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The main source of Google's revenue comes from their AdSense programs. In fact, 95% of the search engine's revenue stems from its ad programs. Users have often wondered what percentage of the this revenue goes to Google and what goes to the AdSense publisher.

Thanks to SearchEngineRoundTable.com and WebmasterWorld, some light has been shed on this subject. This information originated in a members only section of WebmasterWorld and is unverified and purely speculation. It is based on Google's recently released financials.

An estimated year by year breakdown of Google's AdSense revenue sharing follows:

Year end 2002 it was 88% to AdSense publisher (12% to Google)

Quarter end, march/2003 it was 82% to AdSense publisher (18% to Google)

Year end 2003 it was 77% to AdSense publisher (23% to Google)

Quarter end, march/2004 it was 76% to AdSense publisher (24% to Google)

This is assuming a payout of 91M, 69M, 504M, 262M and a pocketing of 12M, 15M, 144M, 82M respectively to the dates above.

It seems that every year, Google gets more of the cut. In two years, Google's amount of revenue from its ad programs have doubled. This very well could be a case of "the more AdSense makes, the more Google gets". This method of operation raises a question: where will the revenue sharing plateau?

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