Which ad networks are hardest to get into? A data-backed ranking

“50,000 sessions a month.” “100,000 pageviews.” “Quality original content.” Published requirements are marketing documents: they describe the publisher a network would like to attract, and they say nothing about who gets in.

There is a way to check. We index the live publisher roster of every network we track, and we hold an authority score for each of those sites. Taking the median authority of a network’s publishers gives you the profile of a site that network actually carries — the outcome of its approval process rather than its stated policy.

The full ladder

Authority here runs 0–100 and is derived from a site’s backlink profile; the authority score guide explains how it is calculated. The median is the middle publisher. The 10th percentile column matters just as much: it is the floor, the kind of site that still got in.

What the ranking actually tells you

Read it as a description, not a rulebook. A high median can mean a network is genuinely selective, or that it works a segment where sites are big by nature — a network selling news inventory will show strong authority because news sites carry a lot of links, not because its approvals team is strict.

The floor column is the more useful one if you are deciding where to apply. A network whose 10th percentile is near zero has, whatever its published policy, accepted plenty of small sites. A network whose floor sits high has not.

The result that surprises people

Mediavine has a reputation as the harder of the two big lifestyle networks. The data does not support it. Mediavine’s median publisher sits at 29 across 8,638 sites; Raptive sits at 33 across 6,979. Raptive carries the stronger book.

That is not evidence that Mediavine’s bar is lower. It is evidence that Mediavine has scaled further down the long tail — the two networks look most different at the bottom of their rosters, not the top. Their side-by-side numbers are on the Mediavine vs Raptive comparison.

The other end of the market

Ezoic is the widest funnel in the industry by a distance: 7,683 indexed publishers at a median authority of 7, with a 10th percentile of 1. That is a network with, in practice, no authority requirement whatsoever.

This explains most of the confusion in reported earnings. When people compare “Ezoic RPM” against “Mediavine RPM” they are usually comparing two completely different populations of website, not two rate cards. It is also why most Ezoic alternatives are not really alternatives for a small site: almost every other network carries far larger sites.

How to use this if you are choosing where to apply

Find your own authority — every indexed site has a page here showing it — and look for networks whose floor sits below you and whose median sits near you. Applying far above your band wastes a month; applying far below it usually costs you revenue.

Then check the niche. Network strength varies enormously by subject matter, and the network that leads your category may not appear in this ranking’s top half at all. Every category we track is listed under all niches.

Why stated requirements and real rosters diverge

A published minimum is a filter on applications, not a description of approvals. It exists to stop a network drowning in submissions from sites it will never take, which means it is set at the level that reduces workload — not at the level that predicts a yes.

Three things happen underneath it. Networks make exceptions for sites in categories they are actively selling, so a mid-sized site in a hot niche can beat a larger one in a cold one. They quietly relax the bar when they need inventory and tighten it when they do not, which is why the “requirement” you read about in a two-year-old forum thread rarely matches today’s. And they weigh quality signals that no public number captures, of which a site’s link profile is the one we can measure.

That is the gap this ranking fills. It cannot tell you the rule, but it can tell you the company you would be joining.

How to read your own position

Find your site here — every indexed domain has its own page showing its authority — and place yourself against the table. Three bands are worth distinguishing.

• Above a network’s median. You are a strong application for that network and probably have leverage in the conversation. Check whether a network further up the ladder is now in range.
• Between the floor and the median. The typical case for a growing site: plausible, not certain, and category will decide it.
• Below the floor. Applying is not free — it costs you weeks and a rejection that may affect how a re-application is read. Networks lower down the ladder are the better use of that time.

Authority is a 0–100 rescaling of an open backlink-graph score, not a traffic estimate. Every figure on this page is read from our own index when the page is built, and refreshes on a weekly cycle — so the numbers move as the data does. Method and evidence rules: coverage & method.