The extra income that Kontera, Adsense, and AdBrite have been generating over the last few months has been nice pocket money, but after using all of these services for quite a while I’ve decided that they just take far too much away from the user experience here. After all, aren’t the readers the most important part of a blog? Starting today you won’t be seeing anymore Kontera, AdBrite, or Adsense (although past posts with Adsense included will remain) on this blog.
I’ve made it no secret that the newest arena of online earning to me is definitely blogging, so this blog really is an experiment. This isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last time that I shift around advertising here in order to find the perfect balance between user experience and income.
I have already learned that with blogging more than any other type of website you can’t just throw every form of revenue generator on the page and watch the numbers go up. On a blog you have to maintain a relationship between yourself and your readers. This relationship is affected by the number and intrusiveness of the ads on your site. In the age of feed readers you wouldn’t think that this would make all that much of a difference, but it really does.
Anyways I just thought I’d take a break to let you guys know what was going on around here.
18 Comments
Add your commentGood for you, hopefully when I can get to the level where I have at least 500+ readers I can easily think of letting google adsense go. But until then they are making me good enough money.
I’ve never used Kontera and don’t plan on either as I don’t click on their ads and never will, so I don’t expect my visitors to either.
Adbrite just never worked really, as a form of making some serious money at least for me. I’m sure it does for other people.
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Hear hear. I just turned off Kontera today for the same reason, after a 3-week experiment. I call AdSense the Pollution of the Internet, but I do like the newer formats, I’ll admit.
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I am thinking of droppind adsense on my blogs too. For some reason I get only couple clicks everyday :(
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But Matt,
You learn to blind them if you don’t want them.
Has a big advertiser made you change your mind?
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Not yet :)
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Wise choice, Matt. No offense, but I really hated the Adsense square that you’ve always used at beginning of each post.
I wrote about thebenefits of not monetizing a blog a while back and I think the advantages I’ve mentioned will apply to Net Business Blog, especially when you’ve got some great content here. :)
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I’ve worried about that from time to time. Some bloggers use the same (I think) square, and some don’t. I’ve had fewer people tell me they hate it, than those that tried to help me integrate it better. Thoughts, guys? Matt? Maki? I guess I know Matt’s thoughts. I just don’t know that I’m ready to give those things up. I don’t make a fortune, but…well, I’m open to suggestions.
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Glad you joined our ranks. I did likewise a while back after some assinine pop-up ads.
http://www.thepaperbull.com/rip-rest-in-peace-kontera-april-7-8-2007/
How’s the bass season so far?
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I had a hell of a weekend about a month ago but then were was back to back cold fronts that mucked everything up. Since then I’ve been lucky to get 1 in the boat each trip.
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Wow, I’m impressed. You just earned some more credibility points in my book. You are the one in one million posts that isn’t describing some new way to get a buck out of someone accidentally clicking an adword.
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I think it’s a bold move. To me, Kontera is really offensive. It really interferes with the user experience.
Adsense only bothers me when it’s sloppily implemented..and I’ve been testing what works best and stripping down to the essentials (1 Adlinks unit and one ad block of some sort). I’ve already been rewarded with increased income.
However, I have some sites that I do mostly as a labor of love (one, a clean humor site…and the other, a best-of-youtube type site)…and Adsense performs so poorly on there that I have just added some Adbrite to those sites to give me some return, no matter how little.
It would be great if there were some GREAT advertising options other than direct sales out there. CPC, CPA, and CPM. But I certainly haven’t found them, if there are.
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I, for one, will drop by more often.
Kontera just muddies up a blog. I don’t mind AdSense, but the whole blending thing is not really something I like. It’s short term thinking and I think it can cause a site to hit a readership wall pretty quickly.
Good move.
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I personally dont mind adsense and adbrite whilst reading blogs. Infact, ive found a lot of great websites through them.
I really do hate these new kontera type content links. I find them very annoying. I browse using opera and ive found these content links wont close sometimes and i cant read the actual post.
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I noticed you switched adsense a while back from the green blended look to blue. Did that help or hurt CTR?
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My adsense was always the default blue.
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I did the same thing on my blog by removing adsense from my posts as it just took away too much from the user experience. I can find better ways to earn revenue online aside from running adsense on my blog.
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It’s a lot better now!
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[...] Adsense and it’s starting to be shown already. Good for pocket change, but the previous owner removed Adsense to enhance the reader experience and still made $1,200 a month. Bringing it back is only going to hurt the site in the long [...]
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