Have you ever wondered how much of a cut Google takes from Adsense earnings and how much they give to publishers? Its an age old question that Google have never spoken publicly about. This doesn’t stop a lot of speculation on the topic every month or two in the numerous Adsense forums around the traps. SEO Round Table points to a couple of discussions that predict that the publisher’s share could be anything between 59% and 70%.
I’d probably err on the lower side of those predictions – what do you think?
I’d be surprised if it was over 50%.
For certain topics I’ve had more revenue with Kanoodle than with AdSense, and Kanoodle is fixed at 50% share, so I’d concur with Jeremy – I think it’s less than 50%.
I’d have to disagree and say that I would imagine it would be closer to the larger percentage shared with publishers.
I’d don’t see their role being too far different to a media buying agency in the traditional advertising world and there is no way they work on 50%.
But really, it, as with all business is all about value and at the moment with little true competition in contextual they provide a unique value proposition for a large number of online publishers. Therefore it is conceivable that they may in fact take a large cut. However, in the next 12-18 months when some of the smaller players get some critical mass of advertisers and Yahoo! enters with their offering you’ll see the percentage that Google shares with publishers increase.
I’d have to disagree and say that I would imagine it would be closer to the larger percentage shared with publishers.
I’d don’t see their role being too far different to a media buying agency in the traditional advertising world and there is no way they work on 50%.
But really, it, as with all business is all about value and at the moment with little true competition in contextual they provide a unique value proposition for a large number of online publishers. Therefore it is conceivable that they may in fact take a large cut. However, in the next 12-18 months future when some of the smaller players get some critical mass of advertisers and Yahoo! enters with their offering you’ll see the percentage that Google shares with publishers increase.
At a panel at SXSW, Phil Kaplan (of AdBrite and F***ed Company) said that he had determined based on Google’s stock filings that Google’s percentage was between 25-32% (making the webmaster’s percentage 68-75%, which sounds a bit high to me).
Gokul Rajaram (of Google AdSense) was also on that panel. He did not comment on that, but he did say that Google deliberately varies the percentage to “reward good publishers and penalize bad ones.” Precisely what that means is anyone’s guess…