Plain Reckoner https://plainreckoner.com/ Numbers we measured ourselves, with the method and the date attached. en Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT What AdSense actually requires, quoted from Google rather than from blogs https://plainreckoner.com/notes/adsense-requirements-what-google-actually-says/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/adsense-requirements-what-google-actually-says/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Google publishes no minimum post count, no minimum site age and no traffic minimum. One page is genuinely mandatory: a privacy policy. Developers said 72% block ads. Server logs measured 32%. https://plainreckoner.com/notes/developer-ad-block-rate-measured-not-surveyed/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/developer-ad-block-rate-measured-not-surveyed/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The widely-cited 72.3% developer ad-block rate is self-reported. The one contemporaneous server-side measurement of the same population found 32% — a 2.3× say-do gap. The ad-network entry ladder inverted in 2026 and most guides still have it backwards https://plainreckoner.com/notes/ad-network-entry-thresholds-2026/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/ad-network-entry-thresholds-2026/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Mediavine Official now gates on $5,000 annual ad revenue rather than 50,000 sessions. Raptive cut to 25,000 pageviews. Ezoic raised to 250,000 monthly active users. Sales of display-advertising websites fell 93% while Amazon FBA held steady https://plainreckoner.com/notes/display-advertising-site-sales-collapsed/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/display-advertising-site-sales-collapsed/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Empire Flippers sold 138 display-advertising businesses in 2022 and 9 in 2026. Amazon FBA went 81 to 60 over the same period. Every search-traffic-dependent category fell ~70-90%; every non-search category held or grew. RPM by niche, computed from 90 sites with verified traffic and revenue https://plainreckoner.com/notes/rpm-by-niche-from-verified-sales/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/rpm-by-niche-from-verified-sales/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Median RPM across 90 display-only businesses is $17.03. Home is $23.93, Finance $31.01, Information $10.82, Gaming $9.46. Larger sites earn LOWER RPM. AI Overviews appear on 0.9% of navigational queries and 57.9% of questions https://plainreckoner.com/notes/ai-overviews-by-query-intent/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/ai-overviews-by-query-intent/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI Overview prevalence is 0.9% navigational, 2.1% transactional, 4.3% commercial, 13.1% branded against 24.9% non-branded. But the query forms content sites monetise — "X vs Y", "review", "best of" — measure 81-95%. Three times in one week, comparing two endpoints hid a step change https://plainreckoner.com/notes/the-two-endpoint-trap/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/the-two-endpoint-trap/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT A two-endpoint comparison cannot distinguish growth from a step discontinuity or a taxonomy change. We hit it three times: a marketplace category, an OpenStreetMap query, and a vendor statistic. Searching for the thing you are measuring will manufacture your result https://plainreckoner.com/notes/sampling-frame-bias-in-market-research/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/sampling-frame-bias-in-market-research/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT A frame drawn by searching "X monthly rates" selects sites BECAUSE they publish rates. Drawing the same sample from OpenStreetMap — which knows nothing about prices — gave 66.7%, a figure the biased frame would have inflated to near-certainty. Businesses publish their prices and hide their availability, deliberately https://plainreckoner.com/notes/a-price-is-marketing-inventory-is-operations/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/a-price-is-marketing-inventory-is-operations/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The same 40 businesses publish monthly prices at 66.7% and live availability at 10%. 54% have no booking system at all. The live US tariff schedule still prints duties that were terminated months ago https://plainreckoner.com/notes/live-tariff-schedule-lists-dead-duties/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/live-tariff-schedule-lists-dead-duties/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The HTSUS carries the IEEPA headings 9903.01.20, .24 and .25 in full, with note text intact and no termination annotation, months after an Executive Order ended them. A calculator page earns $12.72 per thousand views. A content page earns $39. https://plainreckoner.com/notes/calculator-pages-earn-a-third-of-content-pages/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/calculator-pages-earn-a-third-of-content-pages/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Single-purpose calculator sites measure $12.72 RPM carrying 1-2 in-content ad slots. Long-form content in a good niche measures $39-43 carrying 6-12 slots. Nine market screens found nine gaps. Seven were already occupied. https://plainreckoner.com/notes/what-nine-screens-taught-about-finding-gaps/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/what-nine-screens-taught-about-finding-gaps/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Verticals found by screening: 0 for 9. Instruments built because a decision required the number: 3 for 3. A number is usually unpublished because it is expensive to collect https://plainreckoner.com/notes/unpublished-because-expensive-to-collect/ https://plainreckoner.com/notes/unpublished-because-expensive-to-collect/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Unpublished-ness and cheap collectability are in tension. Testing publication rate before hunting incumbents kills bad candidates in two hours instead of two weeks.