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Google discloses AdSense revenue share

Publishers who run AdSense ads alongside their content get to keep 68 percent of revenue generated by those ads, Google has revealed for the first time.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

Google has finally revealed how it shares advertising revenue with AdSense customers who run Google ads on their own sites.

AdSense customers are publishers who run "Ads by Google" ads on their pages as well as those who use a custom Google search box on their site and run search-related ads. Those in the first category--AdSense for content--receive 68 percent of the revenue that Google earns for selling those ads, while AdSense for search customers get 51 percent of that revenue, the company revealed for the first time Monday in a blog post.

Major publishers negotiate individual deals with Google for those revenue splits, but the tons of smaller publishers and companies that supplement their income with these types of ads had never been exactly sure how Google was splitting the pie, creating frustration for many in the publishing community.

"We hope this additional transparency helps you gain more insight into your business partnership with Google. We believe our revenue share is very competitive, and the vast number of advertisers who compete to appear on AdSense sites helps to ensure that you're earning the most from every ad impression," Google said in its blog post.

Google declined to say how much revenue it shares with publishers who use AdSense for mobile applications, feeds, and games, saying that it is still learning about how much it costs the company to deliver those types of ads.