Adsense ebook worth the money?

July 19, 2005 9:18 AM

Google Adsense Secrets: Is this ebook worth buying? (I really want to know, I'm not shilling for it.)

I have a site that could be performing better, I'm sure. But I'm naturally skeptical of the hard sell. Anybody have experience with this? Or have a better idea?

posted by o2b to Work & Money (12 answers total)

It looks like bullshit to me. Where is the URL to the guy's amazing thousand-dollar-a-day site?

The first testimonial is from Chris Pirillo, and though I think he's a nice guy, his Lockergnome site is covered with ridiculous ads that take away from the content. There are often 4-5 ad units on every page and you have to "weave" between them when reading any text.

If you want to annoy your users at the expense of making a few bucks, this is probably the way to do it.
posted by mathowie at 10:44 AM on July 19, 2005

There are hundreds of tips on the web. They might have some special secret to sell. But remember - Its all about traffic.
posted by webmeta at 11:38 AM on July 19, 2005

If he's already filthy rich on AdSense, why does he have to radically overcharge for his book?
posted by abcde at 11:41 AM on July 19, 2005

I know over half of the people offering testimonies. I have to say, the contrast between the book (which sets off my bullshit alarm for reason that's clear to me) and the individuals vouching for it (who I trust entirely) baffles me.
posted by waldo at 12:27 PM on July 19, 2005

His blog links to some of his sites.

Looks like the secret is to create absolutely hideous portal sites for generic topics that appeal to the technologically bird-brained. "Parental internet controls? Where do I sign up? Maybe I'll click the first link I see!"
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:33 PM on July 19, 2005

The real secret to making money off of Adsense is to not tailor the ads to suit your site, but to create a site to tailor to the ads.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:36 PM on July 19, 2005

His blog links to some of his sites.

Christ, those sites are horrible. They're just googlespam.
posted by waldo at 12:46 PM on July 19, 2005

If it were all about the traffic, I'd be rich.

It's all about the traffic and the topic of the site and the vagaries of the ad auction market...
posted by mmoncur at 3:02 PM on July 19, 2005

To be more constructive, there are some reputable places you can learn this kind of stuff:

- ProBlogger

- JenSense

I agree with the others above: if the ebook teaches you to build spammy sites like those, I'd stay far away from it.
posted by mmoncur at 3:07 PM on July 19, 2005

Any adwords advice is bound to be obsolete in six months, especially if it becomes widely adopted. Google spends crazy, crazy amounts of money making sure people don't game the system.
posted by Tlogmer at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2005

One of his family friendly sites links to this articles site that is just like all the google adsense spam sites that wordpress and syndic8 got dinged for using.

It's a site filled with hundreds of articles tailored around keywords to game Google. I wouldn't trust that ebook, nor would I ever consider paying $100 for it. Google regularly kills accounts that run those bogus article sites.
posted by mathowie at 12:32 AM on July 20, 2005

I was curious about the book when Chris Pirillo recommended it, but it smacks of a get rich quick scheme. And while I'd love to get rich -- and quick -- it doesn't inspire me with a hundred dollars worth of faith.

From looking at the examples, I assume it boils down to: "make a site that ranks highly in Google searches for decent keywords, now completely choke it with ads so searchers who wind up on your website will leave via a Google ad. Each time you attract and drive a visitor away, you earn money! Rinse and repeat on as many sites as you can."

It's the new porn.
posted by frenetic at 1:30 PM on July 20, 2005