Completed 10 years with Google AdSense program
Read my journey with Google AdSense program and how it changed my life in last 10 years. Thank you, Google, for building this great platform that helped thousands of bloggers to build their career on the web.
Today I am completing 10 years of successful journey with Google AdSense program, which was started on 9 Jan, 2004, shortly after Google launched this program. Even though I launched my first web log many years before, I started getting any serious revenue only with the introduction of AdSense program.
My first day earning from Google AdSense was US$ 2.87, which was a huge surprise and small beginning of my online business. This first AdSense income was generated by trying AdSense in a small portion of my popular blog www.dotnetspider.com. In the next few days, I added AdSense Ads to more pages and eventually to more blogs, which became a decent source of income and a supplement to my monthly pay checks in USA.
My first AdSense income report
The AdSense account mentioned here was closed later when I switched to a business AdSense account in 2005, under the company "SpiderWorks Technologies Pvt Ltd", registered in India. My blogging history
I started my online journey in 1998 by creating my first weblog at a free hosting provider called Tripod.com. Even though it was one of the most popular weblog platforms at that time, there was no easy publishing tools like what you see currently with Blogger.com or WordPress. I had to upload individual pages as static files to publish each post.
In 1999, I moved to USA and started working as a lead developer for one of the largest web projects in my career, called HomeDepot.com, which is the eCommerce wing of the largest home store in USA. During this period, I had a chance to explore the new trends in internet and web applications. In year 2000, I upgraded my weblog from the free platform to a custom domain blog, hosted at Brinkster.com.
If I am not mistaken, I am the first blogger from India to enter the blogging field among the currently active professional bloggers from the country.
Some milestones in my blogging career:
October 1998 - Started my first weblog at Tripod.com
September 2000 - Moved the blog to a custom domain "tonyjohn.com"
June 2005 - Started the company "SpiderWorks Technologies Pvt Ltd." to manage my blogs under a business entity.
May 2011 - Abandoned my US Permanent Resident Status and returned to India.
February 2013 - Closed my company in USA (SpiderWorks Technologies LLC) to focus fully on India based blogging.Discovery of AdSense
Unlike many of the new generation bloggers who worry about AdSense revenue even before they configure a blog, I already had a popular blog when I first heard of AdSense. I never thought seriously about monetizing my blogs until my wife who was "researching" on how to make some benefit out of her husband's "crazy hobby", discovered the Google AdSense program. I can't recollect how she discovered AdSense program but I signed up for AdSense on dotnetspider.com without any expectations of making money out of it. Google approved the application within an hour after submitting it, probably because we were applying from USA and the program was very new.
Without really knowing much about how the stuff works, I placed the AdSense script in some of the pages in dotnetspider.com and went to sleep. Next day morning, after finishing the routine work and writing few articles, I looked at the AdSense dashboard. I couldn't believe my eyes. Even though it was just US$ 2.87, it was hard for me to digest that I can generate passive income like that from a website.
In the next few days, I added the ad script to many more pages in dotnetspider and the income steadily went up. I started optimizing the site for better traffic since I have a reason other than just passion. There were no success stories to read and so I had to experiment myself to figure out how to optimize the site for better AdSense income.
Read my tips to increase AdSense CPC.Background of my online business
AdSense income was not really my first online income. One of my blogs www.spiderkerala.com was one of the first online portals in Kerala with popular sections like recipes and matrimonials. I started the matrimonials feature when my mother started looking for a bride for me and it eventually became the most popular matrimonial service in Kerala. In 2002, I moved back to India for a short period and got married. My wife decided to play with the matrimonials feature and started offering a premium listing service for which we charged Rs 500 per listing. It was fun to wait for the postman to arrive almost everyday with one or two cheques during that period. We discontinued that when we moved back to USA in 2003. AdSense and its impact on my life
With a small beginning about a decade ago, AdSense changed my life. Eventually, I started many blogs and AdSense became my main source of income, even when I was working as a software architect in a leading IT company in USA. I achieved my financial goals with the help of Google AdSense, which helped me quit my job in USA and return to India in 2011.
If you are excited reading my success story with Google AdSense and want to quit your primary job to try your luck with blogging, think twice or even thrice. AdSense and blogging are no longer easy platforms to make money. There is very tough competition in the blogging field and AdSense revenue has gone down significantly for almost all professional and casual bloggers in the last few years. There are much more failure stories than success stories, even though you will find only success stories to read on the web.
Many of the AdSense income reports you see on the internet are either fake or include artificially generated income, by spending huge amount of money for advertising.
Read my experience on blogging as a fulltime career and some of my blogging tips.
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Hi Tony,
Heartfelt congratulations to you for completing 10 glorious years with Google Adsense program. It was indeed a brave move by you to stay connected with Google Adsense program in some of it's early days when no one had much idea about it. You have learned through experience and performed exceedingly well. In addition, you have guided and inspired thousands of people like me to take up writing as a serious passion and also consider it as a source of income. Through ISC and Techulator websites, you have the reason why I am now working full-time as a freelance writer. Kudos to your wonderful career so far and hope to learn many new things from you in the coming days!