You're breaking the Adsense TOS with your post.

I doubt the user base for a joke site, from the point of view of advertisers, is one with much value - is the typical user likely to be at any point at all along any buying cycle you can think of? I don't think so. Which will mean not much in the way of conversions or value for advertisers and thus low priced/low paying ads.

And blocking sites won't help either, you'll just get even more lower paying ads.

10% CTR indicates that the jokes must be - bad. ;-)

Seriously, joke sites are presumably not attracting any visitors that are looking to spend their money. Maybe the odd guy who clicks on an ad to see another joke site, or maybe buy an e-book with, er, better jokes.

But it's certainly not like review sites or recommendation sites for expensive goods.

It's all about audience and audience motivation.

AdSense works best on sites where users are researching ways to spend their money.

A lot of people freak out when they see $0.04 for 16 dollars.

Despite the dollar being in free fall, 4 pennies is still a lot of money in many other currencies.

Like Zimbabwe? I think 4-cents translates to $4,000,000,000 ZWD.

If AdSense paid in Zimbabwe dollars, we'd all be Trillionaires!

Your site is about jokes and your AdSense earnings are a joke.

I'm sure that irony hasn't escaped you.

:<0)

Actually I have always been of the opinion that almost any site can be optimize for adsense IF you put your focus on that. You can still optimize your site but still remain "true" to the subject matter - it is just going to have to take some work!

well
well we have joke site in different language....
one site is not bad and earning ok
but this new site has more visitors but less earning....

the thing i wanted to know is 0.04 dollar for 16 clicks that way some adwords cost less than 1 cent
how can that happen i wanted to know that

quote
10% CTR indicates that the jokes must be - bad. ;-)

jokes are not bad but site are optimized that way...
may be to our surprise ...it is #1 ranked for the keyword which recieves around 300 unique visitor per day....

we have team of people working for jokes...content writer....

but this joke site(this one) is really being big joke for us now after all seo efforts and getting good serp position...

but another fact is for question like this i know there wont be any concrete answers...and must answers will be .....

so we just wanted to know how can adwords bid in less than 1 cent

jokes are not bad but site are optimized that way...

So, it's an MFA site?!

Maybe Google applied something like that "quality slap" on the Adwords side, just with Adsense publishers in mind?

Well there is very thin line between what people call mfa and others.....

i have seen many big sites turning their attention towards google revenue....though the intension of the site is not totally google revenue...

so when you say tweaking for adsense ...you are making site mfa....people dont make sites just for ads....
but rather when they start getting money...they tweak site for adsense...or ads...and at the point it looks like mfa...

any way our site as well is not mfa....by principle...but as i say people can define any way...
we are putting ads for contents...
or we are putting contents for ads...

so as today we made more than 1 dollar for less than 10 clicks there is nothing as u say quality slap or any thing...

any way thanks for comments....
but as i say these type of question always end up with the different people perception and no concrete way
so conclusion is there are no such way as for now ...people know......other than may be filtering some of the sites and hoping for the best

Your business model might not be best served by AdSense - you might want to try some other types of ads, such as affiliates.

as usual no such conclusion and i think this is lesson to other people and me as well not to post tropic like ....high clicks low pay and so on...
no one has answer

any wau thanks for discussion

I understand that you may be frustrated by the replies.

So, let's put a different spin on this - Would you say you have unique, attractive content designed with the user in mind? Do users find it hard to leave your site (because of the quality of the content)? Have you blended the ads in a way that people might click incidently on the ads?

I think, by the way, that knowing your topic actually helps to determine what might be wrong with your earnings.

dear sir zett
i think your queries has no relevance to my problem
means it is not that i am not getting clicks....problem is i am getting lots of clicks...but very very low paid clicks...some even less than 1 cent
16 clicks for 4 cents...

so i dont think that have attractive ,design,color has any thing to do with sum of the ads served to the site....

well the field may determine it...for eg generally there are high paid ads with insurance,review sites and health site....but i dont think the colors ,attractiveness of site has any thing to do with cost of ad being served

any way in my case saying law sites,health site gets high paid ads...i cannot totally change the mission of my site....though i have tried law and medical jokes as welll

any way thanks for comments

I'm not sure you quite get it. Even if you have lots of jokes about lawyers and health, such that you get ads about lawyers and health, that doesn't mean your clicks will be higher priced. Unless your traffic provides conversions (sales or leads) at a somewhat reasonable level for the advertisers, you are going to be smartpriced, and you'll still have those low costs per click. That's what Google gives back to the advertisers to make sure they're not paying for traffic that is not relevant to their interests.

The best way to make higher earnings per click is to target a market that is shopping for something at the moment they hit your site. People looking for jokes might be shopping, but more likely they're just looking for jokes.

jokes are for free, thus the people on your site are not in a mood to buy, thus you get cheap ads. If people are not looking to buy your jokes, they are not looking to buy something that is being advertised on your site either. Sites with free stuff don't usually get good paying ads.

Advertisers don't want to be on sites that have people looking for free stuff. Advertisers want to be on sites that have people that are ready to buy.

To add to netmeg's point, and to answer your question, yes, it's entirely possible to get paid an average of less than a cent per click.

You can get clicks that have 0 value, due to the system labeling them as invalid.

You can get clicks for which the advertiser may have bid, say, 4 cents, but due to the AdSense smartpricing algorithm, you get paid 1 cent or less, as the advertiser receives a discount.

And the fact that you have a jokes site IS very relevant to what you are seeing in your earnings. From what you say, you get ads related to jokes. Those just aren't going to pay well, because the advertiser has no way to make much money from clicks on those ad. And you get ads related to the topic of the jokes. Even if the ads pay better in theory, they will be discounted by smartpricing even more heavily because people clicking on such ads ON A JOKE SITE are just not as likely to convert as people clicking on those same ads if they appeared on a site about that particular topic.

I wouldn't even be worrying about Adsense with 300 people a day...but yeah, Google some joke sites. Either they are a small part of a large site with much to offer or they are full of Google ads, popups, and other crap so they get everyone clicking an ad who falls into their web.

If you're in it for the money, you should move away from jokes.

Possible reasons:

A Smart pricing

B Low CPM bids

C Advertisers biding in a sub 1 cent denomination such as Rupee or Yen