Several years ago, I ran a niche hobbyist website and incorporated Adsense (because why not?!?). The site featured a fuzzy search function since it referenced tens of thousands of named parts. The search result page would echo the (sanitized) search term followed by the matching results - along with recent search terms in the right sidebar.
One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "mesothelioma". Adsense would see that page with "mesothelioma" in the sidebar, query for it, and served up the ambulance chaser's paid ads, even though there obviously were no matching results.
I didn't realize this was happening for several weeks since this low volume site was earning very little and I never even hit the minimum withdrawal limit. Suddenly I was earning $50 - $100 - per day. This lasted for a few weeks but before I could transfer the earnings, Google locked the AdSense account due to abuse. It might surprise you, but Google support was not helpful and after a series of reviews, they permanently shut down Adsense for this site.
Therefore, I also turned off Google Adsense for my websites.
I was dumb enough when I was 11 to sign up for Adsense under my Mom’s name and put it on a php-based meme sharing site I made that my fellow 5th graders used.
Anyway, I noticed I could make a couple dollars a week. So I had my friends sit there and spam load the site. Made about 80$ until Google banned me (my mom) for life from Adsense
It's been like 10 years since I worked in the space but I'm pretty sure showing adsense on search results like that has been against the tos for a very long time unless you get a specific search feed(which is basically impossible these days and even 15 years ago was limited to companies like ask.com)
You have to agree to have read the policies when signing up and they've always been pretty clear about placement rules. Not placing ads on non-content pages is a pretty basic rule and would clearly apply to this since a search result is non-content.
Interesting. It seems like a ToS violation would have been worthy of a warning and revoking the offending earnings, but nope, it was no mercy or review.
or at least an explanation. That would of course require a customer service apparatus designed to service customers rather than one designed to force them to become tangled in the abyssal morass.
The person would have agreed to the placement rules when they signed up then went and broke them leading to Google and advertisers being defrauded by a bot. Why would you expect mercy there?
Every person and company I know who had an Adsense account was banned and not paid. Two of them were banned for terms violations which were things Google reps told them to do. Endless conspiracy theories on this, no idea.
I am guessing these companies were not big enough to make enough of a fuss and have a good legal team? Google likes making money, and if there is the slightest reason to not have to pay someone, then they are gonna make use of that reason. Might even make it onto someone's KPI list of "prevented fraud".
"I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker, so I didn’t notice the changes or experience any irritation personally. "
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If you run a website that serves ads, whitelist it in your adblocker so you can see what your own damned site looks like to people who are still rawdogging the world wide web.
Most people who ran AdSense were extremely careful not to look at the ads on their own site, because Google might flag them for intentionally inflating clicks or views.
This is why I greatly prefer podcasts where the hosts read the ads. If you're going to take ad money, you better be willing to sell it with your own voice. All else is a descent into scam ad hell.
Everybody does that and has for the past 10 years. People sell the scammiest stuff then completely dissociate and say "sorry guys I didn't know that was a scam haha. I won't do it again. This program brought to you by Honey. I use it and it's great." Their viewers always forgive them.
I have a tool on my website that gets about 250k unique views per day. During COVID I decided to put a single ad on the page to try to make up for my wife's lost income. It was for a time bringing in close to $500 a month, and was a nice little side income.
My wife never returned to work, we had kids and she has stayed at home with them. As such the ad has stayed up. Last I checked though it is bringing in something like $36 a month despite traffic being higher than ever. I get a payout from Google every couple months.
I'm considering taking it down just because the payoff is so low. It's honestly barely breaking even with the added expense of complicating my taxes.
Slightly off-topic, but several small-to-medium Youtube channels I watch, mentioned that their yearly Youtube earnings are way down, by two-thirds in one case. It may be that Alphabet is dialing back their profit sharing - across the board.
I do find it interesting that the author specifies they use an ad blocker whilst also wanting to view the industry 'from the inside'. I'm not sure there isn't a level of hypocrisy there, albeit understandable.
As staunchly anti-advertising, I wouldn't include advertising on anything I publish personally, but then I also don't publish anything, so I have no pressure to change my stance. I think I've convinced myself that my opinion doesn't matter to those who may be able to earn a decent stream from advertising (as much as I dislike that, and as much as I dislike my opinion being value-less).
The problem is not the marketing of services and products.
The problem is the vector for tracking and for installing malware on users' browsers. I'd actually love to be notified when interesting products are available - but I block ads out of the defensive stance that the advertising industry pushed many people into.
Well, I think either way, Internet ads are dead for the most part. They have been dead for many years now. They started exactly the same way and went through the same flow. There were all kinds of ads: ads to install junk, ads that were totally misleading, ads that were very sexual in nature just to tempt users into clicking them, and ads that were totally irrelevant to the topic of the website or the user's interests.
But then it got so bad that people started using ad blockers long ago, and they got rid of this mess. Later, companies slowly started moving away from Internet advertising in general, and when the mobile and smartphone market started to take off, all the money flowed into that world instead. If you look at the way ads work in the mobile industry, even today, they are full of junk and incentivize users to install apps and perform specific actions. There is an equal amount of junk and misleading content in mobile ads today, like there used to be in Internet ads more than a decade ago. But right now, we are at that point. Mobile ads will also start getting muted one way or the other, and there will be huge incentive and opportunity sitting on top of that right there.
To add to this specific article, though, I would say it would have hardly made a difference anyway for the author in 2025.
ads definitely aren't dead. Though ads on random networks like adsense probably are because the quality of traffic is horrendous. Basically every beginner adwords guide will have you disable network traffic(turn off adsense).
Advertising direct on sites is still very valuable.
It's an act of self-protection. I'm not anti-advertising. I'm anti-running-untrusted-software on my property. If they had stuck to adwords and static images with no invasive tracking I'd let their ads run. But the surveillance capitalists can't help themselves and want to run their 50MB spyware payload on my computer. I say no to that garbage.
There certainly is a contradiction, but it's so deeply ingrained that using ad blockers is OK that people can't see it even when it's right in front of their faces.
If everyone used 100% effective ad blockers, Alphabet (minus GCP) and Meta would not exist, and nor would the very large number of free-as-in-beer services that make up a large part of what makes the internet useful to people.
I joined AdSense in 2003. At peak it was generating US$15k a month.
Nowadays it will be a miracle if it passes of US$800 a month.
I think the shift to a more localised audience (NZ), diversion of ad spend to large social networks are responsible. Our traffic is similar in volume but nowhere near as "valuable" apparently.
All ad networks are cancer, in my humble opinion. Adblocking is a security requirement, so I have no compassion for anybody who bases their economic success on any ad network.
I have a similar story -- we peaked at around $20k USD per month for quite a while. However, when ad-rates started declining, we changed our business model, and are now earning much more without any ads at all. I have to say, I'm glad to be rid of Google Ads, as they're full of many, many scammy advertisers.
I had to turn off adsense when every ad they were running was a deceptive green "download" button. It was a whack a mole to try and block them all and was a waste of effort.
I had some sites that used it years ago ca. 2006. $500/mo at peak. Then one month it suddenly halved for no apparent reason. And it kept dropping. After a while or just wasn't with the ugliness. And I learned to never count on Google.
Since then I've become anti-ad and haven't had any for years. I am sorry for my embarrassing lapse in judgment. :)
This is pointing out something that seems to be deeply human, it's not intended as a personal dig, because I think I'd be in the same boat:
It's interesting, not unexpected and not un-understandable, that your opinion started changing as the dollar value decreased. I greatly dislike what this says about the effect of money on the human psyche. It's as old as time, but this hack hasn't been patched and I don't think it can be: Humans will sell their souls for a price.
I forgive you for your lapse in judgement. You are human after all - not intended as an insult ;)
I "don't forgive you" for considering this a lapse in judgment, because you still have some things to learn. (I'm kidding of course. All of this framing is rather silly.)
beej was doing what was best for them at the time. There were no victims. beej sold a service to an enterprise until it didn't make sense anymore.
Moralizing something that happened 20 years ago is wild. It literally does not matter. beej didn't kill anyone, didn't ruin their self esteem, didn't steal. This is not "soul selling".
Money isn't evil. Working for money and selling for money are not evil. You're going to have to do a whole lot more to meet that threshold for most people.
We should stop casting stones at people unless they're really assholes. This is nothing.
It seems with AI models this space is ripe for on-domain ad sales as a SaaS. Just pay an invoice to "advertise here" Have an AI make sure the links adhere to content policies. Don't track visitors or charge per click. Just pay a fee and get the banner.
There’s an interesting conversation to be had about ad sponsorship on web content when the share of people just getting summarized results from {LLM chatbot of choice} is increasing and siphoning actual views.
The conversation should be about the fact that the advertising won't disappear, it will inevitably move to LLM output where it will be seamless/unblockable and undisclosed.
There's a law of conservation (or growth, really) of ad impressions.
My experience deploying at blockers in the enterprise is the average non tech user feels the Internet is "broken" when it's not covered in ads and will tell helpdesk it needs to be fixed.
It seems to me at its root, that it's a question of available ad attention, and the value thereof.
The classic value prop for ads has been so badly destroyed by bad curation and content invasiveness that the basis value of that attention has dropped trough the floor. The growing prevalence of ad blocking is only a symptom of that.
This has become bad enough it even invades special interest nonprofit rags like the AAA, American Legion, and USPSA newsletters, for example.
> Plus, turning off the ads should more clearly classify my blog as “non-commercial” for the various legal tests that impose greater liability on commercial actors.
Anyone know what these might be offhand? I think federal trademark law may sting more if used commercially. But what else could he be referring to?
was making enough 10 yr ago with it to cover my mortgage every month. I noticed it ticking down year over year after 2018. Now I get a payment every few months. It was a great ride while it lasted.
> Nor is it an argument that companies can’t do better jobs within their own content moderation efforts. But I do think there’s a huge problem in that many people — including many politicians and journalists — seem to expect that these companies not only can, but should, strive for a level of content moderation that is simply impossible to reach.
The three problems I see are:
1. People who imagine content moderation prohibitions would be a utopia.
2. People who imagine content moderation should be perfect (of course by which I mean there own practical, acknowledged imperfect measure. Because even if everyone is pro-practicality, if they are pro-practicality in different ways, we still get an impossible demand.)
3. This major problem/disconnect I just don't ever see discussed:
(This would solve harms in a way that the false dichotomy of (1) and (2) do not.)
a) If a company is actively promoting some content over others, for any reason (a free speech exercise, that allows for many motives here), they should be held to a MUCH higher standard for their active choices, vs. neutral providers, with regard to harms.
b) If a company is selectively financially underwriting content creation, i.e paying for content by any metric (again, a free speech exercise, that allows for many motives), they should be held to be a MUCH higher standard, for their financed/rewarded content, vs. content it sources without financial incentive, with regard to harms.
Host harbor protections should be for content made available on a neutral content producer, consumer search/selection basis.
As soon as a company is injecting their own free speech choices (by preferentially selecting content for users, or paying for selected content), much higher responsibilities should be applied.
A neutral content site can still make money many ways. Advertising still works. Pay for content on an even basis, but providing only organic (user driven) discovery, etc. One such a neutral utility basis, safe harbor protection regarding content (assuming some reasonable means of responding to reports of harmful material), makes sense.
Safe harbors do not make sense for services who use their free speech freedoms to actively direct users to service preferred content, or actively financing service preferred content. Independent of preferred (i.e. the responsibility that is applied, should continue to be neutral itself. The nature of the companies free speech choices should not be the issue.)
Imposed selection, selective production => speech => responsibility.
Almost all the systematic harms by major content/social sites, can be traced to perverse incentives actively pursued by the site. This rule should apply: Active Choices => Responsibility for Choices. Vs. Neutrality => Responsible Safe Harbor.
This isn't a polemic against opinionated or hands-on content moderators. We need them. We need to allow them, so we have those rights to. It is a polemic against de-linking free speech utilization, from free speech responsibility. And especially against de-linking that ethical balance at scale.
One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "mesothelioma". Adsense would see that page with "mesothelioma" in the sidebar, query for it, and served up the ambulance chaser's paid ads, even though there obviously were no matching results.
I didn't realize this was happening for several weeks since this low volume site was earning very little and I never even hit the minimum withdrawal limit. Suddenly I was earning $50 - $100 - per day. This lasted for a few weeks but before I could transfer the earnings, Google locked the AdSense account due to abuse. It might surprise you, but Google support was not helpful and after a series of reviews, they permanently shut down Adsense for this site.
Therefore, I also turned off Google Adsense for my websites.
Anyway, I noticed I could make a couple dollars a week. So I had my friends sit there and spam load the site. Made about 80$ until Google banned me (my mom) for life from Adsense
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/48182?hl=en#zippy=...
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If you run a website that serves ads, whitelist it in your adblocker so you can see what your own damned site looks like to people who are still rawdogging the world wide web.
My wife never returned to work, we had kids and she has stayed at home with them. As such the ad has stayed up. Last I checked though it is bringing in something like $36 a month despite traffic being higher than ever. I get a payout from Google every couple months.
I'm considering taking it down just because the payoff is so low. It's honestly barely breaking even with the added expense of complicating my taxes.
As staunchly anti-advertising, I wouldn't include advertising on anything I publish personally, but then I also don't publish anything, so I have no pressure to change my stance. I think I've convinced myself that my opinion doesn't matter to those who may be able to earn a decent stream from advertising (as much as I dislike that, and as much as I dislike my opinion being value-less).
The problem is the vector for tracking and for installing malware on users' browsers. I'd actually love to be notified when interesting products are available - but I block ads out of the defensive stance that the advertising industry pushed many people into.
But then it got so bad that people started using ad blockers long ago, and they got rid of this mess. Later, companies slowly started moving away from Internet advertising in general, and when the mobile and smartphone market started to take off, all the money flowed into that world instead. If you look at the way ads work in the mobile industry, even today, they are full of junk and incentivize users to install apps and perform specific actions. There is an equal amount of junk and misleading content in mobile ads today, like there used to be in Internet ads more than a decade ago. But right now, we are at that point. Mobile ads will also start getting muted one way or the other, and there will be huge incentive and opportunity sitting on top of that right there.
To add to this specific article, though, I would say it would have hardly made a difference anyway for the author in 2025.
Advertising direct on sites is still very valuable.
If everyone used 100% effective ad blockers, Alphabet (minus GCP) and Meta would not exist, and nor would the very large number of free-as-in-beer services that make up a large part of what makes the internet useful to people.
Nowadays it will be a miracle if it passes of US$800 a month.
I think the shift to a more localised audience (NZ), diversion of ad spend to large social networks are responsible. Our traffic is similar in volume but nowhere near as "valuable" apparently.
Ethical Ads: https://www.ethicalads.io/
Since then I've become anti-ad and haven't had any for years. I am sorry for my embarrassing lapse in judgment. :)
It's interesting, not unexpected and not un-understandable, that your opinion started changing as the dollar value decreased. I greatly dislike what this says about the effect of money on the human psyche. It's as old as time, but this hack hasn't been patched and I don't think it can be: Humans will sell their souls for a price.
I forgive you for your lapse in judgement. You are human after all - not intended as an insult ;)
I "don't forgive you" for considering this a lapse in judgment, because you still have some things to learn. (I'm kidding of course. All of this framing is rather silly.)
beej was doing what was best for them at the time. There were no victims. beej sold a service to an enterprise until it didn't make sense anymore.
Moralizing something that happened 20 years ago is wild. It literally does not matter. beej didn't kill anyone, didn't ruin their self esteem, didn't steal. This is not "soul selling".
Money isn't evil. Working for money and selling for money are not evil. You're going to have to do a whole lot more to meet that threshold for most people.
We should stop casting stones at people unless they're really assholes. This is nothing.
> I am sorry for my embarrassing lapse in judgment. :)
But I do agree with the point you're making.
Like me becoming anti-my-girlfriend after she dumped me
If the benefit outweighs the drawbacks, you say yes, and when the benefits evaporate leaving only the drawbacks, it's a no.
There's a law of conservation (or growth, really) of ad impressions.
The classic value prop for ads has been so badly destroyed by bad curation and content invasiveness that the basis value of that attention has dropped trough the floor. The growing prevalence of ad blocking is only a symptom of that.
This has become bad enough it even invades special interest nonprofit rags like the AAA, American Legion, and USPSA newsletters, for example.
Anyone know what these might be offhand? I think federal trademark law may sting more if used commercially. But what else could he be referring to?
interesting that someone looking to make some (modest) money with AdSense is blocking ads...
Using ad blockers is unethical. No one who uses one (probably 99% of people on HN) wants to hear this, but the conclusion is inescapable really.
You may commence your downvoting.
The three problems I see are:
1. People who imagine content moderation prohibitions would be a utopia.
2. People who imagine content moderation should be perfect (of course by which I mean there own practical, acknowledged imperfect measure. Because even if everyone is pro-practicality, if they are pro-practicality in different ways, we still get an impossible demand.)
3. This major problem/disconnect I just don't ever see discussed:
(This would solve harms in a way that the false dichotomy of (1) and (2) do not.)
a) If a company is actively promoting some content over others, for any reason (a free speech exercise, that allows for many motives here), they should be held to a MUCH higher standard for their active choices, vs. neutral providers, with regard to harms.
b) If a company is selectively financially underwriting content creation, i.e paying for content by any metric (again, a free speech exercise, that allows for many motives), they should be held to be a MUCH higher standard, for their financed/rewarded content, vs. content it sources without financial incentive, with regard to harms.
Host harbor protections should be for content made available on a neutral content producer, consumer search/selection basis.
As soon as a company is injecting their own free speech choices (by preferentially selecting content for users, or paying for selected content), much higher responsibilities should be applied.
A neutral content site can still make money many ways. Advertising still works. Pay for content on an even basis, but providing only organic (user driven) discovery, etc. One such a neutral utility basis, safe harbor protection regarding content (assuming some reasonable means of responding to reports of harmful material), makes sense.
Safe harbors do not make sense for services who use their free speech freedoms to actively direct users to service preferred content, or actively financing service preferred content. Independent of preferred (i.e. the responsibility that is applied, should continue to be neutral itself. The nature of the companies free speech choices should not be the issue.)
Imposed selection, selective production => speech => responsibility.
Almost all the systematic harms by major content/social sites, can be traced to perverse incentives actively pursued by the site. This rule should apply: Active Choices => Responsibility for Choices. Vs. Neutrality => Responsible Safe Harbor.
This isn't a polemic against opinionated or hands-on content moderators. We need them. We need to allow them, so we have those rights to. It is a polemic against de-linking free speech utilization, from free speech responsibility. And especially against de-linking that ethical balance at scale.