 hair removal washington dc
121.86 37.29 hair laser removal virginia

What's with all the hairy Washingtonians?
posted by nathancaswell at 1:47 PM on May 24, 2010


What's with all the hairy Washingtonians?

Gotta do some work to make yourself presentable to a rentboy.
posted by inigo2 at 1:58 PM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


Are there really no orphans?

There are. But they're sustainably grown, organic and free range, and their excrement is composted to produce electricity, so it's hard to muster much outrage.

What's with all the hairy Washingtonians?

Those searches are probably all from my coworker, actually. He's quite hirsute.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:01 PM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


People were always upset that Google was not entirely transparent in their advertising model. I never understood why.

If both parties are making money, is the split really that important? If you were to make a rational decision about using AdSense or a competitor, should the split really be a factor? No, your profit would be the most important factor. Would you really go with a competitor to Google because they were taking a smaller cut of the ad revenue even though it meant a smaller overall cut for your company? No. And if you would, your company would fire you if they found out that you were behaving so irrationally in a market. And they should because you were not behaving in the interest of your company.
posted by chemoboy at 7:33 PM on May 24, 2010


Why would a rational market have advertisers paying more for click-throughs to Google?
posted by smackfu at 7:39 PM on May 24, 2010


Adsense is ruining the Internet. The few highly monetizable clickthroughs such as mezothemioma or hair removal has resulted in a flood of SEO spam sites clogging our tubes with useless crap articles cobbled from a few select sources in hopes of landing the right adsense match so that you will randomly browse and click through so some site owner can win the lottery. 16,200,000 sites match "yahoo domains", and that's about 16,199,000+ too many. I'm going to strait my own search engine which will actually exclude any page that hits one of the top 500 paying words. We'll hire some editors and return a information page. You searched for Yahoo domains, great we'll build our own SEO page and give you a nice overview and the domain providers can pay to advertise.
posted by humanfont at 7:40 PM on May 24, 2010


I'm going to strait my own search engine which will actually exclude any page that hits one of the top 500 paying words. We'll hire some editors and return a information page.

Jason Calacanis, is that you?????
posted by GuyZero at 9:48 PM on May 24, 2010


If both parties are making money, is the split really that important?

Rational actors make better choices with more information. Hiding information may help Google maintain its monopoly but it also keeps people from making optimal choices.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:39 PM on May 24, 2010


Google: mezothemioma.

Shit, you're right! Just look at those shady motherfuckers!
posted by ryanrs at 10:57 PM on May 24, 2010


Adsense is ruining the Internet.

I'm old enough, in Internet terms, to remember when Google was still a subdomain at a university and AltaVista was the best search engine out there - and how shit AltaVista was, how loaded up with crapware, dodgy search practises, and basic not-working-well-itis. Google was like fucking magic.

People have, perhaps, forgotten what a black art finding anything on the Internet was prior to Google. Google, as a company, have plenty of shortcomings, especially in the privacy space, but the idea that they're "ruining the Internet" is pure, unalloyed horseshit.
posted by rodgerd at 2:22 AM on May 25, 2010 [2 favorites]


If both parties are making money, is the split really that important?

Google are obviously confident they can compete by giving you a bigger slice of the money you jointly generate than their competitors.
posted by rodgerd at 2:23 AM on May 25, 2010


"finding anything on the Internet"

By which I mean "finding anything on the Web", of course.
posted by rodgerd at 2:49 AM on May 25, 2010


I'm fascinated that Google publicly disclosed this number. Competition with Apple seems the most likely explanation, but it's curious they felt they needed to respond. Apple's ad network isn't even up and running, and is anyone expecting it to be relevant outside the iPhone vs. Android battle?

I believe these numbers are only for the public AdSense product, the one any small website can sign up for. Major websites that are Google partners negotiate their own rates. Have any of those revenue shares been disclosed? I'm betting in the past four years some information has come out.
posted by Nelson at 8:39 AM on May 25, 2010




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