I have a long weird history with CrispAds (see here) in which they were great, then they stopped paying everyone, then they got bought, then they paid off their debts to us (which was nice), then they stopped paying again, then they started paying again, then they totally changed everything one day without advance notice and I never succeeded in getting more than a “Huh, I don’t know what changed” response from them.

And … READ MORE

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AdBrite’s “Zone Comparison” tool has been driving me crazy for a while. It always shows a lot less in total earnings than I actually have, so I couldn’t begin to guess which ad zones - or which types of ads (inline, full page, CPM, PPC) were generating my income.

Today, for the first time ever, I took a long look at their “Dashboard” tab. It shows that I’ve had zero clicks, plus $X in ad … READ MORE

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I posted a while back that Project Wonderful was pretty cool. I was using it on B2 Bomber, which is notoriously hard to monetize, and it was doing better than most ad networks I’ve tried.

Then B2’s traffic tripled inside a month, and the PW earnings did not. People weren’t bidding each other up, like you’d expect. They were just enjoying the insane amounts of traffic at insanely low prices. And they were pulling ads … READ MORE

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I’ve been playing with Project Wonderful on one of my sites after more than a few people mentioned it to me (I think Empress was among them, but can’t find the original post), and here’s what I’ve found:

It takes a while to get going. Give it at least a month before giving up on it.
It attracts more “real bloggers” than internet marketing types. You’re more likely to get ads for someone’s online novel or … READ MORE

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Today I got served a fullscreen pop up of hardcore porn images.

By my own site.

Clicksor has been removed from all my sites now. And the worst part of it was, it wasn’t even earning decent money. If you’re considering running Clicksor on your sites, I’d think again: the money is crap, and so are the ads.

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In my last post, I said I was going to return to selling followable text link ads and running PPC on a few select websites that I don’t mind losing. The purpose is to get some income back in here, which I can reinvest in my sites that have long term promise.

Not long after posting, I dropped Clicksor and tried AdSense. Yep, not surprisingly, AdSense immediately starting bringing in more than Clicksor, AdBrite, … READ MORE

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I’ve been reading Matt Jones’ ebook recently (and no, merely linking to it does not qualify me for his contest - I’m linking because I like it), in which he talks about how to monetize different types of blogs. I’m not giving away enough to keep you from downloading the book yourself, but here’s the part where I’m stuck and need your help:

Is this blog a flagship or niche blog?

To summarize how he describes … READ MORE

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One of the big disadvantages of third-party ad networks is most of them don’t let you talk directly to the people buying ad space on your sites. When you sell ads directly (or through a third party service that lets you talk to them), take advantage of your ability to ask your advertisers a few questions.

I recently asked my one lone advertiser (Claire at SharpWitDesigns) just three questions:

How many visitors a month does your … READ MORE

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I said back in February that I was testing whether you can sell nofollow text link ads via LinkWorth, now that they’re offering them. I also promised to update you in March.

As I reported near the end of February, I did indeed sell one nofollow link. So far, it’s the only one. But they did renew in March, when a lot of my advertisers dropped out for some reason (tax season? fear of … READ MORE

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When I published the LinkWorth link that I sold the other day and posted about, their system didn’t pick it up. The next morning, it still listed the link as “publishing” which means I’ve accepted it but not put it up on my site yet - I’d put it up about 18 hours before that.

I emailed them and they brushed me off, figured it’d be okay today. But this morning, it still wasn’t listed … READ MORE

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