I’ve used advertising at this site since its inception. The income keeps me motivated to provide quality content. I experiment with different ad formats from time-to-time, but I try to keep them as innocuous as possible. My greater concern is screening inappropriate advertisers.
Because the words “get rich” are in the name of the site, Google Adsense frequently sticks “get rich quick” ads in my articles. I hate this. Here’s an amusing juxtaposition sent in by reader Derek Springer:
I’ve tried to alter my preferences and to toy with the HTML, but I can’t get anything to work. I still get tons of “get rich quick” ads. I manually block all the scammers I see, but my list is nearly full. Ultimately, I may have to drop Adsense.
I also use FeedBurner ads. These are great because I can screen them in advance. I kill a lot of crap ads (PayPerPost, for example). But some provide a dilemma.
As I’ve said before, I don’t like credit cards. I know that many of you use them responsibly and actually make money with them. But most people don’t. I don’t want to promote their use. When Discover offered to advertise on this site, I wrestled with the decision for nearly two days before my wife persuaded me that the company was not evil. (She’s a responsible credit user and a huge fan of Discover.)
Now Mastercard has submitted an ad. To me, this crosses the line. But why? Discover was almost over the line, but not quite. Mastercard is just over — I’m willing to sacrifice about $50 by refusing the ad. Why is the line here? Why am I okay with one but not the other?
And what am I going to do about the “get rich quick” crap from Adsense? I’ll bet that there are scammy ads on this entry even now.
(If you have any observations, criticisms, or suggestions regarding site advertising — or any other aspect of Get Rich Slowly — please drop me a line. I consider all comments carefully.)
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Just wanted to throw my two cents in (a loaded term around here, for sure). It’s my understanding that the readers of your site care a lot less about what ads appear on it than you do. Others can disagree if they feel differently, of course. However, if the ads provide the monetary reward to keep the quality content at this site coming, then the trade is worth it.
The only thing I’d be concerned about is if you have a serious moral quandary by providing traffic to the advertisers (particularly the shady scheme guys). That’s a judgement call for you. But as a reader, I’m just happy that there is a financial motivation for you to keep this site going.
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My understanding is that AdSense is not usually worth it. Have you thought about joining a blog network? You get a lot more say (complete control, in most cases) of what goes on your page. Look at Pajamas Media. I have a friend who is with them and really likes them.
You could also put some Amazon or other affiliate ads, choosing which products to sell. Run your favorite Dave Ramsey books or other responsible advertising. Relevant stuff is much less likely to be blocked.
I didn’t think I had adsense blocked, but I must have their image servers blocked. I’ve never seen an ad on your site. On principle, I only block ads that are scammy, contain sound, or are flashy (Catch the frog to win a new Playstation 3!)
I want to reward good content by viewing unobtrusive advertising, and I often click on ads. I guess I saw a scammy ad once on adsense and blocked their image servers.
Also, consider inserting small Instapundit-type ads in your RSS feed – every few posts. I almost always read in an RSS reader. You should get some remuneration from readers who view your content exclusively through your RSS feed.
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Offtopic, somewhat…
Sorry JD, but like many (most?) Firefox users, I have adblock plus installed, with a full community driven filter list installed, so I don’t see any ads on your site.
I got so sick of ads that I found and started using adblock early, and haven’t looked back.
The closest to ads I see is the “sponsors” heading on the right side, but no ads or even text beneath it.
Nothing personal, I hate everyone’s ads equally. Particularly sites that really abuse it by having more ads than actual content (gamespy network, tom’s hardware guide…).
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I’ll email you my list of 200 blocked web urls for adsense which should take care of most of the junk you get. I haven’t seen any “get rich quick” ads on my site, but that may be because you have “get rich” in your url and I don’t.
Anyway, I’ll send you the list, just copy and paste it into adsense’s blocked urls section.
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I was about to say just what Joshua said. Firefox’s Adblock, Flashblock and Noscript plugins have eliminated the vast majority of annoying things people put on webpages. I say, put up the most obnoxious (but profitable) ads you want – I won’t see them!
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Personally, I don’t even notice the ads, also don’t notice ads on TV unless they are really, really good. However, I couldn’t tell you what product they are advertising. I know that’s odd, but so am I.
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JD, I hope that someday you will finally write anything about the income that you get from this blog. People really like to read about it, and I bet you would get lots of visitors to your site.
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Same as above. I don’t see the ads, maybe I should so I can block them, but my brain filters right over. That said, I’ll email a couple I grabbed just now.
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I think you can use Ad brite or something like that. It will allow specific firms to buy advertising from you and you can deny certain ones if you like.
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I’m with the Firefox/adblock crowd. I didn’t even know that you had ads until this post. I find that life is better without ads…
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I wanted to expound on what Dan said. Adsense misses much of the time and you should have control over the ads. Right now I’m looking at 2 “scammy” ads at the top of your page. One is “Earn 60k a month!” and after following the link you find its just ‘a give this fat guy some money and he’ll make you money,’, sort of scam. The other is to buy “super” sites for adsense, another total scam.
Dan mentioned Pajamas Media but they are fairly political in nature, after all they are a news site. If you want to rid yourself of that dirty feeling that comes with having dishonest ads on your site, make sure you investigate who you sign up with. But like most people I’ll read GRS even if you go with those horrible flash blinking ads. I can always block or hide ads using CSS. I love this site!
That being said, I heard BlogKits was a good alternative to AdSense.
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Ditto on firefox/adblock.
I whitelist sites I like and want to support though. I hadn’t realized that you had adds untill just now. So now you’re whitelisted.
As for which adds to allow on your site, I don’t mind seeing relavant, non-scammy adds. I’m willing to click adds if it looks like they could provide something of value.
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J.D. I really appreciate the fact that you write for the benefit of your readers. Your struggling with these decisions just goes to show that you put your readers first in terms of content and what you promote. Just wanted to say thanks.
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http://www.techaddi.com/index.php/archive/display-relevant-adsense-ads-using-section-targeting/
http://www.adsblacklist.com/
I found these two links on Digg related to ad sense which you can read over on Turkey Day. Hope they help the blog.
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My site has much less traffic than yours, and I’ve taken some flack for using adsense because it’s a watchdog site against poetry scams. Of course, some of the ads that appear are for . . . scams. I tried filtering out some of the questionable ads, but it doesn’t always work. Right now ads are appearing for Tupelo Press, which is getting slammed for a recent “open reading period.” I figure people who are pissed can click on their ads and make a little money for my site at their expense.
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I dislike ads. period. I support dropping the ads. I also support a paypal tip jar and fundraising drives (annual, quarterly, monthly, whenever) from users to pay for hosting and put a litlle extra in your pocket for other resources and recognition. Also, a t-shirt drive might be a hit. I also like the way Daring Fireball does things with a membership program. Thanks for asking this question and keep up the great work!
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Possible solution 1 – rewrite your title as:
Get “Rich” Slowly or Get – Rich – Slowly
^ ^ ^ ^
to break up “Get Rich”. Then your tag line can have the full title without extra punctuation.
Possible solution 2 – use the silly ads as inspiration for articles on what to avoid.
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Do you lose revenue from those of us that use Adblock w/ Firefox? I almost never clicked on ads before adblock anyway.
If not even displaying the ads costs you revenue, then I’d be all for a PayPal tipjar or something similar.
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I just wanted to echo the previous comment that you really should try:
http://www.adsblacklist.com/
It gives you an updated list of unfavorable adsense ad urls to block, based on a keyword analysis of your website(s).
Certainly worth a look considering you already filter urls in your Adsense settings.
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This post from problogger will help you out.
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/11/22/increase-adsense-earnings-with-competitive-ad-filter/
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Just want to echo Commenter #13 above — thank you for addressing this publicly. Your willingness to not only provide consistently good content AND to talk openly about your experience with a money-making blog is so refreshing — and much appreciated.
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J.D.
I too have the ABP installed in FF, but also as mentioned before, I whitelist any sites that I do want to support.
I simply wanted you to know that I not only look at your ads, I also click on them when appropriate. This post certainly increases my willingness – your commitment to your readers is something that most authors on the web lack.
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I like the tip jar idea. I’m sure between the few of us we could make up some of that ad revenue?
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[...] Get Rich Slowly » My Fight Against Inappropriate Ads JD highlights his problem with adsense. On a blog promoting responsible use of money, all the keyword ads are undesirable MAKE MONEY NOW junk counter to his message. When algorithms attack. (tags: adsense google money) [...]
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I’m with the ad-blockers, I don’t see the ads, and I’m happy with that. Don’t worry about what your readers think, they can read this article/comments and if they don’t like the advertisements, there is enough information here to tell them how to block them, which will improve their overall web-browsing experience (since these hypothetical readers like me do not want to be distracted by ads).
NG
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I agree with those who suggest going with RSS ads. I only read the feed, and only click through to see comments. So I’m just a freeloader really… o_0
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Personally, I’m not particularly offended or annoyed by inappropriate AdSense ads since I know (roughly) how they’re chosen. Perhaps you should just add a disclaimer saying you can’t control the ads that get shown and be done with it?
I also don’t mind non-intrusive ads, especially if they’re sometimes relevant, and will occasionally click on one of them, nor do I begrudge you the ad revenue, especially if it doesn’t cost me anything.
Note that I DO hate–nay, dispise–Intellitext and their ilk. I’ve stopped reading some websites because they use it.
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Explore selling a 2 or 3 line text ad in the space in which you have the adsense ad at the top. You’d have to manage it yourself obviously, but you would have much better control over what is seen there. An example off the top of my head is on Ecommerce Times articles.
Btw: may I ask if the sponsored text links on the right are Text-Link-Ads or are they ones that you sell yourself?
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Thanks for all the advice and support. I appreciate it. The ads on the right are Text Link Ads. I haven’t sold ads on this site directly yet, though I’m considering the option.
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J.D., it seems like you advocate financial education, so two new programs from Amazon might be helpful: aStore and Omakase. Omakase is like AdSense but with Amazon products.
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I use adsense on my website. So far, the ads have been okay. The way I see things is that viewers click on the ads on their way out of my site. If they click on a competitors ads, so be it … they’ve already made & acted upon their decision to buy (or not) from me. It’s no loss to me because they were ready to leave my site anyways and if they click on an adsense adv. on the way out, they get Google to kick a few cents my way.
It isn’t much money … but it’s more than I had.
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Oh look, now for the first time we have ads that:
1-Cover up what you wanted to read.
2-Have no “close” controls WHATSOEVER.
3-Stay there indefinitely
WAKE-UP foxsports.com, eyewonderlabs is covering up your website content!!!
How stupid can you get? Nobody at foxsports proofread this ad?
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I think ads should really be targeted to your demographic. A lot of people interested in personal finance will be curious about “get rich quick” schemes.
However, on my own personal finance blog, I would specifically recommend against following any of these up because the only people that get rich are the ones running the scheme!
Maybe we should all set up our own?
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As long as I don’t have to deal with “pop-ups” everywhere, advertise whatever to keep your site open. I personally think 1/2 the people don’t even notice the ads to begin with, and ignore the ones that don’t mean anthing to one.
As long as you don’t have a strong moral objection to the content, take the money and feel as bad as you want to all the way to the bank. Just, keep this site open!!!
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I don’t have any ad blocking software installed, but I don’t look at ads on online sites anymore than I pay attention to billboards on the freeway. I’m certainly not going to click on them because I find advertisements annoying, especially on websites, so I refuse to click. So as long as the ads don’t start showing half-naked people, they don’t bother me. I don’t even read them.
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You write great content, and you deserve to make a living from it. Hopefully your readers are smart enough to ignore the crap.
What did you end up deciding about Adsense?
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I started advertising with Project Wonderful (www.projectwonderful.com) a while back.
This has been one of the best decisions I have made as far as advertising is concerned.
Ad space can be purchased for FREE. You can also choose to sell ads on your blog starting at 1 cent per day. Some sites sell for up to 20$ a day.
You can set your preferences to accept ads that have been placed in the past, block certain users, block certain ads etc.
It’s really worth looking into.
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Looks like you did drop Adsense after all. Likewise
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My eyes are trained to ignore the advertisements and I consider them my price for reading quality content. If I really like the blog and I want to say “thanks” to the writer, then I search the ads and click them so that the writer gains something more. Otherwise maybe a talented blogger spends his time delivering mail from 9 to 5, wasting valuable time. But I always avoid the flashing ads or the scammy ones, as you call them. But I really hate the sites where you have to be so careful to click on what you need, because it is surrounded by ads, flashy, glittery, neon color and so on… For some site owners some decency would be more than needed.
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