In just the three months between April and June this year, Google took in US$2.46 billion with its online advertising system. It paid out to websites that host google ads almost US$1 billion.

And now The Republic is receiving a portion of that $1 billion. The google ad system is a largely unrecognized godsend to small but popular and well-liked websites, like The Republic of East Vancouver’s website, for example, at republic-news.org.

By allowing google to post small ads on our website, we earn about 20¢ each time any of our readers click one of the ads. Readers can click as many ads as often as they wish everyday. Each click a reader makes causes Google to pay us about 20¢.

Small publishers like us, who don’t have large advertising-sales teams or large web-design teams, can benefit very well with very little effort. Once the google ads are put on the site, publishers like us are required to do nothing. Google determines which ads are displayed on which pages. They collect fees from advertisers each time their webpage is displayed as a result of someone clicking their ad. Google then passes a portion of the fee along to publishers like The Republic with cheques each month. Cheques sent to us so far have been accepted at the bank in exchange for real cash: it all checks out!

The cost to readers who click on ads is nothing. It’s a very handy way for readers to show appreciation for articles by clicking a few ads on a page showing an article they enjoyed. What’s more, publishers like The Republic can in the future track which pages received clicks and can pass on a portion of revenue earned by those pages to the specific authors.

The math is very intriguing: The Republic newspaper serves about 15,000 readers, and The Republic online garners about 65,000 page views per month. If just a fraction of our readers take a moment when they go online to visit republic-news.org and click just a few ads, we would soon earn enough to increase our print run and distribution, and even add a few more pages.

Google welcomes the increase in business, and the advertisers welcome the increased traffic to their sites and are happy to pay the 25¢ or so each click costs them. Most happy of all would be The Republic, which could pay its writers, editors, and helpers finally, and which could also establish a better model of survival for small independent publishers.

All you do is go to the website, republic-news.org, and click on a few google ads. Visit as often as you like and click as many ads as you like. It’s pretty easy to make a huge difference to the future of small independent publishing—especially if a lot of people start doing this regularly. It’s the easiest way yet to show appreciation!