Chitika is a fairly new contextual search engine, with a pay per click mode. Unlike the Google Adsense Select program, it’s displayed ads are more interactive and graphical, but also packed with the guts of information that stimulate interested parties to click.

They must have been designed by some marketing expert because Chitika Ads are fun to play with.

Anyway, back to my original question - does Chitika pay as much or more than Adsense?

Well, it’s one of those loaded questions, isn’t it? How much traffic? What content? Side by side with the same content there would be different results. One thing is for sure - chitika currently pays 60% per genuine click for the same ad anywhere- whereas adsense ’smart pricing’ means the same ad could attract a lower payment per click depending up factors that adsense determines. As a made up example I could have an ad for the category - blue widgets - on my site I may be paid $1 for the click but on another site the click may only worth $0.20.

Chitika is gathering momentum and will be a strong contender. On this site I run no adsense at all due to lessening revenues in adsense personally. In October my personal adsense earnings halved. Sad yes, but also honest. My travels around various forums have seen others in the same boat. My own personal opinion on this is that adsense has reached a mature level with enough publishers. The forces of supply and demand are at work. More publishers - then lessen publisher income and retain the cream of the crop - the big sites. It’s the old 80/20 rule.

Chitika being the relatively new kid on the block - as a name - the people behind it are obviously a very experienced internet management team - is hungry for new publishers - hence the publishers will get a great deal in the growth phase and this will persist until maturity develops. Chitika has not locked themselves in to saying that they will never bring out a ’smart pricing’ model and this could be years away.

Can I use Chitika and Adsense on the same page

Other data - it does not violate google TOS - place them both on the same page - no problems. If using Google search you must disable Chitika Search functionality. Additionally you must leave the Chitika ads on the default setting (which is non-contextual) and specify your own keywords if you will be using adsense on the same page.

Chitika can be run in contextual mode which means ads will match to your content. Testing your advertisements in the areas of position on your page to maximise clickthrus is recommended. I recommend you also read the Chitika FAQs on the Chitika site - it is packed with great information.

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