AdSense for Search - Is it worth?

AdSense for Search or Local search - that’s the biggest question that most publishers will have. I used the AdSense for Search to check what I was missing. Then I experimented with it, added both WP search and AdSense for Search and only WP search. I even used both the tools in the same page. I played with them for some 3-4 weeks until I knew what search suited my site better.

My AdSense for Search Story:

I used this AdSense for Search, sometime back and noted down the results that I got.

Now I had 13 clicks and only $0.23. Now If I assume that I get the same CPM for AdSense for Content, then it works out to $8.32. So potentially I’m losing around $8. Plus I’m sending the traffic away from my site, for almost free without them paying for the service I did.

For the first 6 clicks that I got from AdSense by itself is an amusing story. 6 clicks and $0.03. So I got only $0.01 (half a cent) for each click !?!

I used some cool AdSense Channels for my Search results page (I didn’t use AdSense on those pages earlier). The CTR was way below the mark that I got with AdSense for Search. But I earned more with every click. So as of now, I’m, sticking with my Wordpress Local Search tool only.

Things to ponder and some Observations:

* Your site is crawled by Google frequently and you want to offer your users a familiar (read: Google) search experience.
* The bottom line is that unless your’s is a website with a lot of internal search, you are simply not going to make a lot of money with adsense for search.
* I think AdSense for search works best when people who come to your site can’t find what they are looking for.
* Another new adsense for search feature is the ability to see what your users are searching for, or ‘Top queries’.
* We’re sending traffic to other sites and to google without them paying us for it.
* Use the AdSense for Search in your 404 - (File/Page Not Found) page. Never mind if you’re not paid. You’re enhancing the browsing experience of your visitors.
* Google actually ‘charges’ us their search medium and their Brand (Logo). That’s why we get less money for every click that’s encountered.
* AdSense for Search is very good, in case your blog/site is big (more contents) as the search results page will be of lesser page size. And you get a neat search result page with relevant content pages.

Bottom Line:

Google gives us this search tool for free. Only that we’ll be paid less for every click(s) and ROI for Google will be met eventually. You might know that we can also use ‘paid search engine’ for our sites, so incase you can’t afford or don’t want to use them, you can go for this AdSense for search. My blog is a baby compared other sites, so I might think of switching back to AdSense to Search sometimes later if I get more and more contents.

For random topic blogs like the one you are reading now, it’s not a good idea to have AdSense for Search as the visitor who has landed on your site might looking for contents that you have in your site and mostly those are low paying keywords. Your local site search along with the AdSense for Content in the search result page will be better for you.

But whatever that I tell you, or anyone for that matter, it’s better that you try the things in your site and see how well it fairs. You can get some ideas, and gain from our experience, but in the end, unless you do it, you won’t know how good it’s for your site.

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