What I’ve Learned About AdSense So Far as a Jamaican Publisher

My Journey

I currently operate an online tools website that currently receives approximately 160 visitors per month. These visitors come from a range of countries including Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Russia, and the United States (listed alphabetically). So far, I’ve seen no traffic from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, or most of the African continent. At the time I first monetized the site, the majority of my traffic was coming from Russia and Germany.

I began seriously coding the website in May 2023 and submitted it to Google Search Console by July of the same year. However, meaningful traffic did not begin to come in until late 2024. Much of this delay was due to a lack of awareness. I didn’t understand SEO until 2024, nor did I grasp the importance of meta tags until I started researching more deeply into web development. I also wasn’t aware of Google Analytics until late 2024 so I am not sure if the website was getting any traffic before then. I solely relied on search console to gauge how well the website had been doing.

Progress was slow, largely because I had to teach myself almost everything from scratch in order to expand and maintain the site. Even though I love web development and am a computing major, most of what I need to know in the real world is not taught in class or in school.

The AdSense Process

I was rejected from Google AdSense more than ten times, consistently being told that my site contained “low value content.” Approval finally came in April 2025, and to be honest, it was a complete surprise. At that point, I had already given up on being approved. One day, while browsing through my AdSense dashboard, I clicked "Apply Again" on impulse without expecting anything but another rejection email.

I can’t recall how long the approval process took, but I do know that the response came on a Friday at about 3 in the morning. I didn’t even notice the approval email until I stumbled across it while searching my inbox for something else. Seeing it was both shocking and exciting. I immediately got to work fixing various aspects of the site that had been bothering me and enabled auto ads.

Through Facebook, I also learned about crawlers and the unintended consequences they can have. Specifically, I discovered that Facebook uses crawlers to generate link previews, which can artificially inflate your page views and negatively impact your RPM. I found this out by posting a new article containing links and later researching the sudden traffic spikes.

The Reality of Earnings

Within the first five days of being monetized, I earned only $0.22. I had always heard people online say that AdSense earnings are minimal, but experiencing it firsthand really brought the point home. At the time of approval, the website was only linked to one social media account, Facebook. After monetization, I created accounts on Twitter and Bluesky to help broaden exposure.

Around this time, I also came across Reddit posts explaining that RPM (Revenue Per Mille) for American traffic has been declining recently. I found it ironic that just as I was approved, publishers were reporting lower earnings and halved revenue.

Lessons Learned

Very quickly, I came to understand the significance of Page RPM and Impression RPM, and how they directly impact earnings. I also learned that traffic from countries like Russia and China is not monetized by Google, which was unfortunate since a significant portion of my traffic comes from those regions.

Despite the low earnings and the challenges along the way, I’m still proud of how far I’ve come. Building the site, getting approved by AdSense, and beginning to earn, even modestly, has been a major accomplishment for me. As someone currently unemployed, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to pursue a project that brings in any form of passive income. It gives me something to look forward to  and unfortunately stress over as well, every day.