AdSense for Writers Basics

I’m working on a crash course in Google AdSense for writers, specifically for freelance writers who build their own websites on the side to create a long-term stream of non-client dependent or passive income.

In the meantime, I’ve been wondering how many ads you can have on one page, or how many ads you can have on one site.  Turns out the answer isn’t as simple as a single number, but relatively straight forward.

From the Google AdSense Policies:

  • Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
  • A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
  • Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.
  • Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.
  • AdSense for search results pages may show only a single ad link unit in addition to the ads Google serves with the search results. No other ads may be displayed on your search results page.

Assuming I’m reading that correctly (I’ll be doing some more research), you can have 3 ad units, which are the “regular” or “standard” ads. 

You can also have 3 link units.

That makes 6 total allowable AdSense ads per page. 

Then, you can have 2 AdSense for search boxes per page.  Technically these are ads too, but they don’t really work like ads.  Nothing gets displayed from these unless someone types something in and hits the search button.  In my mind that makes these a sponsored search as opposed to a straight ad.

So, 6 ads, and 2 sponsored searches per page.

If that is not enough for your page, you can also have 3 referral units.

I guess I’m not in any danger of going over.