Hardly Worthwhile

It just occurred to me today that I practically never get any clicks from the Google AdSense ads I have on a certain site I won't name. It's common knowledge that Google does not permit websites to "ask" readers to click on their ads. In fact, they seem to want you to avoid mentioning them at all and to just let the readers' own interest lead them to click for more information. So I hesitate to talk about this, even though I usually write honestly about pretty much whatever is on my mind on this blog...but the click rate is so bad I'm considering just removing the AdSense ads from this page altogether.

If you think I'm exaggerating, try this on for size: 6 months, 3 total clicks for a total of 57 cents! I have heard that blogs about Adsense itself and blogs about blogging itself are notoriously bad AdSense earners, but I thought I would do better than 3 clicks in 6 months?! True, I'm talking about a page that gets only minimal traffic so far, since I don't even really promote it anywhere, but it definitely gets SOME traffic daily. I recently even changed to a template that now allows the ads to be positioned on the left side of the page, which has supposedly been proven to work best...but still only 1 click in the last month anyway. The ads look nice, they're blended to the overall look of the rest of the layout and they're all about various ways of making money...they just practically never get clicks.

I guess the problem is that most of my readers know exactly what the ads are since they probably also use them on their own sites. So most fellow bloggers and webmasters tend not to be curious or interested in them enough to click. But still, you would think these ads would be tempting enough to entice more than just 3 clicks in 6 months. I expected so, anyway.

I'm not sure what the real reasons are, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm getting proper credit for clicks I might be receiving. I have no way to test this if I'm not allowed to click on them myself under any circumstances. But if the ads continue to keep drawing practically no clicks at all, I'll probably just remove them altogether. Or maybe the Yahoo version of the ads might get better results. You never know until you try...and I guess that goes for just about everything in life anyway.