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No Ads Here - Why Don’t You Stick Around?
When a site serves advertising and is actively seeking to make money from it, the goal of the site essentially becomes to get people to click on the ads and send them AWAY from the site. People who stick around on the site are more likely to leave your site through a link they find while reading a post - not your advertising. I’ll freely admit that when I had advertising, I wanted you to click on the ads and leave my site. It kind of annoyed me when people started sticking around and reading the content!!My ads were placed in highly visible positions and blended nicely with the other links on the site in order to encourage readers to click on the ads and make me a couple of cents. Those few cents that I earned were essentially the payment that I received in exchange for sending my readers away from this site and to another site. A heavy reliance on advertising essentially made this site a “middle-woman” for sending traffic to other sites.
I always felt that this created a type of Catch-22 with this site and any other site trying to make money online:
In order to make money the site needs to get you to leave the site…the best way to do that is to have poor content…but if you have poor content, nobody will come to your site in the first place…so you should write good content…but then people will spend more time reading your site and are more likely click on an “in-post link” rather than an advertising link…so you should…???
Perhaps the middle-ground is best where your content isn’t fantastic but it isn’t junk either - and that describes a lot of ‘rich-from-advertising‘ A-list blogs!
What it essentially boils down to is that when choosing to display ads on your site or not, there is a crucial question that you need to ask yourself:
Do I want my visitors to stay on my site or would I rather a few cents in exchange for sending them away?
Rich people subscribe to Cash Quests
Banned from Adsense without explaination or recourse?!? That totally sux dude. Yeah, go your own way!
by John Lampard
Well remember that method of making money in the 90’s that didn’t require your visitors to leave your site? POPUPS!!! ARGH!!!
Hope you don’t take that route.
Seriously though I’m curious as to where this thought of yours will go.
Personally when I click on Adsense ads I right click and open them in a new window so I can stay on the site and view the ad.
by Brad
Brad - Don’t worry, there will never be popups on this site! They are not part of the ‘master plan’!
Kumiko
by Kumiko
Actually it is possible to make quite a bit of money even without Adsense. In fact, I don’t currently use Adsense.
John Chow’s web has some good suggestions for alternatives. But yes your post really highlights that to earn money, your advertisers (in whichever form) have to leave the website. Hopefully, if your website is good enough, they’ll come back.
by Investorblogger
I’m getting on the ReviewMe bandwagon as soon as possible..
$40 is a sweet deal to get a review from Kumiko’s Cash Quest. You guys and gals better buy one before the price jumps
by Alex
wow, getting banned just like that, did you complain to google about it? Well anyway, there are other ways besides adsense to make money online, it’s google’s loss to ban you.
by seraphangel
I wondering if calling you a click-fraud is some kind of libel?
I pretty much gave up on adsense on my blog months ago. I think in nearly a year I only had a dozen clicks anyways. It has a place, I have another site with paid content it works ok on.
I am looking forward to seeing your reviews.
Pop-unders would be much more evil than pop-ups.
by James
I was thinking… You know how you’ve made a few enemies by writing your articles against Agloco? Maybe an Agloco fan decided to “get back” at you by overclicking on all your AdSense ads, causing Google to measure an unnatural number of clicks coming from one IP. To them, it looks like fraud, when really it was just some internet jerk intentionally trying to get you banned from AdSense…
by Garrett Albright
It looks like
Work Connexions and
Friendfinder are performing just as good as adsense, and of course there is always Yahoo Publisher.
Adsense usually only works good with Made For Adsense sites, anyways.
I don’t blog to make money, too much damn work, socializing with people ect. I just take whatever table scraps the affiliate programs throw my way, I have other sources of income in the real world.
by Mike
So you are on a money making quest and you say ads are bad? How else will you make money?
What is the use of your blog if you dont want people to click ads and make money because of that? Isnt that what kumikos cash quest was all about?
by Bob
Bob - I didn’t say ads were bad!! Just that in exchange for the money you receive, your readers will leave your site. Just a fact of life. Other ways I will make money is currently what “Kumikos Cash Quest” is all about at the moment.
Kumiko
by Kumiko
I think that google was wrong by doing what they did. The least they should do is give you and explaination. I hope you get things rolling again. And I hope you make a lot of money at it also
by Dwayne Reaves
find other ways of making money on your site, then share it with us.
by justanavedude
WOW! It’s amazing how upbeat you are but great that you haven’t put all your eggs in the “adsense basket”. I’ll be checking in to see what other routes you go with…good luck girl!
sarah @ Somewhere Over the Debt
by Anonymous
I also was banned by Google.I also no have idea why this was happened.I never never click with my own ads.My opinion is google banned you and another publisher is
a. Someone click for many time,I mean some one click at your ads again and again.This is why Google suspended is not true click.Someone dont like you,and try to unvalid click your ads
b.Sometime when we refresh our site for many time for one day for example.I also no have idea why the Google very sensitive about it?
c.Join community for traffic exchange.I also dont know why google dont like traffic exchange community.
Ok kumiko I really hope you will success,I am the one of your fan.I know for someone stronger like you,money will come for you because you already have your own good reputation from your blog.
by Nizayu
Banned from Adsense…I’m sorry to hear that, Kumiko. You must send an explanation email to Google, maybe you will get your account reinstated.
I hope you’ll get your account reinstated.
by Mr. Nan
I rarely go to a site and immediately click on a AdSense ad (or any other).
I usually read through the site and read what I am interested in.
If an ad catches my eye, I might go back and click on it afterwards.
I also click on AdSense ads which are OF INTEREST TO ME as a sort of an indirect reward for the blogger or website. (Afterall, we support advertisers of our favorite televison programs, don’t we?).
However, I am sorry to hear you were banned, Kumiko, and hope you received your check before they pulled the plug.
by Jack
Kumiko,
You’ve built a great following with your great personality and opinions.
I’m quite sure you’ll be able to beat any money Adsense would have given you with things like ReviewMe. I know I’ll be ordering a few for my (in development) blogs soon!
You are a great example of how to establish a personality or personal branding through a blog.
PS - I can see you going far, get off Blogger and get your own domain
by Joshua
I am trying Adsense on my site. So far not producing much for the space it takes. I think no great loss for you. You will find more and better ways!! I have faith in you!!
caplondon
http://lasvegasfun.blogspot.com/
by Caplondon
Hmm..couldn’t the Google staff figure out that you worked very hard to attract a lot of visitors and as a result an increase in Adsense clicks?
Oh well, hope you find alternatives.
by Renagu
Hii Kumiko,
Sorry, for the sad news. But you can use Adsense Alternatives, since your blog is receiving so much of traffic. I heard chitika is other good program like adsense. All the best
Best Regards,
Eliena Andrews
http://visitformoney.blogspot.com
by Anonymous
That’s bad news. I am sure you will find something good to replace it.
I wonder if you went to Matt Cutts blog, if we would look into it?
Anyway, I hope you find some excellent replacements for it.
All the best,
George
by George
Actually, I don’t understand how the thing with AdSense wasn’t straightened out. I’ve received the same warning/cancellation letters in the past and was always able to get things cleared up with the Google AdSense team rather quickly.
And even if you had some haters purposely clicking on your ads with the intention of getting you banned, Google’s technology can recognize that. It’s something they deal with all the time and their process is simple.
First, a site is electronically flagged by their monitoring technology. Then once it’s flagged, an AdSense team member personally reviews the data and the site to determine if the questionable activity was due to the publisher’s actions or out of the publisher’s control.
Honestly, it should’ve been rather easy to clear up if you weren’t breaking the TOS. Then again, I’ve heard stories of others being banned who swear it was for no reason as well. So perhaps they made a mistake. Mistakes do happen.
Anyway, one does not need AdSense to make big money in blogging. For me it only accounts for about .5% of my earnings. It’ a nice bunch of extra money each month, but we as bloggers should never depend on it. It can be gone in a flash.
Shine on,
Aaron
by Aaron Cook
ur just whining….i’d anyday take the dollars
by ChilledBeer
Cash or Permanent visitor? I prefer getting a “subscriber” that kind of person who will return to your blog day-after-day.
The cash is good too. So now I’m confused. You’re confusing me Kumiko!
kidding.
Anyway, there… I would prefer a permanent visitor.
by Chino