From the beginning, 2003. Seemed kind of too good to be true. I got to work on my own schedule, create content and get paid well. It's not what it once was, but it still pays the bills.

I was a puppy back then, 2003.

Peak years was had in 2009 to 2012 then everyone and their mother found out about Adsense.

At least now the kids and moms have moved on to Youtube.

Since day one, 2003.
It grew rapidly and I really can't remember the peak; it plateaued for a few years, then slowly declined to today.
MFAs ruined so many aspects by creating rubbish sites, and then got the google slap. MFAs also devalued sites running adsense in the eyes of site visitors, and I believe that is still the case.

My experience was consulting for clients starting 2003. Over the years the gravy train worked until the MFA bad actors tore it down, and not long after g had all the believers they needed to keep the pot boiling and began trimming down, cleaning up, and addressing reporting/profits and keeping it in house instead of on site(s).

Personally ran MY sites with DIY advertising sought among locals/national, house billed and curated and built a pretty fair biz. Sold the company off a few years back and cheered as the three full time employees took that plan a bit further. Personally never had skin in the game with adsense, but my clients did, and some did quite well as late as 2010. Pretty much a krap shoot since then.

Since October 2003, I was on Blogger (blogspot) and they sent me an email from Adsense itself to monetize blogs (I didn't even know what Adsense was) and until now.

Everything was always fine until spring 2022, everything started to go wrong, CPC on the floor, RPM goes up and down, terrible, and everything continues to go wrong, it shows that many things have changed in Adsense.

i do not remember, and I am too lazy to look in my archives. However, this was a time, where a Google rep sent me an email to invite me to join, and it was possible to exchange with him by email, during the first few months.

Same here, it was 2003 and I had a personal invite :-)

I've bounced around to different ad networks over the years so it's hard to say what the peak was. I THINK it would have been 2015-16, though. Revenue fell off a cliff in 2017 and has never recovered :-/

2003, I'm a dinosaur on the web. AdSense ain't what it used to be, that's for sure, but that's partially because I run forums so they naturally aren't as popular anymore.

I don't know about that, @Swanny007. My sites are forums and classifieds, and this last year had a record number of users! We're in a somewhat unique niche, though, so we're not fighting for attention like a lot of other forums are.

But Adsense value was less than 1/8th of what it was in 2016.

What year did you start using AdSense

It was a few months after Adsense was publicly launched (in 2003), I do remember receiving an invitation and wasn't quite sure about joining because the ads provided a "cheap" look on the websites. I remember there was an Adsense advisor here on the forum, we could actually talk, even outside the forum you can get a real person.

Just tried checking my account but can't find and specific join date. My payment reports are incomplete, it's only available in my account since 2013, but I was earning money way before 2013. As I remember... (correct me if I'm wrong) it's a Google thing and they sent an email about removing past payment reports.

when were your peak years of revenue?

2008 to 2011 were the steady monthly highest numbers for me. I even considered leaving my job to do this permanently, become a full time freelancer (webmaster and coder), or just pursuing other sources of income. But I kept thinking "what if this doesn't last?" and some horror stories were already around with people earning solid numbers suddenly loosing their accounts. I'm glad I decided to keep my job but yes, Adsense provided some real decent money over the years.

Just looked at the available online reports; 2013 and 2014 had [u]some[/u] high months. But for me, as said, the steady peak years were before that.

I do remember by 2012 feeling a bit bored, exhausted? not interested on producing content as before and even thought about selling or abandoning my websites, by then started writing and putting things on "autopost", so I could work hard like 2 months and rest the whole year or more. I can't say that I recovered my interest and energy to post as I did from 1998 to 2012. By 2019 I can say "I barely post something". But things changed. From Adsense being my main online source of income, my sites started bringing local business opportunities, so I kept them. I still have 4 websites, but not the same energy or interest.

Today? I honestly don't post anymore. Have tried and only end up making it to 4 to 12 posts... then "see you next year". Adsense still provides some money to fully pay the domains and hosting, but I don't know... I've been wondering what to do, killing the websites? I know these are still useful to some people, I have to get back to this. To make matters worse, I wrote around here how my PERL framework and CMS (powering the websites) is now facing challenges because new webservers are configured differently breaking the websites without any specific report on why... so I started writing from scratch the framework and cms in PHP... but I'm busy, so I can't provide the much needed consistency to finish it.

I started writing from scratch the framework and cms in PHP... but I'm busy, so I can't provide the much needed consistency to finish it.

Boy, do I feel that one in my soul! LOL

I started rebuilding my sites YEARS ago. I'd work for awhile, then get distracted with something else and stop coding for months at a time. And, of course, by time I started back, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing!

Those distractions were always valid: my mom had stage 4 COPD and was in and out of ICU until she passed. Then two of my pets passed with cancer. Then my girlfriend's dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and was in and out of ICU until he passed. Then another pet passed. Then my dad got COVID and was in and out of ICU until he passed. And now my last pet had a stroke a few months ago and is needed a lot of attention. So real problems, yes... but in the olden days, when I was stressed I would start coding as a way of coping. Today, coding is just a job that adds to my stress instead of relieving it. So I don't do it.

After 25 years, though, I don't really have any other marketable skills and I don't have enough money in the bank to retire. I even tried to sell the business, but only had a bunch of tire-kickers. So like it or not, I guess this is what I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

This thread made me open a box of memories, I was surely continuously busy at the time. But also, things were more profitable then. As said, it wasn't for the money, but in a way, you could do something and see some sort of results. Today... hours and days of effort may end up absolutely ignored by the search engines and readers, but not by scrappers, or those readers who insist on sending questions (like... homework). I've come to think some sort of negative association took place in my head: do this = punch in the face.

csdude55: Those distractions were always valid

sorry to hear that. Those events not only involve a lot of time, caring, the support, going from A to B, etc., there is also the emotional hit. From a slightly similar background of events I can second what you say that work, coding, etc might help to cope, or at least (on some circumstances) to use time, but it's not always the case. Besides, the mind and heart can only take so much at a time. As you say, real problems.

Right now I have things to do, taking my time away from coding... and I still love to code, so this definitely feels like a problem. Another change around here is being married, I'm absolutely happy, but I'm a night owl, nocturnal habits, love to code at night and it was near midnight when I was flying... but my wife is a normal person requiring average hours of sleep; working late definitely hurts the other person, so I've been solidly away from that, my health also appreciate this in a positive way, but I'm not as productive around coding as I could be.

"After 25 years, though, I don't really" I'm going off topic here but I talked about this in the past. It's been a while since building websites was really profitable for me, but the separate skills have been useful as services: photography, coding, writing, editing. The transition it's not always easy, or fast, it depends on many circumstances, but perhaps you could explore those areas.

I'm going off topic here but I talked about this in the past. It's been a while since building websites was really profitable for me, but the separate skills have been useful as services: photography, coding, writing, editing. The transition it's not always easy, or fast, it depends on many circumstances, but perhaps you could explore those areas.

This will sound like a bunch of excuses, but it's still true. My business is 20 years old now and was super profitable before 2017, so my bills grew to kinda match. COVID completely depleted my savings, so now I'm in a position where I HAVE to make X amount of money just to break even. That eliminates the dream of building a new business from scratch, I need for the time spent away from the main business to be profitable pretty close to immediately :-O

We've been able to use the traffic of my sites to promote several side hustles (plant sales, vacation planning, etc), and that has helped! But the time spent has never offset the money lost from not working on the main business, so in the end it's still a net loss.

I'm at a point where I'm pushing website hosting more than anything else; I have the equipment, so all it takes is customer service and a few minutes of setup time. That's been a pain because I keep dealing with clients that JUST paid Google for 3 years or something! LOL But maybe it'll work out in the long run.

LucasPerez: Everything was always fine until spring 2022, everything started to go wrong

Interesting, 2022 for me was as flat as 2023

@csdude55: on the contrary, to me none of that sound like excuses, life changes, some things get more difficult, some events hit hard, and things are not as profitable today in this now world of "anyone can do it, even my 5yo niece". The bit about "excuses" is worth exploring to see if it's something others have told you about the situation, or if it's you against yourself, sometimes hard workers go hard against themselves and stress can cause tunnel vision. In my case (in case this ends up being relevant to your situation), I ended opening my own business (formal, paperwork, registration, etc) and it was driving me nuts, specially having fixed expenses and fixed paperwork (the way it works where I live), it made no sense because the clients I had didn't need the tax paperwork, so I ended closing the business and continue working as a freelancer, this saved me lots of expenses. I fully work from home, fully adapted and this also cut my expenses, almost 97-98%? of income is just profit. I didn't mean to work underwater, it's just... difficult to explain I guess.

On another thread I shared how I moved to woodworking for a while and it helped me in many ways (pure cash, improved mental flow, etc), and surprisingly I'm not the only one, as I found other devs on the web doing the same, even here. Some things that are very different are also profitable, and other things might not be as profitable but require less work and suffering. I can't say that I fully understand the situation, but I do know what's like to end up in a spiderweb just to make things work. Sometimes the work we do only keeps the company of business alive leaving aside the consideration of pure profit to do fine. Hope things improve.

Going back to the Adsense topic, I remember the times when many of us developed anxiety and some sort of addiction checking the daily reports. Sometimes... I shut down Adsense entirely on my websites just to improve speed and user experience, but remember there are limits or your domain ends up out of the approved list.

June 2004. Earnings until 2011 very good, in total 210 k€. In 2011, I was hit by the Panda update. Reduced income by 99%.

@jetteroheller

Wow, sorry to hear that. I thought my 35% decrease from the December 2017 update was bad.

Since 2004
Wonderful years with Adsense
We all recognise that it has financed thousands of existences, holidays, houses etc.
The education of my kids has been covered by Adsense and this is what counts.
However never considered to by the sole source of revenues , a job is more stable and reliable than clicks.
New Internet players such „ influencers“ ( what a silly description) will get their desillusion in probably 2 or 3 years.

@jSissi

Influencers have always existed, are just another word for celebrities, they simply attract people. Yesterday I saw an "influencer" in my small country who sold out an online store in a very short time from launch, million revenue immediately. Have seen the same person collaborate with large food companies that caused it to sell out in stores throughout the country. Some people have it in them, 99.9% don't. I myself have had Adsens since 2017 and it has been increasing since then.

@explorador great experience, thanks for sharing

jetteroheller: June 2004. Earnings until 2011 very good, in total 210 k€. In 2011, I was hit by the Panda update. Reduced income by 99%.

That's sad, any clue on something to fix after that? Here I experienced something similar, but... in a different way. My 2 largest/strongest websites switched :/

• Website #1, the one bringing the most money got hit badly, I don't know why till this day (100% original content, both the articles and images), but after this the traffic went down, and mostly: the earnings.
  
• Website #2, previously bringing not cents... but just less money than #1... went up, so much, it became my new main source of income and remained that way for some time.

nordland: Influencers have always existed, are just another word for celebrities, they simply attract people. Yesterday I saw an "influencer" in my small country who sold out an online store in a very short time from launch, million revenue immediately. Have seen the same person collaborate with large food companies that caused it to sell out in stores throughout the country. Some people have it in them, 99.9% don't. I myself have had Adsens since 2017 and it has been increasing since then.

These things always get my interest, pure curiosity. I've seen cases of people who build stores or websites and then sell them fast, I can't talk about every case in the world, but some... are sold fast while the site it's a novelty also kept alive by bringing traffic via other websites or just buying advertising, it's not something that will be profitable 8 months in the future, specially again, being novelty. Some influencers also deceive people... and sometimes life can give you the chance to see the buyer covering the evidence: instead of saying "this was a bad deal, I'm loosing money", out of shame they rebrand it or make a move to hide their mistake.

I have no trouble believing in positive just like you said "some people have it in them", but just as some business men say on conferences: people don't sell their winners, they sell the ones that are not producing money, or that will stop producing money shortly. Anyway, back to the positive in the line of your comment, around here I shared a bit of one guy who did what I couldn't/didn't want to do, and took a very similar website and made it grow with investors, it's still up, and they are one of my first "copy pasters", yeah they include a link via url shortener... quoting me as a source while they edit the content for "fair use"... what can I say? but anyway, I can't dismiss his business vision, but I have no idea about their real numbers.

It's fair to say that I worked at some big company where they sold advertising space at high prices... and I knew the real stats: they were lying about the traffic. That sort of things happen.

LucasPerez: @explorador great experience, thanks for sharing

cool!, with luck we might get to see some more testimonials.

To me, influencers were/are the popular kids in high school, the ones everyone envied. They've come along at a time where now they can extend/leverage their popularity beyond high school and make money. I hope they develop some sort of marketable skill besides looking pretty on camera, though, because time comes for us all and trends are fickle.

Code and INFLUENCE. Adapt and survive. I’m not going down without a fight. The rules of the game always change.

My problem is that I’m tired and getting close to retirement. I don’t have that 3:00 AM coding drive anymore.

I've seen cases of people who build stores or websites and then sell them fast

Not to digress, but look at Fakebook. It was a site designed to let anonymous men make fun of college girls online, yet just 4 months after launching they were given $500,000! Then the next year, another $40.2 million :-O They still showed a $3.63 million loss, but it didn't matter because then they were given another $306 million!

I believe that none of it has anything to do with the quality of the company, it's just about moving money from one person to another. A billionaire gives another billionaire $300 million and the IRS starts asking questions, but if they buy $300 million worth of shares of a website? Perfectly reasonable! Right?

Are we sure FB was given all that money? It's hard to tell what is true and what is not anymore.

@explorador with great pleasure, I have little to say, I am a pharmacist, I had a parapharmacy business in Madrid (Spain), and I wanted to make a website for the business, I had studied computer science, although I did not know anything about Adsense, I made the site web in 1999, and in 2003 Adsense contacted me to place ads.

My business closed in 2006, and I was left alone with the web and the ads, then they gave me compensation as a freelance due to a serious illness, and I started to work more and better on the web, Adsense paid me very well, until 2022 when it started to pay badly

I do not live on Adsense, currently Adsense helps me pay only for the Internet line.