Mubin Ahmed says building sites for AdSense is over and done. But you can apply the same skills and build for text link ad services - and maybe make a lot more money. And it’s not just AdSense:

Made for Adsense is dead because if you have a site that is specifically made for adsense ads [...]

Mubin Ahmed says building sites for AdSense is over and done. But you can apply the same skills and build for text link ad services - and maybe make a lot more money. And it’s not just AdSense:

Made for Adsense is dead because if you have a site that is specifically made for adsense ads sooner than later you will get smartpriced. The reason being is that the people that click through on MFA sites are usually doing it as a act of desperation to get off of your site. When they end up on the advertisers page they usually leave it without paying/buying anything. This will lead to your account getting smartpriced or even worse you getting your account banned because of the inevitable “invalid clicks” email. This is even worse for those on the Yahoo Publisher Network, because if your not converting they will make you take down the ads. Your not too good for them, they even made shoemoney take down YPN ads from one of his sites.

Emphasis mine. I think the days of AdSense easy money were something most of us realized had to come to an end sooner or later. That’s why I never bothered with it. For Google to remain competitive, sooner or later they were going to have to make it work better for advertisers than it worked for webmasters.

Mutual benefit is a big part of why text link ads could be a better longterm alternative. It’s not just about clicks. Ahmed says it’s about pagerank passing, and at this point in time I do have to agree that’s where most people’s heads are. And that will cause a bit of trouble down the road when - not if, but when - Google decides to either tank pagerank so no one can have it or find a way to punish other people for using it.

But text links are the oldest form of advertising on the web, long before pagerank, and they’re still here for a reason.

JenSense reports that Google is canceling Adsense accounts of users who were making sites for AdSense or doing the arbitrage thing (whatever that is - I’m still not clear). This could have the effect of raising the quality of AdSense from the sewer where it’s been content to wallow for years now.
Making sites strictly for [...]

JenSense reports that Google is canceling Adsense accounts of users who were making sites for AdSense or doing the arbitrage thing (whatever that is - I’m still not clear). This could have the effect of raising the quality of AdSense from the sewer where it’s been content to wallow for years now.

Making sites strictly for AdSense was always against the rules. In that sense, no publisher has a right to complain if Google burns them now (assuming Google is only hitting the most obviously MFA sites and leaving the “maybe, maybe not” sites alone). On the other hand, actions speak louder than words for good reason, and Google has tolerated these sites and even bumped them to the top of the SERPs more than enough times for me to understand the frustration people are probably feeling right now. It’s a case of, “The law was always there - we just failed to enforce it so much that you might have gotten the impression it wasn’t.”

Ah, well. I don’t know that this will raise AdSense up to the quality level that wouldn’t cause me to reject working with it. I did work with it for a while and had lousy results compared to AdBrite and other ad services. Maybe that’s because I wasn’t doing the MFA thing - those were definitely the people cashing in. Will this change that? It’s hard to say.

I’ve got TextLinkAds on most of my sites (and no, Google hasn’t scared me off from them). On the TLA website, I noticed it now says that advertisers prefer single page ads to sitewide ones. When I first started using TLA, I just set them all to sitewide - thinking "more = better", I guess.
I [...]

I’ve got TextLinkAds on most of my sites (and no, Google hasn’t scared me off from them). On the TLA website, I noticed it now says that advertisers prefer single page ads to sitewide ones. When I first started using TLA, I just set them all to sitewide - thinking "more = better", I guess.

I wrote to TLA and asked them if I could change this in midstream. I was told sure - no need to change price or anything, and I guess they don’t anticipate advertisers minding.

If you use WordPress, all you need to do is:

• Make the changes in the TLA administration panel
• Re-download the plugin and upload it over the old one on your site.

The process should be the same on non-WP solutions, too. Once you make the change in TLA’s admin panel, you just need to update the TLA code on your site.

If you use the TLA WordPress Sidebar Widget, your secondary pages will end up with an annoying bit of blank stuff where the TLA ad would have been - basically it’ll have the title you put in the widget ("Sponsors" or whatever) and the "Your Link Here" link - which is misleading because you aren’t selling ads on that particular page anymore.. The way around this is to get the Widgetize Anything plugin (a must-have if you use widgets) and put the original TLA code in there (the way WA works, you’ll actually just need to stick the following in the box, without the quotes: "tla_ads();"). You can give it a title or not. I did give one of mine a title because I have other ads right below TLA, so a "Sponsors" header looks right.

Why - aside from TLA’s recommendation - would you want to go from sitewide to single page? Because those ads become clutter to your visitors as they move from page to page and see them over and over again. Anytime you can accommodate your visitors and your advertisers all at once, that’s great.

If people are getting more savvy at recognizing ads and expressing their dislike for flashy ads that wonk them over the head, the obvious solution would seem to be to make the ads more subtle. Even blend them into the content. Even, perhaps, disguise them as content so people click them by accident?
Way [...]

If people are getting more savvy at recognizing ads and expressing their dislike for flashy ads that wonk them over the head, the obvious solution would seem to be to make the ads more subtle. Even blend them into the content. Even, perhaps, disguise them as content so people click them by accident?

Way to turn me off as a reader.

If all you want is to make $100 Adsense bucks so you can get that MP3 player your mom refused by buy you, maybe that’s an acceptable answer for you. But for those of us building sites for the long haul, I don’t think this is the way to go.

The solution I’ve chosen (you can see it here) is to have the ads but separate them from the content. Then again, I don’t mess with PPC much. Mostly, my ads are bought slots from clients (although AdBrite works both ways) because I can’t be bothered to work at manipulating people into clicking something when I can just sell ads steadily, keeping them discreetly visible but definitely still “ad-like”.

Brandon Hopkins has a possible solution if you’re looking for some quick cash on the net.
Apparently, they pay you to write posts on certain blogs (not your own). He quit when they started focusing more on traffic, forcing him to worry about building up a domain that wasn’t even his. But they paid [...]

Brandon Hopkins has a possible solution if you’re looking for some quick cash on the net.

Apparently, they pay you to write posts on certain blogs (not your own). He quit when they started focusing more on traffic, forcing him to worry about building up a domain that wasn’t even his. But they paid on time and everything was on the up and up.

PayPerPost is, of course, a similar option with a little more flexibility, if you have your own site.

If you’ve ever thought about domaining, or just find yourself wondering what’s a way to earn money online, AvivaDirectory has an article on domaining with 28 tips on how to get started.  I’ve seen people report mixed results from domaining, so it may or may not be for you.  But it’s definitely worth checking out.

If you’ve ever thought about domaining, or just find yourself wondering what’s a way to earn money online, AvivaDirectory has an article on domaining with 28 tips on how to get started.  I’ve seen people report mixed results from domaining, so it may or may not be for you.  But it’s definitely worth checking out.