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After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)
- TeaVMFan 7mo agoI did the same and switched to Ethical Ads (no cookies, tracking etc.) on https://frequal.com https://frequal.com Ethical Ads: https://www.ethicalads.io/ https://www.ethicalads.io/
- brycewray 7mo ago(2025)
- bluepeter 7mo ago> 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?
- datadrivenangel 7mo agoMostly around copyright issues, but probably also potential defamation as well.
- BLKNSLVR 7mo agoI 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).
- kevin_thibedeau 7mo agoIt'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.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoPrecisely this. The industry has themselves to blame.
- coliveira 7mo agoCorrect. Google had initially a good program that was based on keywords and non-intrusive ads. They killed that in the pursuit of more profits.
- BLKNSLVR 7mo agoA grand failure on behalf of society is that this was a good business decision (it succeeded at improving their profits) because it has faced effectively zero governmental intervention despite the fact it is used as a foundation for the launch of a million scams.
- cindyllm 7mo ago[dead]
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- Terr_ 7mo ago"I'll run the arbitrary code you send me if you acknowledge that you are legally liable if it turns out to be a virus or a scam... No? Why won't you take that deal?"
- beej71 7mo agoI 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. :)
- paulcole 7mo agoEasy to become anti-ad after they stop paying lol Like me becoming anti-my-girlfriend after she dumped me
- dotancohen 7mo agoI believe that the old proverb is "sour grapes".
- marginalia_nu 7mo agoWell it's a trade off right? If the benefit outweighs the drawbacks, you say yes, and when the benefits evaporate leaving only the drawbacks, it's a no.
- paulcole 7mo agoWell yeah but this guy portrays it like a moral decision
- beej71 7mo agoI didn't think it was a moral decision at the time. Now I do. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.
- marginalia_nu 7mo agoWhat decisions aren't? The very open ended core question of the field of ethics is nothing more or less than "what is the best way to act".
- drnick1 7mo agoAren't most people using ad blockers these days, making the revenue that one can generate with ads trivial unless traffic is enormous?
- traverseda 7mo agoAbout 30% from what I could find.
- vetrom 7mo agoIt 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.
- wfme 7mo agoPopular in tech circles, but largely unused outside them.
- fg137 7mo agoNot even in "tech circles". Anecdotally, most of my colleagues -- mostly software engineers -- don't use adblocker at home or at work. It hurts my eye to see their screens. But they don't care. (The workspace does not disallow adblocker extensions.)
- vitorgrs 7mo agoYou would be surprised to how little people use adblockers. Old data, but on my country for a major tech website, the number was 13%.
- gwern 7mo agoSimilar numbers for other countries: https://gwern.net/banner#they-just-dont-know https://gwern.net/banner#they-just-dont-know Wouldn't shock me if it's even lower as people move to walled-gardens like smartphones.
- rhoopr 7mo agoThere’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.
- add-sub-mul-div 7mo agoThe 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.
- georgemcbay 7mo ago> 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. And then those of us who ad-block everything now will run local LLMs if only to take the input of the cloud LLM and remove anything that seems like an ad or mentions specific brands. Though in the long run I think we'll all get along fine with local LLMs in the first place and all the money being dumped into frontier models while useful in pushing the state of the art will effectively have been lit on fire in terms of generating long-term returns.
- rurp 7mo agoThis would be great but I'm sure the entrenched players will make it difficult enough to run effective local models that normal users won't touch them. There are only two OS options for phones and computers for 99+% of people and it will be trivially easy to restrict local models on them.
- breput 7mo agoSeveral 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.
- sanswork 7mo agoIt'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)
- breput 7mo agoInteresting. 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.
- sanswork 7mo agoThe 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?
- b00ty4breakfast 7mo ago
- beloch 7mo ago"I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker, so I didn’t notice the changes or experience any irritation personally. " -------- 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.
- influx 7mo agoMost 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.
- vitorgrs 7mo agoWhen I was a teen, like, 15 years ago or so, my Google Ads account got permanently banned because I made the mistake of clicking on my own ad. :)
- fearless1ron 7mo ago[flagged]
- glaslong 7mo agoThis 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.
- kdheiwns 7mo agoEverybody 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.
- 7mo ago
- donatj 7mo agoI 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.
- quantummagic 7mo agoSlightly 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.
- esseph 7mo agoThis is because of Gemini/Claude/ChatGPT People are using AI as a search engine. https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-search-seo-traffic-study/ https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-search-seo-traffic-study/ https://searchengineland.com/how-googles-ai-overviews-are-accelerating-change-in-paid-search-463796 https://searchengineland.com/how-googles-ai-overviews-are-ac...
- quantummagic 7mo agoThat is true i'm sure. But in this particular case, there is no search or AI directly involved. It's the ads that get inserted to Youtube videos, and what they pay to creators.
- onion2k 7mo agoCreator-led channels are competing with AI-generated video channels that pump out many videos every day. The ad spend hasn't increased but now it's shared with people who have automated their channel's content production and who are likely getting the majority of what's available.
- freitasm 7mo agoI 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.
- boplicity 7mo agoI 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.
- fearless1ron 7mo agoAll 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.
- flir 7mo agoMy employer is more scared of browser plugin-based malware than they are of ad-based malware. So that's fun.
- coliveira 7mo agoFor many people with decent traffic I believe it makes sense to sell their own local ads instead of depending on a network like Adsense.
- youknownothing 7mo ago"I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker" interesting that someone looking to make some (modest) money with AdSense is blocking ads...
- fantasizr 7mo agoI 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.
- t1234s 7mo agowas 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.
- DivingForGold 7mo agoI stopped buying Google Keywords after about 2 years, saw no difference in sales
- Nevermark 7mo ago> 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.
- yapyap 7mo agoat 20$ a click i’d click on my own adverts tbh
- singpolyma3 7mo agoThen you get banned
- cabaalis 7mo agoIt 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.
- elorant 7mo agoIt should but it’s a hard problem to solve. Programmatic ads require whatever check you’re doing to happen in sub-second speeds. No AI can solve this fast enough. Embeddings take forever to run.
- akoboldfrying 7mo ago> I never saw most of the offending ads because of my adblocker 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. ETA: Why do I claim it's unethical? Every ad-supported page is an implicit contract: If you want the good stuff on this page, you need to pay for that by giving some of your attention to <these shitty ads that we all probably hate>. Nothing more. If the trade-off isn't worth it to you, that's fine: you have the right, and the ability, to reject it -- to cease interacting with the site at all. OTOH, using an ad blocker to access the site without "paying" (with your attention) is violating the contract in the same way that hacking a parking meter downtown to park your car for free is. Running websites isn't free, and even if it was, it's the site owner's prerogative whether and how much ad-attention to "charge". If the fundamental idea of capitalism is sound (and perhaps it isn't -- but then let's discuss that), exorbitant ad burdens attached to desirable content will eventually be outcompeted by other sites offering similar content for free with fewer ads, or for actual cash. There's a more self-serving argument, too: 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. Using ad blockers is only "sustainable" in the same way that mafia protection rackets are "sustainable" -- by being a sufficiently small drain on the rest of society.
- bdangubic 7mo agoYou may get downvoted because you are making a bold statement without any reasoning behind it - what exactly is unethical about it? ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unethical https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unethical )
- akoboldfrying 7mo agoThanks, that's fair. I've added my reasons in an ETA on the original post.
- bdangubic 7mo ago
- fearless1ron 7mo agoWhy did you think that using an ad network was ever a sensible option for revenue? Ads are cancer and a security risk, so blocking them is just common sense.
- kstrauser 7mo agoNot OP, but because I could flip a switch and get an extra $200/mo for doing nothing extra, at a time when that was important to me. When every other site on the Internet seemed to have banner ads, the moral quandary was whether I wanted free money or not. That was an easy decision.
- fearless1ron 7mo agoNot sure what kind of reply you're expecting here. I'm defintely not cheering you on for abusing users to make you $200/month. Your business model is cancer and the reason why the Internet is the kind of shithole it is today.
- enad 7mo agoI put Adsense on my website in 2004 on a Thursday. Logged in Saturday and discovered that I'd earned $25! I immediately click one of my own ads, then logged back in to check my earnings per click. Later that week I got a warning email from Google. Told my wife. She made me take all of my Adsense ads down immediately for the rest of the month and the first couple weeks of the next until we received our first Adsense check. Then, and only then, did she let me put the ads back up. That first check bought us a freezer. The next paid our rent. Those were fun times: $50 CPM was not usual 2004-2005.
- lostlogin 7mo ago> Those were fun times: $50 CPM was not usual 2004-2005. Do you mean ‘not unusual’?
- atlgator 7mo agoMan spends 20 years as a participant-observer in the AdSense ecosystem for academic purposes, earns less than a TA, and gets flagged for writing about the very legal cases he's an expert on. Peak Google.
- giahoangwin 7mo ago[dead]
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- sorkhabi 7mo agoThis was a very interesting read. Thank you for sharing it.
- martmulx 7mo ago[flagged]
- justinator 7mo agoIn college I made like $1,000/month on Google Adsense on a website that had a few dozen pages at most. No idea what I was doing, but thanks Google Adsense for paying for practically half my education and a whooole lot of drugs.
- hgpuke 7mo agoAs a visitor to a site, it is refreshing to NOT be subjected to constant ads. Even though I have an ad-blocker running, not having to use it is a definite plus. Thanks for taking this decision!
- merlin1de 7mo ago[flagged]