To understand AdSense we have to understand Google AdWords first. Here is a brief overview.

AdWords

AdWords is Google’s flagship advertising product. It offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and site targetted advertising for both text and banner ads.

Advertisers specify the words that should trigger their ads and maximum amount they are willing to pay per click. Google displays these ads in their search results and on the targetted websites that have signed up for their AdSense programme.

AdSense

The same advertisements that Google got through the Adwords are displayed on the websites that signup for the AdSense programme. These advertisements are administered by Google to the enrolled websites as pay per click ads or on impression basis if they are banner ads. It is important to note that the ads are related to the keywords and subject of the content so that the visitor who is reading the content of the website might get interested in some product or sevice offered by the ads. Once the visitor clicks on the ad, the advertiser is charged for the amount they bid for and Google pays a part of the revenue with the website publisher. Google AdSense also allows the publishers to provide Google Search on their site and make money by displaying Google ads and search result pages.

Who can join the AdSense programme?

AdSense is a free programme and any website publisher can join this programme as long as they fulfil Googles eligibility criteria. To join the programme you just need to complete an online application. If you are accepted you get a HTML code that you will paste in the code of your web pages and your pages will start displaying targetted ads.

Advantages of Google AdSense

• AdSense is very quick and easy to join
• Easy to apply to your website. You get a chunk of code that you can apply to the source code of your webpages.
• You don’t have to look for advertisers.
• The code provided by google is so intelligent that it provides relevent ads that match the subject of your content and there is a great likelyhood that the visitor might get interested in the products and services offered by the advertisements.
• Google has a very vast database of ads and can serve ads on almost any topic. So you are never short of ads.
• It easy for beginners and experts alike.
• You can very easily check your statistics by logging into your account.
• Only one Google AdSense account is enough even if you have multiple websites.
• Google gives you control on the ads that may show on your website. You may block certain competitor ads and select some default ads that can display on your pages
• Google AdSense has a very easy and reliable payout system.
• Google search box functionality can be added to the website to attaract more visitors and to enable the visitors to stay longer on your website.