Venting about Google, paid links, and my future direction

by Sapphire (April 21, 2007)

I’ve got a lot of thoughts in my head right now, and they’re keeping me from getting stuff done. Time to vent them.

My next big project was going to rely heavily on paid links for monetization. I’m more than a little frustrated with Google pulling this crap now.

I don’t care what Google does to hurt me for selling paid links. Project Mai Tai convinced me Google is not as necessary as we think. Especially with social bookmarking coming up strong. Project B-2 Bomber is a top result for dozens of search terms on Google, and you know what? This pales in comparison to what one hour on the front page of Digg could do for me.

The problem is, I’m worried Google’s going to push paid link brokers out of business, or discourage people buying links. Those guys hook me up with advertisers I’d never otherwise have met. Shortly after Google’s announcement, I lost several paid advertisers. On the other hand, that was also very close to tax day here in the US (hmm, interesting timing, Google) and the start of the second quarter. So maybe that’s why people pulled their links - if they’re reading carefully, there’s no indication of repercussions for them in paying for links. Just people like me selling them.

So what’s my future?

Maybe I need to work out a way to sell links directly. I could certainly charge the full price without losing the broker’s commission, so that’d be sweet. But are enough advertisers going to stumble onto my sites? How do I get the word out? Maybe someone should start a forum where we all just go and chat and post link offers - like hosting forums that have offer and request threads where people post what they have/want and meet up with others who can match them.

Dammit, Google wants no one but themselves making money on the web. That’s what it really is.

And what about me? I’m finding myself terribly excited about B-2 Bomber lately. That site’s my passion. The rest? I really enjoy posting on them when I have something to say. I am so damn sick of trying to come up with two posts a day and all that, though. Major burnout. I could just go for quality over quantity, but part of my trouble is how thin I’m spread. And how much I want to work full time on B-2, and that it’s bringing in the least money despite having the most traffic. It’s partially the niche, but it’s also… I’ve got a brilliant niche. I’ve got a foothold on it. If I knew who to talk to and how to pitch it, there’s no telling what that site could bring in for money.  But I don’t have those answers.

I guess I forge ahead with my next big project, and if text links go belly up, I’ll find another way to monetize.

I hate Google. A lot. I’m now officially boycotting everything from them but Gmail, which is too damn convenient to give up. I vomit in their general direction.

Posted in Staying on Track
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