Wriging

I don't employ adds and I don't read many blogs which do. I read mainly personal or political blogs though not tech blogs which I could see having adds in some cases.

I find them evil - not a necessary evil in the case of most blogs, blogs which now start and two days later are full of crappy adds.

I just looked at your site though and, I could see coffee adds as being appropriate there.

I only have textlinkads at the moment, and the $12 a month that one link is getting me is laughable.

I'm not against ads, but I to don't like it when ads seem to dominate the page more than the content does.

I'd really like to earn just enough to cover hosting, but as it is, that $12 gets spent on something kitchy every month--usually buttons.

I'd love to do relevant ads for individual posts, but I haven't gotten that far yet. One day. Because I could be making bank of that one aside that gets more traffic than any other post I've got going on...

Hey thanks for the replies -- I've always thought any revenue that I make will come from paid sponsor ads. Of course the trick there is well, getting sponsors!

I use TLA too. I don't think that ads are evil at all. A lot of sites use ads particularly badly though.

Ads (done right) should be unobtrusive and also relevant to the reader. Luckily, through TLA the idea of browsing a genre when purchasing links helps the blogger to serve up relevant ads.

That said, when on other people's sites I rarely click ads unless they really peek my curiosity. I don't hate them though. I understand that ads can fund a website and encourage it to grow.

It's obviously a double-edged sword for me!

I only have ads i've created to my other projects... i've tried to make real ads work for my site several times over the last year, but could never deal with loosing that little bit of editorial control.

Well I hope I didn't put much of a negative spin on ads, I certainly have nothing against them, a lot of people make money with them and I am all for people making money doing something they love.

I have ads on HeatEatReview.com. It allows me to buy all sorts of neat (or gross meals) for my writers and take them out for drinks and buy a camera when the old one went kaput.

I worked on building traffic on my site before I considered ads. It just seemed ridiculous to try monetizing such little traffic. Now I have an ad system that works well for HER and doesn't visually freak out visitors.

If you don't have costs associated with your blog (blogger or wordpress.com folks, I'm looking at you) then there's no 'necessary' to the 'necessary evil'.

Also, I don't use any ad-blocking software or plug-ins when I'm using the Internet. I think it is unethical.

I don't think ads are evil, or necessary.

Out of curiosity, how much do you all make/intend to make on your blogs?

I want to make a million.

Okay, I just want to cover hosting costs. And somehow I think that adsense isn't the way to go - there's too little money from it.

Maybe direct ads - as in those little squares you get advertisers to put up. That'll be just enough to cover it.

Then again, how in the world do you set it up?

I recently scrapped permanent adverts in the layout for manually-placed in-content ads. I only place them in articles or posts that are getting a lot of traffic.

This has had two effects:
1. Impressions have plummeted
2. Click through rates have rocketed

1 is simple to explain - only 1% of the site has adverts on now. 2 happens because adverts are less predictable to users. If they're mounted in the navigation, people will only really notice them if they plan on using your nav. They can also be placed with a lot of care and consideration for the surrounding content.

Some adverts can be evil. I guess there are two kinds: CPM (where advertisers pay for impressions) because this makes publishers much more likely to "juice" the pageviews by splitting 200-word articles into 5 pages or using interstitials; and pop-up/pop-under/noisy-flash annoyance adverts.

I use Text Link Ads also; I definitely had to debate whether I wanted to even go the advertising route, and I started off doing it as just a lark with Google Adsense (which sucked), then Blogads (which also sucked), and just stuck with TLA. I get about $100 a month, and I like how the links blend in with the rest of the site without jumping out and saying "Hey, CLICK HERE!"

I have two innocuous Text Link Ads on Aelon, with space for two more. Frankly, considering Aelons (IMO) low traffic levels, I am stoked at how much I make. It's easily enough to cover hosting.

I am not sure how long I will keep them though as I don't know how well I need to perform for the ad owners to keep renewing them. So far none have left though, after a few months...

But generally, I think that any ads which get in my way are annoying, and I won't even think about putting them on my own site. TLA is great because they fit right in to my side bar and don't really compromise the design in any way whatsoever.

Even Google ads I find quite annoying. The only ads which generally don't annoy me are TLAs, and well-placed, non-intrusive images for extremely relevant/interesting things, like Stammy and 9rules tend to have. Anything else offends my eyes, and I either block the ads or avoid the site. IGN/GameSpy's interstitial ads are particularly outrageous, but then they're not blogs, so that's a whole new ball game.

I actually have that textadd link thing from a long time ago and am approved and I remember them emailing me a couple times but I could never figure out what the xml key was for or if I was supposed to do something with it. I just went there now to see and I still don't get what the xml thing is for. it. I think the whole thing for me is that text link adds would not be so bad but it's too much effort for me. I re-download the widget again , maybe I'll play with it as long as it's just text.

As a general rule when the blog being viewed is more about the ads than the content, I tend to quickly become disinterested. I guess on some level i have never fully embraced the idea that my blog could be an income generating medium.

I go through phases where I have ads and where I don't.

Every time I include them in a design, I realize I don't make more than $2 - $3 per month- not worth it if you ask me!

You're right: one of the best reasons to own your own domain is so everything is clean and ad free. There is no sense in adding ads that gain you crap revenue and make everything look worse- may as well just use wordpress.com.

If you do get considerable revenue, however, I'm all for the idea.. you deserve it :) I hear good thinks about TLA. They're probably worth a look.

I don't use ads on my site. I block ads whenever I can. If the ads on a site I'm visiting get in my face, I don't go there again. I'm extremely interested in what a blogger may have to say. I'm not at all interested in what an advertiser has to say.
If I go out looking for great blogging content, anything that gets in the way is a hindrance.
Ads always work against the content of a blog - they are always in competition with the author's content.
You may be able to limit the damage, but that's all you can do. The only way to eradicate the damage is to remove the ads.

It is silly not to monetize your site (at least a little). Then again, it is your virtual real estate and you can do whatever you wish.

I see a blog as an online journal.
Do you see ads in a real world journal? Nope.

ergo, no ads.

I consider blogging a hobby - I put money into it for my pleasure, and I don't expect to get any money out.

How come nobody complained about the advertisements on TV? How come nobody said that they aren't going to watch TV again because they freaking play advertisements in between shows?

People do complain about watching ads on tv (at least I do) - but in teles case ads ARE a neccessary evil. People understand that without ads we wouldn't have any tele (apart from the bbc, but then we pay them)

I see nothing wrong with ads on blogs, provided they are done in an unobtrusive way. I make some nice pocket money out of my sites. It's certainly nothing I can retire on, but they pay for a few nights out each month.

On infomercials you see people telling you how they got rich. It rarely works out for the people buying it even if they follow all the steps. Why? Because the person isn't going to tell you everything you need to know because it would threaten their own livelihood. The smart ones figure out pieces along the way.

I can tell you basic business principles that would improve your blog and your life. You have to have the smarts to apply them properly.

So if a site is telling you how to have better ad placement or make money in general and they are still making money themselves the same way would it make sense for them to tell you everything you need to know so you can do as well as them or outperform them, particularly if the blog is free (there is a better argument if the blog has paying subscribers and the information is not freely available)? They are telling you some things but not the key things.

To make the money they are making you need traffic first. When I hit 1M+ readers (with my gaming community) advertisers came to me and I could truly negotiate ad deals based on my worth (on my terms) not what I thought I could get out of an advertiser.

Get the users. Build a community around your site. Advertisers are paying for people to see their ads, which I don't think are evil. It saddens me how uncreative people are when it comes to advertising.

Oh the irony of seeing this my first day here.
More bummed then disgruntled...see what the stumbleupon community thinks about this issue.
My own personal post here:http://fastback.stumbleupon.com/review/10117885/

Others:http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/blog.stumbleupon.com/joining_ebay

quite a few are jumping ship and or shopping around for new digs...self included.

I don't see what the eBay/SU acquisition has to do with this discussion on blog ads, but anyways...

What's the necessary evil of running a site that costs a couple a dollars at most a month to run? 99% of the sites out there don't need ads to survive, it's just people like to make money and once you can admit that you are good to go.

Ads are fine, but they may be worse for certain websites. If you're a one-writer-blog, and your site is also your personal portfolio, and your client backend - it's probably not a good idea to have ads. If your blogging site is about SEO, and you get thousands of hits daily, maybe you really should monetize.

pelf: Not a fan of TV commercials, but then again I rarely watch live TV (DVR/Tivo forever changed how I watch TV).

"I consider blogging a hobby - I put money into it for my pleasure, and I don't expect to get any money out."

Alice is right!!!

I don't mind ads at all - unless it's a personal site. Sites that give value and are less personal in nature - then I say go for it (as long as it's not pop up ads). Personally I hate to see ads disgused as content - and text link ads on a text heavy site. I have no problem clicking on the ads that interest me, but I don't want to be fooled into it.

People who hate ads are just haters - in my opinion :0)

I'm okay with ads as long as they're not overwhelming. My site has some ads via TLA, which gets me enough money to pay the hosting bill and buy a book or two each month. I'd say I'm at the very peak of what I'll ever make with my blog, and with it being my personal blog, I'm fine with that.

I've made sure that what ads pop up via TLA might actually interest some of my readers. I've got 3 sidebar ads currently, 2 about online flash games, and 1 about student loan consolidation. Considering I've written about gaming quite a bit in the past, along with my university experiences, I don't find these to be too bad.

I've certainly drawn the line, however. I signed up for ReviewMe.com months ago, and just recently I got a request to do a review on, of all things, an online casino. I could have been dirty and got $25 for writing about the POS website, but I declined.

As long as ads are seamlessly integrated into the design, and don't affect the readability of actual blog content, I have no problem with them at all.

I try my best on Kineda to provide this experience and readership is still rising (although a bit slower than previously) every month. It's getting harder to break that 2 million pageview/month threshold that I've been stuck on for a few months now.

They're not necessary so I got rid of AdSense on my blog about a month ago. It's not like it was doing great, like only $68 over 5 months, so it's not a big loss. The problem was AdSense kept serving up ads to bootleg and pirated material sites and vendors. I can't stand that crap and it was more trouble than it was worth to filter them out as new ones would just jump in to take the filtered one's place.

Advertising isn't evil. Without it we'd have no clue wtf we wanted for dinner that night, or what colour shirt was a bad call for work the next day.

Advertising got you here (including word-of-month).

Callous idiotic placement of advertising, messing up navigation by inserting a click-through-page advert and generally defacing content by trying to rip your readers off, is.

Those suggesting all advertising is evil and as such will ignore people who use it (even sensibly) is quite a narrow minded view, in my humble opinion. It begs the question, why are you here?

9rules advertise. Isn't that breaking one's own rule?

Advertising does not have to be flashing neon signs and poorly chosen oversized google adword placements.

Smart use of screen real-estate without an in-your-face-bitch mentality is actually something that should be promoted. If more people did as such this would become an entirely moot point.

I agree 100% with Kineda, it's all about integration. Nice-looking ads help too, but I'm not a big fan of tricking users into clicking on CPC Google Adsense ads, that always seems dirty to me.

I am running a semi-research blog so I don't want to make money out of it. That is the reason I don't have ads. However, due to increasing traffic I have to switch hosts and to answer Ozone42's question "how much do you all make/intend to make on your blogs?" I would love to cover half of my hosting costs.

It just depends on what you want. A blog platform is a content management system. Just because most people used to use them predominantly as journals doesn't mean that's all blogs are for.

I prefer the fact that my carbon footprint is tiny because I make all my money full time from blogging and teaching people how to promote their sites. I drive like 3000 miles a year. I am free, and have been, from bosses for years.

Throwing out all ads and all blogs that have ads is incredible to me. There are some badass blogs out there - 9Rules included - that bring good content to the web.

It's fine to say you don't personally want to have ads on your blog. But people who really put out some consistently good content do so predominantly because they have incentive above the good of humanity. People have to live.

People who blog and publish online full time are ALL supported by advertising. Just like TV, there would be no good content on the web, nor would there be the awesome tools people here rave about, if everyone was expected to work for free.

Would you rather people start charging for the good stuff? I'd freak out if I had to pay for all the blogs I read and thrive on, wouldn't you?

I agree with svift; blogging is a hobby and I don't expect to earn money from it. The only ad I have on my blog is one that features my own book, as that is about much of what I blog and may be helpful to readers. I think ads in general create clutter and visual polution. Earnings are not a consideration. I like to keep the blog clean and I guess other people like to look at a blog that isn't trying to sell or promote lots of products. My blog is about health, well being and success; hopefuly it's a calm place for people to visit that offers ideas, suggestions and musings on life. For me it's wholesome not to have ads.

Running Ads in blog is not a Evil kind of thing...

Ads are necessary for those bloggers who feed themselves only from blog...
I mean professional blogger.

But, those blogger who do it for hobby then there is no need to make money from it.

How do you show ads thats the art.

From my personal experience, I've found that Blog advertisements work better if the design is made with them in mind, rather than being "glued in" at different positions afterwards.

If the ads are related enough with the content of your blog, you'll find that you can actually make some great revenue. I have a blog that I helped design a couple of years back, an in exchange for payment, I asked the owner if I could place adsense there in a discreet position.

Despite the blog being "dead" for quite some time it's still one of my main sources of adsense income. It's not in a notorious position, but the adverts are well suited to the site's content.

One lesson which is worth it's weight is gold is that position, and relevancy are much more important than the number of ads you place on your page. And it's much easier to get revenue by adjusting those things than trying to fit more ads or get more visitors to come to your site. (Digg almost *never* helps in terms of income)

Unless you have a lot of traffic the question of whether advertising is worthwhile is a bit moot, but here's my two cents worth. I'm planning to make a commercial venture of my website, but not the blog directly.

I'd rather not have to accommodate an ugly ad service panel.

Maybe if The Deck came calling I'd change my mind. I can dream :)

Hmmn. I'm not against the odd advert. If it's easy enough to pick out as an ad (but still blends in as a part of the site) and it's for something I'm interested in, I might just click it. In much the same way I have a couple dotted around my site (but they certainly don't make me rich).

It's when you start getting into the whole process of disguising ads that it starts annoying people.

My way of integrating ads has always been to not hide them, or try and trick people into using them. For that matter I have written an article about not trying to trick the web as a whole (Why is Everyone Trying to Trick the Web) I do believe that it is ok for a blogger to use ads to gain revenue, i.e. we don't fault stores for selling products to pay the employees wages.

So long as ads are separated from content so that you are not tricking people, then I feel there is nothing wrong with it. I remember to put my users before my ads and in turn hopefully one day an ads meets their need and they ACTIVELY choose to click it. This is the best thing for the advertisers as well, and as an advertiser as well this is what I would hope to receive.

I also feel that without ads and revenue, we might not have all the information online that we do today. While ads should not be our sole reason for having a site, it may help foster creativity through revenue.

Wowzers! This thread is a blast from the past! I just thought I would ad that I decided to give text link ads a try on the Bean, I have one ad. I just received my first monthly check -- $7 bones and some change.

Free money, or the perception of it isn't that bad if you can come to terms with the methodology and implementation I suppose :=)

What ever happened to the whole google vs text link ads situation? I was hoping to leverage my traffic with some better ads. If I could replace a couple adsense blocks with 1 set of text link ads, then I would be happy. I however do not want to end up blacklisted by google because of it...

I don't have ads on my blogs - for one thing, wordpress.com is vehemently anti-advertising of any sort (so I don't know why you all are citing WP.COM as an example of an ad-ridden blog service). Secondly, while I could probably make some money out of one of my blogs, it just seems so...urgh. Hard to explain. But essentially a turnoff.

I have Adblock Plus on so I don't see most ads. I'm getting really jaded of all the "Make Money Now SEO Optimization Ads Yay!" blogs popping up, with every single ad service available. For me, content is king, and right now it's hard to find good content that isn't a rehash of what everyone else says.

It's also evident in many of the comments on such blogs that ads (and general SEO stuff) doesn't really allow for actual interaction. Most of the comments go "great post, thanks for sharing, here's a link to my blog". That's it. How empty!

That said, one of my other blogs is an attempt to find funding for a project, and if/when I move to my own server space, I may put some ads up. I'd prefer sponsorship, as that would be more relevant to my blogs' content and I'll have control over who can buy adspace. I'm also more open to advertising non-profits, education, and public services - those things I'm happy to make banner space for.