Not sure anymore. I did well from 2007-2014 with Google Ads. Set up a “hyperlocal” website, pulled in everything from the local area automatically with scripts and feeds and various things I wrote. Hummed along beautifully. [Yahoo Pipes was my friend]. $800/month was a regular month.
But then google wanted single-source content sites and my site got slammed in the rankings. Got down to “pointless” level within 9 months.
But I can’t complain. It was a really good run. I found a niche that wasn’t filled by anybody else but now it’s handled well by Facebook and locally driven apps.
Haven’t figured how to do it since but I *probably* have my sights too high.
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Youtube *was* a place for ad-based income but they’re elitist now and have done what all the other biggies did: encouraging favored partners to such a high degree that regular people, even with all the technical and creative knwhow, will have a difficult time breaking in.
Online was never really “made for” money. Between its military and university science upbringings, two areas that can do things “as if it’s free”, capitalism just wasn’t built into the system. The internet as its fundamental roots (not just historical but in how it functions, with anonymous routing (packet switching) and such) is truly communist in its function, with the guardians of the internet standards being an invisible benevolent bunch of smart folks you don’t have to know exists to reap the benefits.
Still, I’m sure there’s a way.
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