Volume.
I do AdSense at my dog's web cam and have accumulated about $1.47.
Oh, they said Google is anti gun. Which is why they said not to "google."
Actually the gun site makes money when you click on a Google ad there or wherever there Google ads on that gun site.
*Or so the rumor goes.
This is how it works:
1) advertiser pays google to get his ads on a site
2) site owner has account with google
3) google bot searches site and displays ads depending on the content
4) user clicks ad
5) google pays site owner for showing the ad
6) google keeps % of money paid by the advertiser
7) advertiser has a new visitor to his site and hopes to turn him into a customer
8) repeat
Volume.
I do AdSense at my dog's web cam and have accumulated about $1.47.
It is maintained by a group that keeps a list of ad sites (and porn, and spy-ware, and so on).
You'll observe two main ways your web experience changes. One is that you won't be able to visit any 'questionable' site. The other is that ads on web pages won't populate.
A side benefit is that pages will load faster since content (usually advert images) doesn't have to load when you visit a page.
As for google, when you click the sponsored links (the one's that have a colored background at the top of the results), the link 'passes through' an ad site that counts your hit as coming via google. Well, these ad counting sites are commonly found in the hosts file, so the link behaves like a broken link, since, by design, your computer thinks you host the ad site. You don't, and the page displays with a 'Not Found' message.
The other cool part is that, if you have neglectful surfers (like kids or a wife) who click on links without thinking, the dangerous sites are often simply not found when surfing on the computer you maintain a hosts file on.
