Google Shuts Down Adsense – Russian YouTubers Won’t Get a Cent? Let’s See What’s in Store for Bloggers in the Future

On August 12, it was announced that in August the contextual advertising system Adsense would be disabled for Russian websites and YouTube channels. But does this mean that there will be fewer videos in Russian? In this article, we will tell you how Google’s service works and what consequences its deactivation will have for bloggers and ordinary viewers.

Adsense is an advertising system from Google, launched in 2003. This program automatically places various ads on websites. Their owners receive money for viewing banners and clicking on them. To publish an ad, you must comply with the standards and not violate the rules, which are different for different countries. The service is actively used not only on third-party resources, but also on internal Google sites, including YouTube.

Russian-speaking YouTubers first encountered problems in March 2022, when Adsense was disabled for users from Russia. It became impossible to register new accounts, viewers in our country were no longer shown ads, and bloggers could only receive money for views and clicks from people from other countries. In August, this source of income was also blocked.

There were no official statements from Google – bloggers who indicated Russia as their place of registration simply received letters terminating cooperation within the framework of Adsense. All such accounts are blocked. The decision was made shortly after YouTube began to slow down in our country, so it is seen as a symmetrical reaction. Perhaps users began to actively use bypass methods, and as a result, the system began to show them ads again, and YouTubers began to make a profit from it. However, this is just our guess.

The most significant change for Russian-speaking YouTube bloggers did not happen in August 2024, but two and a half years ago. Their target audience is users from Russia, so it was their views and clicks that brought the most profit through Adsense. After the ban on the use of this system in February, YouTubers had to rebuild first by adding ads to the videos themselves. Therefore, the current AdSense restriction for users from other countries will have little effect. If income drops, it will be only slight.

It is also worth noting that some Russian-speaking bloggers are not registered in Russia. For them, the August decision will not affect anything at all.

There is one important point in this story that is worth paying attention to. We are not talking about a partial restriction of the advertising service, but about a complete ban on Adsense in Russia. This will primarily affect the owners of small websites that have placed contextual advertising through this service. It remains the most popular and convenient of all analogues, so many resources have actively used its capabilities. They will have to rebuild, look for other sources of income or take radical measures, for example, cutting back on staff.

However, blocking Adsense may be the first step towards even greater restrictions on Google resources in Russia. If the company goes further, its search engine, online documents, mail and other services may become inaccessible to our compatriots in the future. We hope that this will not happen, but such a situation is possible.

What do you think about Adsense restrictions? Will this be the first step towards completely blocking Google in Russia? Share your thoughts in the comments!