Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaronsw | Hacker News Reader

$2000 a month? Find a large quantity of text that isn't on the Web that people might search for, put it online, and put AdSense ads on it.

View on HN

You mean like scanning some old obscure books with expired copyright?

Haha.

Aaron, how do you figure out these kinds of things (popular searches)? I know there's the Google search keyword tool.

Yes, with the keyword tools. The real issue is how do you find large amount of text which isn't on the web...

Give me an example of some searches you would do?

Very very skeptical it's that easy. $2k/mo in AdSense is a TON of traffic. So, unless these are celebrity diaries, unlikely.

I really hope you're kidding...I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month in adsense, even with a lot of content sites

I don't know about $2k, but $100 isn't a high threshold at all. There are plenty of areas where $10+ CPM is the norm, and plenty of people in those areas run 10k-visitors-per-month sites.

I'm smallfry and do $3-4k/month through AdSense for about 10 minutes/week effort tops from a handful of sites.

Well you sir would then be a member of that handful. The income on the Adsense network is just like the income distribution of America: 1% control 80%.

I think you're underestimating the number of people who'd be doing OK out of it.

You said, "I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month."

A handful would be fewer than a dozen, surely? There'd be thousands making more than $100/month. Actually, there'd be thousands making more than $10k/month IMO.

meh, I guess my idea of what I thought a handful of people meant was lower than everyone elses opinion. By handful, I mean a small percentage. Since there are so many publishers on Adsense, a small percentage of that is still a good amount of people.

Saying "small percentage" would've removed that ambiguity.

Now, regardless, the majority trying AdSense make bugger all because they're clowns, half-arsed, give up early, don't know what they're doing, etc. Anyone with either some luck or a half-decent plan, some ability and persistence can build up some passive income or at least give it a shot for free.

Bear in mind that people earning a lot on adSense don't usually talk about it much.

(I've been making a living off adSense for quite some years now).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com