I’ve given site-wide ads a trial run, trying to generate some revenue using various means, but little has come of it. It would seem either my site is just not specific enough, or my content is too dull/boring for people to be interested in perusing pages and clicking ads. Even still, I thought I’d share the low-down on the results for any who are interested or curious.
First, I tried Text-Link-Ads. Their setup requires you to create an XML file (which is writable to the world – a.k.a. ‘chmod 666′; potential security hole?) on your server which their supplied php script writes to. They sell ads on your site, which get written to the XML file. The php you place in your page(s) reads from (and writes to) the XML file to display the ads. The only problem here is that someone has to buy ad space on your site for any ads to show. If your traffic is relatively low, then you’re not going to get any bites from advertisers, and no ads ever show up. I gave TLA a try for two weeks with no results what-so-ever. See ya.
So I ditched them and gave AdBrite a go. I actually got some results out of them (and have chosen to go back to this option for the sidebar). The Javascript that they have you insert into your page is clean, and their ads are encoded to produce valid XHTML (nice). On top of that, their code is very easy to restyle to match your site using just a few css classes.
Then I gave Yahoo Publisher Network a try. I originally signed up for the beta when I first started the whole campaign to monetize the site, and it took until just recently to be approved. The results are very much like what that “other” search engine ad program produces. However, Yahoo Ads are not encoded for valid XHTML, aren’t easily to format using CSS (as far as I can tell), and only come in specific sizes, which required me to reformat certain aspects of my layout. Personally, I’d prefer integration to be the other way around with it bending to my design. On the plus side, the rate per click seems to be higher than AdBrite (at least from the one click I’ve seen).
The bottom line? I won’t make bank pimping my site to ads anytime soon, that’s for sure. All total, I’ve brought in $2.34. At the rate I’m going, I might be able to renew my domain name when it’s up next June…
AdQuick will be launching soon at http://www.adquick.co.uk and they will have a much higher payment rate compared to AdBrite for website owners like yourself.