My adsense earnings down for 2011

If you want to know the ups and downs of an average guy who is trying to make a living with adsense, this is the post for you.

I started making money with adsense in Sept 2009. I remembered my first month earning was around USD7. Despite the small amount, I saw the potential and was excited by the fact that I can generate money just by writing content.

Adsense success stories

Since that USD7, I am been working hard to build my adsense sites until earlier this year. This is how my adsense earnings look like from just focusing on one niche. The earnings are from Sept 2009 to June 2011 and doesn't cover my other niches:

Sept 2009: USD7
Oct 2009: USD35
Nov 2009: USD88
Dec 2009: USD73

Jan 2010: USD270 (My bamboo blinds site became top 5)
Feb 2010: USD68 (My bamboo blinds site dropped out of SERPs)
Mar 2010: USD100 (My first cosmetic surgery site starting to get traffic)
Apr 2010: USD 198 (First cosmetic surgery site becoming stronger)
May 2010: USD 170 (May update, suffered a drop in some keywords)
June 2010: USD220
July 2010: USD220
Aug 2010: USD390 (Cosmetic site starting to rank from high traffic keywords)
Sep 2010: USD 630 (Cosmetic site ranking in top 3 for some keywords)
Oct 2010: USD860 (Cosmetic surgery site keep on increasing its traffic)
Nov 2010: USD1458 (Started 2nd cosmetic surgery site and 2nd adsense account; earned $70)
Dec 2010: USD 1100 (Christmas month so less traffic)

Jan 2011: USD 1900 (1st cosmetic site $1400, 2nd cosmetic site $300)
Feb 2011: USD 2500 (1st site $1800, 2nd site $700, started 3rd cosmetic site & 3rd adsense account)
Mar 2011: USD 3000 (1st site $2000, 2nd site $900, 3rd site $100, bought 4th cosmetic site and applied for 4th adsense account)
Apr 2011: USD 3950 (1st site $2500, 2nd site $1100, 3rd site $20, 4th site $300)
May 2011: USD 4500 (1st site $2600, 2nd site $1200, 3rd site $200, 4th site $400)
June 2011: USD 5200 (1st site $3200, 2nd site $1200, 3rd site $300, 4th site $400)

How to earn 5000 with adsense income
The above shows my journey on making USD5000 with adsense. It wasn't easy especially in the beginning when the rewards was so little compared to the efforts I was putting in. However, I did learn a lot about creating a passive adsense income. The main lessons were:

• Focus on the site that is making adsense money now to increase the earnings. Forget about other sites that are not doing anything for you.

• If you are making money in one site, create more sites in the same niche. You will make money faster because you know how to tackle the niche, how to write the content and what keywords are easiest to rank for. 

• The increase in adsense income comes in jumps. Your earnings will be stagnat for a while but when it jumps, you can really see the difference. 

My adsense earnings dropped!
 This story will have a happy ending if things continued this way. Unfortunately, they did not. I lost about 80% of the 5k in a matter of months after June. Let me explain:

• July: 2 of my 4 adsense account were disabled. That means a lost of USD700 as the 3rd and 4th cosmetic surgery sites were on these 2 accounts.

• August: I sold my second cosmetic site to raise cash in anticipation of buying a new property in District 9, which is the most prime area in Singapore. While it felt great to be able to afford my new home, the lost of USD1+k was not something that I want to see. 

• Oct: The dreaded Panda 2.6. My first site dropped in rankings like a rock and now only earned USD600 compared to the USD3k it was earning before. 

Due to the above chain of events, my adsense earnings from this niche fell from USD5k to USD600.

Risks of adsense income
I have heard about such adsense horror stories before but to experience it first hand is something else.

With adsense, there are 2 main risks: the risk of getting your adsense account banned and the risk of losing your rankings and traffic. I have experienced both in the space of a few months and the impact can be quite shocking.

In fact, if you are from Asia, the risk of getting your adsense account banned is quite high. I have a couple of friends who have also suffered from such decisions and most of them are at a lost of what to do next.

This is why I am shifting my perspective on how to create that 10k in passive income. It is also one of the reasons why I putting more resources into making money with Amazon. While making money from Amazon still carries the risk of losing your rankings, at least you are now not at the mercy of the adsense team. Taking out that one risk is already a much better value proposition from my point of view.

Passive income goals for 2012
Was it fun losing money like this? Of course not! I don't think many people can take discouragements like this but I decided to push on in creating a passive income stream.

Although I am definitely not able to make UD10k per month this year in passive income, it will continue to be my goal for 2012 and 2013. If you want to know what is my detailed plan, stay tuned for my forthcoming posts on how to make money in 2012.

Posted in: how to make USD1000 in adsense