I recently did an experiment with one of my sites (don't ask what site it is).
This is what I did.
For 3 days, i spammed some forums with irrelevant headlines that only dumb people would fall for. such as "I made $XXXXX in 1 day. See how i do it." and then a link to my side. On those days, the adsense takings were record highs. They were clicking like mad.
Thereafter, for another 3 days, i spammed the same forums with RELEVANT headlines with content that is relevant to the topic being discussed. I just shove the link to my site at the end of the content. Based on the traffic records, the number of new visitors visiting is the same as the prior 3 days. BUT the adsense takings tumble to 1/3 of the previous 3 days. This means that these people are clicking on less ads.
Of course, this empirical observation might not be statistical significant but if this is of any indication, adsense would only work for content site targeting dumb people who reach their site via search engines. Using Adsense for Digg or Reddit just wouldn't work.
FYI, i have stopped spamming. So don't berate me for doing so. These 6 days were the only days i spammed.
I don't think your experiment supports your conclusions.
I don't think your assumption that it only works for dumb searchers is supported, since nothing in your materials & methods suggests that searchers were in your experimental or control groups.
All your evidence supports is that adsense does seem to work for the sorts of people who click on link spam. It may be reasonable to assume, based on their behavior, that those people are dumb. It's unreasonable to conclude, based on the behavior of greedy people who click on link spam, that anyone who clicks on a Google ad is dumb.
Check out the article on ad dynamics by the creator of the Metafilter family of sites that I posted a link to. He has a better reasoned theory about when ads work, and when they don't.
True! Adsense works only if visitors are coming from google (in search mode... they end clicking because there are a lot of chances they didn't found what the were looking for so - adsense to continue navigation), or if you have a site with a user base of average people with IE6 and Windows XP without any kind of navigation skills, those will click.
Adsense is not a business model for 70% of the web startups out there.
Google will instead pay you a lot if you are a spammer. Copy the wikipedia DB or other public available information, mix it together, get few backlinks, and put adsense in a prominent position, and you are set. You will earn 5$ for 1000 pageviews more or less that's exactly ok given that you have millions of pages generated in 1 day of work.
With few domains and different free contents around you can get a living in few months. This was my Ycombinator, the source of money I used to take me alive while developing the code for my startup.
One explanation would be that the people who you "scammed" into viewing the site, turned up and didn't find the content they expected, so they went and found something else to click on - i.e. your Adsense. Good old bait and switch.
I don't know if it particularly invalidates Adsense as a business model (if we're calling it that). Lots of forms of subterfuge or gaming of click-through advertising systems can increase your earnings. It doesn't mean that people who garner legitimate revenue can't do well (although presumably they do have to pay for the cost of the people using the system illegitimately).
However, I've always found Adsense totally useless for the sites I run. I have a niche, high-tech audience, so Adsense CTR are ridiculously low for me - particularly compared to what I can get selling CPM rates to advertisers directly. Again, that doesn't really invalidate Adsense as a whole - just that it isn't suitable for everyone.
Make an advertising kit (stats & info promoting your site, along with details on advertising opportunities) and send it out to companies that sell products relevant to your audience.
this drew thousands of page views per day, and ended up costing thousands of dollars. it was an expensive experiment, but it taught me that relevance has nothing to do with advertising. according to google analytics not one of those visitors came back to my blog within a months time. Something else I noticed what how many web spiders were hitting my site very day. Today, out of the maybe 20 page views a day I get on my blog, 5-7 of them are google bot indexing my site.
Assuming your test was performed ethically, I'm very curious to hear more about your result. For example, I'd like to see an example of the messages (relevant and irrelevant), I'd like the address to your web site (I understand why you didn't post it, but it would be useful, perhaps private email?) and I'd like to see the numbers.
I do not understand how you make the connection between the data, and your conclusion. Never-the-less, there is an interesting thesis in your measurements.
The first 3 days were just irrelevant braindead posts such as "Here is how you earn $XXXXXX in 1 day", "I just found the secret to getting rich" etc. These posts have absolute no relevance to the forums or my site. But nevertheless, people still click to my site and start clicking on my ads.
The later 3 days were relevant posts. For eg. if it was a topic about bastketball, i post about basketball and then add a link to my site as my forum signature.
No. it wasn't performed ethically. I mean, come on, look at the first 3 days. Those posts are totally irrelevant.
Ive seen reports about this kind of stuff before the thesis being
"stupid people click on ads"
I almost never click on ads, in fact i only click on them when i like a site and want to make them some money. My mum (bless her) knows nothing about the web. she is likely to click on adsense ads simply because she will think its part of the site!
I think many people could follow the same lines by mistake. The fact of the matter is, she is more likely to click on "get rich in x days" than you and I. We are well versed in the web and are experienced cynics. newbies often get taken for a ride.
Meaning: don't make content sites for tech-oriented people. They'll ignore the ads completely.
My online journal (http://journal.dedasys.com) is mostly about high tech with some business and economics thrown in, and it gets zilch from adsense compared with other sites I run.
The only times I've responded to advertisements, I've copy-and-pasted the URL of the destination and put it in the address bar, to avoid any payment from anyone.
_That's_ how bad techie people can be for business.
My mother, on the other hand, will sit and read pop ups.
This is what I did. For 3 days, i spammed some forums with irrelevant headlines that only dumb people would fall for. such as "I made $XXXXX in 1 day. See how i do it." and then a link to my side. On those days, the adsense takings were record highs. They were clicking like mad.
Thereafter, for another 3 days, i spammed the same forums with RELEVANT headlines with content that is relevant to the topic being discussed. I just shove the link to my site at the end of the content. Based on the traffic records, the number of new visitors visiting is the same as the prior 3 days. BUT the adsense takings tumble to 1/3 of the previous 3 days. This means that these people are clicking on less ads.
Of course, this empirical observation might not be statistical significant but if this is of any indication, adsense would only work for content site targeting dumb people who reach their site via search engines. Using Adsense for Digg or Reddit just wouldn't work.
FYI, i have stopped spamming. So don't berate me for doing so. These 6 days were the only days i spammed.