The latest earnings report from Google has some not-so-good news for web publishers (bloggers included) who are monetizing their online content through the Google AdSense program.
While Google has never disclosed the exact percentage of revenue that it shares with AdSense publishers, once can easily derive that number using the earnings report that are released at the end of each quarter.
The “Google Network Revenues” section reflects the total revenue that was generated though AdSense while the “Traffic Acquisition Costs” section reflects the total amount that was paid by Google to AdSense publishers. To know the approximate revenue share, simply divide TAC with the total AdSense revenue.
Here’s a quick chart comparing these numbers for the year 2009. The percentage of revenue that Google is sharing with AdSense publishers has reduced from 75% in Q1 to 72% in Q4 2009. That’s not a very exciting news.
| Q1 ‘09 | Q2 ‘09 | Q3 ‘09 | Q4 ‘09 | |
| What Google earned from AdSense (in billion) | $1.64 | $1.68 | $1.80 | $2.04 |
| What Google paid to AdSense publishers (in billion) | $1.23 | $1.24 | $1.33 | $1.47 |
| Percentage share of AdSense Publishers | 75.0% | 73.8% | 73.9% | 72.1% |
The following charts have numbers from the last eight quarters.
