Adsense - When Should You Use It?
Well, I have several sites, I apply AdSense to some of them; to earn a few extra pennies and some of my websites wouldn't even dream of placing Adsense.
For example, I will not use AdSense on a site where I want to sell a product, especially my own products. This can steer your potential prospects away from what you want them to buy. Why would you risk losing them to your competition or elsewhere for lousy pennies? Or dollars if you have "higher" priced AdSense ads on your site.
All the sites where I sell a specific product will not have any links for me.
However, I will use AdSense on sites that are more like "free content" websites. Usually these websites that I set up I use directly to make money with AdSense.
What's cool about AdSense is that its design can have a detrimental effect on how much you can earn from using it. Of course, testing and retesting will be your ultimate tool to find out what works best with your website.
I tend to stay away from design that looks like Google sponsored ads on Google's main website. Everyone identifies these ads as "paid" and it is unlikely that there will be that many people to click on them.
Adsense can be a profitable little tool if used correctly.