So I opened a Google “Adwords” account, mainly to figure out how it works and whether the links really are relevant to the content I post. Basically the idea is Google gets to advertise on my site, and will dynamically display ads which are relevant to whatever content is on my pages. Advertisers pay Google for the ability to reach their target audience, and I get a cut for every audience member who visits one of the advertised sites. I’m definitely not doing it to make any money, you need much more than a handful of readers to do that!!
After a few months of looking at what ads are displayed I will post about how well the system works, and whether anyone actually clicked on anything! I kind of have the feeling that if their system works really well, I will be the one who wants to follow a lot of the links since it should post ads relevant to what I write. Of course, I’m not allowed to do that since I would be in violation of my agreement.
I tried to make sure the display of advertising is as unobtrusive as possible. Complaints welcome!
I ran adsense for a few months last year – garnered a wopping 0.72 cents!
I removed adsense a few months after this post. As Chris pointed out, what was the point?