In response to a number of queries by people curious about how many Google AdSense URL channels any of us really has available, I did a little research into the matter. The short answer is you will always have 200.

First, a little background. I signed up for Google AdSense about two years ago and did little with my account except count reads and clicks and collect a check or two. Once the website where I primarily write disabled its reads, it was suggested that we plug in our article URL's into the Google AdSense Channels, thus giving us the ability to track which specific articles were getting reads and clicks.

I ended up going back to all of my articles and inputting them, which, together with subsequent articles, left me with about eight of the original 200 channels left open. The primary website where I write restarted its own read counter, so the fact that I only had less than 10 open channels was rendered moot. I put it out of my mind.

Back in December of 2008, I (and many other AdSense account holders) received a message from Google stating that they saw that we were using nearly all of our allotted number of channels and they were happy to offer us an additional 300 channels as part of a Beta test they were running. I didn't pay it much attention until this past April, when I went back and added all the addition article URL's I had written since last year. (With the addition of my newer articles, I am using 308 channels total.)

From what I gather from reading the Google AdSense forums, this is a one-time Beta test deal for those of us who were fortunate enough to have already filled or nearly filled all of our channels as of December 2008. I haven't seen anything to indicate that Google intends on expanding the test to include more channels for everyone else. Yet, anyway.

I will keep digging and update this article if I find out they are going to give more channels to everyone else. I encourage those of you with lots of open channels to fill them up in anticipation of more channels when you least expect it.