Most of the Internet marketing community is at least somewhat familiar with Google Adsense at this point. Google Adsense can be a very lucrative venture for some so having a better understanding of Adsense is worthwhile.

Google Adsense is small contextual ads that are published on web sites with the consent of the web site's owner. The ads are created by publishers that are selling products and/or creating brand awareness. The ads that are created are called Adwords and they are also a Google sponsored program.

Google Adwords and Adsense run hand in hand. Every time someone does a search on Google or one of their partner networks and clicks on one of the sponsored ads, then the person who created that ad will pay Google a predetermined price. This is where the term "pay per click" comes from.

Now the beauty of Adsense is that the person who owns or hosts the web site that the Adwords ads appear on will split the amount of money that Google receives from the creator or publisher of the ad. It is a well guarded secret what the percentage of the split is, and it does vary, but for our purposes let's say it's 50%.

If a publisher is willing to pay .40 per click for his Adwords ad, then the host of the website that welcomes Adsense can expect to see roughly .20 every time someone clicks on that ad that appears on their site. The other .20 is kept by Google. So basically it is a partnership of sorts between Google and web site owners.

Adsense is shown in the most relevant way possible. What does this mean? Well, probably the best way to illustrate this would be through an example. Let's say Mary had a website featuring women's clothing. If Mary wanted to monetize her web site with Google Adsense the ads that would be shown would all be related to clothing, and more precisely, women's clothing. If a page of her site was dedicated to shoes, then the Adsense ads appearing on that page would be for women's shoes.

So how is the price per click determined? This is where the Adwords side of the equation kicks in. Adwords publishers bid on keywords. The more lucrative or sought after a keyword is, the more the publisher will be willing to pay for each click. Keywords range anywhere from a few cents to in excess of $50 per click.

It is not very hard to see how someone with a web site that generates a decent amount of traffic can make some nice money by putting Google Adsense on their site. Many Internet marketers will create web sites with specific content for the sole purpose of attracting high paying Adsense ads. Top Internet marketers can earn in excess of $10,000 a month on Adsense, and you can too!