What is Adsense?

AdSense (Google AdSense) is an advertising placement service by Google. The program is designed for website publishers who want to display targeted text, video or image advertisements on website pages and earn money when site visitors view or click the ads.

The name was adopted by Google after Google acquired Applied Semantics in April 2003. In February 2010, Google AdSense started using search history in contextual matching to offer more relevant ads. On January 21, 2014, GoogleAdSense launched Direct Campaigns, a tool where publishers may directly sell ads.

Overview

Google uses its technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted advertisement system may enroll through Google AdWords. AdSense has become one of the popular programs that specializes in creating and placing banner advertisements on a website or blog, because the advertisements are less intrusive and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website. Many websites use AdSense to make revenue from their web content (website, online videos, online audio content, etc.), and it is the most popular advertising network.^[7] AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small websites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and salespeople to seek out advertisers. To display contextually relevant advertisements on a website, webmasters place a brief Javascript code on the website's pages. Websites that are content-rich have been very successful with this advertising program, as noted in a number of publisher case studies on the AdSense website. Google has removed the policy of limiting AdSense ads to three ads per page. Now, Adsense publishers can place unlimited amount of AdSense ads on a page.

Some webmasters put significant effort into maximizing their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:^{[citation needed]}

1. They use a wide range of traffic-generating techniques, including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their websites that attracts AdSense advertisements, which pay out the most when they are clicked.
3. They use text content on their websites that encourages visitors to click on advertisements. Note that Google prohibits webmasters from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. The phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program, which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction. AdSense commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (i.e., a bid not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid. Google currently shares 68% of revenue generated by AdSense with content network partners, and 51% of revenue generated by AdSense with AdSense for Search partners.^[8] On June 18, 2015, Google announced rebranding of AdSense with a new logo.^[9]