Why would an established website *not* use Google Adsense ?

Digital Doctor

Well-known member
This site uses:
Mostly Adchoices
and a fair amount of direct ad sponsorship.

but it also reveals:

exelator (exelate)

Here are their current stats:

5593 users are online (in the past 90 minutes)
1184 members, 4378 guests, 31 anonymous users

What reasons would there be for a busy site to choose the above method vs. Adsense ?


Well-known member
Adchoices is part of Adsense as well isn't it? We only use Adsense and most of the image ads have the adchoices logo on it.


Well-known member
95% plus of site looking to make as much revenue as possible should be using adsense (if possible)....

It's pretty simple - the largest market tends to have the most customers and bids.

That said, there are some niche examples which may lean the other way. An old Mac site I used to visit made a LOT of money by their amazon affiliations, because they requested that users follow their links to buy macs and other expensive stuff on Amazon.

But I've tried most other schemes over the years and most simply don't have the inventory. Again, a simple idea here - where the market is.


Well-known member
i wont use adsense because i wont allow google to dictate what kind of posts i can permit to be posted on my own site.


Well-known member
The site may not be able to adhere to the adsense TOS, if it has semi-naked pictures, drug paraphernalia, etc.

I got a warning from adsense just because I had "hot chicks" (no nudity) on one of my sites.

Rho Delta

Well-known member
What are the rules about having ads on like a portal of your site with nothing on that page against TOS but on other parts of your site having like topless pics or something but no adsense ads hosted?


Well-known member
Adsense provides pennies of advertising. If your a serious site, going directly to companies who are involved in your industry will yeild much better profits.

I think it depends on the subject of the web site.

In my case, I have studied it quite closely and probably get double as much from going direct. Yes, that's a lot. But if I had to be very realistic, I'd probably have to pay 30% to a sales dude to take care of that for me. Then there are the billing and collections.

Still, it's more....but not that much more. To put it in perspective on my site, google may give me 60 cents a click where an advertiser I obtain pays over $1, although not by the click (that's just how it ends up)....

There is something to be said for the ease of goog putting the money into your account each month! For now, I'm 2/3 direct and 1/3 google, but I can see changing it in the future.

I also see the payments from goog creeping up over the years (my guess!) as more businesses start using adwords. The actual value of a web site visitor is much higher than what it is currently sold for...at least, in the case of big ticket items.


XenForo moderator
Staff member
As part of an experiment, im going to implement adsense a week or a month, and see what it brings in. We used it before for a couple of months, but the payouts were pathetic in real terms.


Well-known member

Just for discussion sakes, I found that it used to perform MUCH worse in my forums...not as bad these days. But the forums do it by brute force (lots of impressions).

It used to be that the best performing adsense units were in my "static" articles.....and they still probably have a higher CPM, just not as many of them!

Have you tried using the DP ad thing and showing (more) adsense to guests (at the end of each post, for example)?