Ask HN: Who profits from AdSense

1 pointsnackai1 comment

So I'm reading about how Alphabet's (Google) profits from advertising are growing. However every once in a while a post is trending on HN about how bad income is from AdSense. So I wonder: Who are the big winners in this besides Google. Are there any sites who generate enough income from Google to support tech/journalist/etc. teams?

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I think it is not easy.

An old idea for permissionless innovation was to make a web site that people would find via Google search and then make money from Adsense.

Both your traffic and revenue are dependent on Google then, so there is a lot of risk. Google sells web traffic so they don't really want to give it away.

Google pays very well for an ad network that does not involve doing ad sales, but web sites that are seriously making money from content are making more money (maybe 10x per page view) by selling ads directly. If you are trying to sustain a journalist and a programmer you should probably hire an ad salesman or do it yourself.

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