AdSense Superstars - Who Makes Most Money With AdSense

The Entrepreneur: Mentors Are A Must-Have

The following is a list of the Internet’s eight biggest Google AdSense publishers. The information was compiled from interviews and articles found on the Internet. Whenever possible, I list the source of the information.

I apologize in advance if I missed anyone on the list. If you make more than the people listed, please send me proof of your Google AdSense earnings and I will add you on the next time the list is updated. This is a list of individual site owners - people just like you and me. Big corporate AdSense publishers like AOL are excluded.

1: Markus Frind: PlentyOfFish.com - $300,000 per month

Markus Frind is a local Vancouverite who is turning the online dating world upside down. His site, Plentyoffish.com is the biggest free dating site on the Internet. Plentyoffish.com receives up to 500 million page views per month and make over $10,000 per day for Markus, who runs the site from home.

You think a site this big would be staffed by a hundred people but the only employee that Markus has is his girlfriend, who helps to answer the emails. Markus coded Plenty of Fish all by himself. The site is lean and mean and requires only four servers to handle all that traffic.

Doubts about Makus’s Google earnings were silenced when he posted this $900,000 check from Google. According to Markus’s blog entry, the check represented two months of AdSense earnings.

2: Kevin Rose: Digg.com - $250,000 per month

Kevin Rose started Digg in December of 2004 with just $1000. Today Digg is one of the biggest news sites on the Net, with over 400,000 members and over 200 million page views per month. According to this article from Business week, Digg will make $3 million this year from a combination of Google AdSense and Federated Media ads. Unfortunately, only Mr. Rose and his accountants knows how much came from Google and how much came from Federated Media. I can try to take a guess based on the number of times I have seen a Federated Media ad vs. a Google ad on Digg but, being in Canada, it’s almost 100% Google ads.

Whatever Google’s share of Digg’s $250,000 per month in ad revenues may be, one thing is for sure, it is not small.

3: Jeremy Schoemaker - $140,000 per month

If ever anyone can be considered an Internet marketing superstar, ShoeMoney would be near the top of the list. Jeremy Schoemaker is a search engine marketer who knows how to take advantage of both Google AdSense and AdWords. In the above photo, you see him with the biggest Google AdSense check he has ever received from Google. The income was earned back in the month of August 2005. Since then Mr. Shoemaker has moved to wire transfers. No doubt, he got tired to dealing with the bank tellers when trying to deposit $100K plus checks every month.

Unlike the other Google whores on this list, ShoeMoney, as he likes to be call, does not own just one site. He makes his enormous Google checks using hundreds of sites and thousands of domains.

4: Jason Calacanis: Weblogs, Inc. - $120,000 per month

Before Jason Calacanis sold Weblogs, Inc to AOL for $25 million, he got the network of blogs making over $4,000 a day from Google AdSense. So impressive was his AdSense performance that Google used Weblogs for a case study.

Now that AOL controls Weblogs, you can bet it is making a lot more than a measly $120,000 a month.

5: David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard - $100,000 per month

According to this Washington Post article, David Miles Jr. and Kato Leonard, claims they make $100,000 a month from their site, Freeweblayouts.net, which gives away designs that people can use on MySpace.

The only problem with the revenue figure is it is not 100% AdSense. Free Web Layouts use other advertising networks in addition to Google. However, with a claimed $100,000 per month in revenues, I am fairly confident that the AdSense portion is higher than our next Google whore.

6: Tim Carter: AskTheBuilder.com - $30,000 per month

Tim Carter is a licensed master plumber and carpenter with his own radio show. He also makes frequent television appearances. He founded AsktheBuilder.com in 1995, The primary focus has been catering to an avid following of fellow builders on the site. According to the Google case study, Mr. Carter did such a good job tweaking the Google ads on his site that it now makes $30,000 a month.

Tim’s AdSense revenues now average $1400 a day and growing. Overall, Carter is enthusiastic about AdSense: it allows him to focus on content development, and gives him built-in tools to measure ad performance and make changes to maximize revenues. “People come to me for help,” says Carter. “They get what they need from my columns and advice - and also from ads delivered by AdSense.”

7: Joel Comm - $24,000 per month

Joel Comm is get rich quick guru. He wrote the best selling e-book, What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense. The e-book, along with the website that promotes it has a screen shot of Mr. Comm AdSense earning from November 19, 2005 to December 15, 2005. Whether or not Mr. Comm still makes this much from Google is anybody’s guess.

8: Shawn Hogan – DigitalPoint.com $10,000 per month

Back in January of 2005 the New York Times had an article about AdSense, featuring Shawn Hogan, founder of DigitalPoint. The article states that Mr. Hogan makes $10,000 per month from Google AdSense using a very unique revenue sharing model.

Google pays Digital Point about $10,000 a month, depending on how many people view or click on those ads, said Shawn D. Hogan, the owner and chief technology officer of Digital Point.

Mr. Hogan said he started the revenue-sharing approach in 2004 “as kind of a marketing gimmick.”

“But everyone seemed to think it was a cool idea,” he said. “I saw a lot of other sites doing the same thing maybe six months later.”

DigitalPoint have grown a lot since that article and while Mr. Hogun would not say anything, the DigitalPoint forum members speculate that he is making at least twice that amount now.

[Via John Chow]

The Littlest Hitler - StoriesLocal entrepreneurs find a market for history, trivia
2007 Mothers of Invention Challenge

How One Blogger Increased His Revenue From $300/Mo To Over $3000/Mo With Things Other Than AdSense.

Koundamani Tamil comedy - Part 1

When I first started my blogging adventure, my goal was never to make money from it - I just wanted a place to post my ramblings. However, because one of the rambling topics I cover is about making money on the Internet, it made perfect sense to use this blog as a case study on how to take a blog and turn it into an Internet money machine.

John Chow dot Com was monetized back in September, where it made $352.94 - all of it coming from Google AdSense. In October, I added Vibrant Media IntelliTXT to the revenue mix and posted $1,361.64 in blog income. In November, blog traffic went down but income went up to $2,139.93 thanks to additional advertising options. Traffic dropped even more in December but income continued to increase as I posted a record $2,790.05 of blog income.

January is an interesting month for web publishers. Traffic is normally higher than December, but advertising rates are generally lower because Christmas is over. The end result is usually a drop in income. However, I’m happy to report that the blog posted another record breaking performance.

Total Blog Income For January 2007: $3,440.66

In five short months, I have taken this blog from zero to what many people would consider a good full time work income. How did I do this? First, let’s break down the January earnings so you can see where the money came from.

• Text Links Ads: $621.68
• Affiliate Sales: $545.00
• Google AdSense: $536.58
• Vibrant IntelliTXT: $478.18
• TTZ Media: $183.54
• FeedBurner Ads: $175.68
• ReviewMe: $150.00
• Grand Total: $3,440.66

Blog traffic for January was 255,574 page views from 133,871 unique visitors, according to Google Analytics. This is a nice increase from December but still well off the 229,853 unique visitors and 360,967 page views posted in October. However, I was able to beat October’s results by over $2,000. Here’s how this was done.

Concentrate On Value

If you look at the income breakdown, you’ll see that my biggest revenue source for January was direct ad sales. Getting direct sales allows you to realize your blog’s full income potential because you don’t have to share revenue with any 3rd party ad networks. For January, I sold direct buys to NewToTech, BuzzBums, Net Business Blog, and Financial RealTime.

The sale to NewToTech and BuzzBums was a banner, Financial RealTime was a link, and Net Business Blog was a review. By selling the review directly, I was able to realize the full $100, instead of having ReviewMe take 50%. I sold the link to Financial RealTime for $150, which is the stated price in my advertising page. A link purchased on this blog through Text Link Ads (aff) cost $200 per month, but I only get $100 of it. I think one of the reasons why advertisers buy links on my blog via TLA is they offers a $100 coupon (aff) to new advertisers.

When I say concentrate on value, I don’t mean just trying to get direct ad buys. It also means delivering value to your advertisers. I want to make sure they feel like they got their money’s worth. Remember, under promise, over deliver. Show value to the advertisers and you will realize value to your site.

Do Not Put All Your Eggs In Google’s Basket

This blog started out with nothing but Google AdSense and if that were all it ran, I would have made only $536.58 for January. Actually, I would have made a bit more because the ads would get more clicks. However, it wouldn’t be close to $3,400.

Because Google is CPC based, its pricing is affected by seasonal changes. This is why the Google ads made more in December with less traffic - the CPC rate was a lot higher because of Christmas. This is where flat priced options like Text Link Ads come in. TLA pays one flat monthly price per link - I don’t have to worry about changes in traffic or click level.

The performance of Text Link Ads (aff) has been really remarkable and I recommend every blogger sign up with them. They have completely sold out my blog and they pay much faster than other ad networks - I already received the payment for January. Check out my Text Link Ads Review for more information.

Affiliate sales came in at $545. That was enough to edge out Google for third place in blog earnings. I think most bloggers are not taking advantage of affiliate marketing - it can be one of your blog’s biggest moneymakers if done correctly. My number one performing affiliate deal was Text Link Ads. Yep! TLA again! Text Link Ads affiliate deal gives you $25 when you refer a new client or publisher to them. In January, I referred 16 accounts to them (4 clients and 12 publishers) and made $400. Another $145 was made from three SEO Book sales.

Blog income does not begin and end with Google AdSense. In order to realize the full value of your blog, you must keep your eyes and ears open to other opportunities. One way of doing that is to keep reading my blog - my eyes and ears are always open.

For The First Time visitor/Blogger

If you’re a first time visitor or new blogger wondering where to go after reading all this, I can offer the following advice. The first is don’t quit. Many times, it can feel like an uphill battle trying to get your piece of the Internet pie, but if you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to do it. Remember, quitters never win and winners never quit.

I recommend you read all the old posts from the Making Money From a Blog series. This way you can see step-by-step, how I got to part time blogging, full time income. You should also check out the Top Posts. This is where I link to some of my best works, many deals with making money on the Internet.

February is the shortest month of the year. It’s going to be tough to beat the results from January. However, I would not advise betting against me.

[Via John Chow]

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in IraqCreating Sales Tools That Build Your Brand
When None Is Best