After I had described the process, Claude expressed doubts about it. "I don't know," he said. "It seems too easy. I can see why popular sites like CNN.com and Forbes.com make money by selling advertising space, but why would any advertiser want to rent space on my pages?"
Claude's question wasn't unreasonable. Why would an advertiser deal with anyone other than the big sites? There are a few good reasons, in fact:
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Not everyone visits the big sites.
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The big sites are expensive advertising venues.
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Ads on big sites are aimed at broad segments.
But no advertiser can afford to place ads on millions of small Web sitesit's just too much work. Even dealing with the big sites is a hassle. That's why advertisers use advertising services like Google's AdWords or Yahoo!'s Overture.
"It's all about finding the right audience," I explained to Claude. "If your pages attract a segment of the population that advertisers want to target, even if it's a small segment, they'll be interested. But they want the advertising service to find that segment for them. That's where Google's AdSense program comes in."
Perhaps an analogy would help my case. "Look at the economy," I continued. "There are many more small businesses than big businesses, but big business gets all the press and publicity. Yet small businesses employ as many people as big businesses and account for most of the long-term job gains, according to government statistics. You don't have to be big to make a difference. Most sites on the Web are small. That doesn't make them unimportant or uninteresting."
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