Has anyone used Adsense from Google? How do they determine what to pay you?

Question

Do pay for the click or does the user have to buy something from the site they click to?

Answer 1

Google Adsense pays through various ways depending on the campaigns set up by the advertiser:

Pay per click -- this is predominantly how publishers earn where you earn everytime someone clicks on the ads on your site

Pay per impression -- some advertisers opt for a pay per impression campaign on sites they have specifically targeted for their campaign (the advertiser has to explicitly select your site). Here is Google's CPM ads as explained in their Help center https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=18196&ctx=en:search&query=cpm&topic=&type=f

Referral -- You can also get paid if you refer a visitor to other Google products such as Adwords, Adsense, Picasa, Firefox https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25889&ctx=sibling

On beta test and available only to a limited number of publishers include such programs such as

Cost per Action -- similar to affiliate programs run by Commission Junction and Adsense rates are great

Video ads paid by CPM -- a great way to earn income as CPM rates are so much better than the normal CPM ads

Answer 2

They pay you after your account has reached $100 through PayPal, or you can have a check sent to you. Adsense is a CPM program, so you're getting paid for the click through. I've gotten paid once, working on the next one ...

Answer 3

Yes I use it. They pay a few cents per click - it all depends on what advertisers are paying them! I make several hundred dollars a month from it, but I know of many others who make several thousand! It all depends on the ammount of traffic your site receives and how clever you are at positioning the ads.

You will find more info on my site at:
http://www.gourmet-food-revolution.com/build-a-web-site-business.html