10 AdSense Alternatives to Make Money Online through Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising in 2009

One of my friends never got accepted to Google AdSense.  This prompted me to write an up-to-date List of AdSense Alternatives, here we are limiting ourselves to Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Networks since Cost Per Mile ones often have higher requirements.

These alternatives to Google AdSense are being listed from a publisher's perspective. Advertisers will always have an option to display advertising on several ad networks as opposed to publishers with limited ad space.

Why another List?

There may be many lists available but many are outdated or try too hard by giving anecdotal evidence as review. There are a wide array of industries and niches and judging the performance of an ad network based on a single view would be flawed. Therefore, we made a list based on popularity as we can logically assume that the more an ad network is being visited, the more advertisers they have and the higher the payout can be due to the increased competition.

The Best PPC Advertising Program: Google AdSense

Google AdSense is the most popular advertising program due to their technology and their size. However, they have policies which may exclude you from joining their program. Although most sites will tend to get accepted, you may be in the handful that keeps receiving the rejection letter (I did too at first... back in 2001).

In any case, first things first, Apply to Google AdSense.  If you were rejected once before, I suggest you review the policies and try again, what does it cost you?

AdSense Alternatives

Let's get right to the list of AdSense Alternatives collected from our own research, based on several other (and older) reviews.  There are many other and smaller AdSense Alternatives but they are not listed to avoid scams.  The ones listed have received numerous reviews which proving that you will get paid once you reach their minimum threshold.

We have decided not to rate the following since they will vary depending on your site's content and are difficult to measure:

• Reporting Capabilities
• Click Payout Rates
• Average Revenues
• Level of Contextual Relevance

What is PPC and why Make Money through PPC?

For those who are unfamiliar with Pay Per Click or PPC. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia that explains it well:

"Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. (...)

Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site."

Most of the ads from AdSense Alternatives listed in this PPC list are contextual. Which means that as AdSense, you will not have to configure which ads your page must display - it will be done automatically and save you time.  In addition, if you were not accepted by AdSense, you might have even lower chances with CPM ad networks which usually receives ads from premium brands seeking very large websites (when you get to that size, you have someone in charge of advertising on your site...).

More than a List, Here is a Table

Here is a link to the table of AdSense Alternatives on Google Spreadsheets, please ask for updates in the comments in case we have missed some AdSense Alternatives.

Keep this page as a reference () as we will update it as we review each one of them in depth (when requested).

If you have used any of Google AdSense or the AdSense Alternatives, please let us know in the comments!

P.S.: We made the list before we wrote the title and we could have easily said "Top 10 AdSense Alternatives to Make Money Online", we decided to remain neutral and truthful as we have not fully reviewed that these 10 AdSense Alternatives were the "Best Of".  Although we are probably very close to a list of the most popular AdSense Alternatives with the Compete Traffic Data.