
We’re dropping Google Ads - alex_hirner
http://www.groundup.org.za/article/why-were-dropping-google-ads/
======
reaperducer
I've been on the fence about this for a while, and after reading what GroundUp
wrote, I can't agree with them more. So I think it's time for me to dump
Google Ads from my sites, as well. I send Big G three million ad impressions a
month, and in return I get $150 and a bunch of visual dreck that makes the
site look bad. $200, if I'm lucky. And this is all U.S. traffic on an award-
winning news site. I only need to sell one more local ad to more than make up
for the loss, and I get the extra benefit of having only quality, relevant
advertising on my site.

So to quote GroundUp: "Obviously the behemoth in Mountain View won’t miss
[us], but we take some pride in saying the feeling’s mutual."

~~~
IAmGraydon
3,000,000 for $150? That's criminal. How are you only getting 5 cents per
thousand impressions? Are you getting really low quality traffic from far
eastern countries or something? That's just extremely low even for Google. If
your CTR is the problem, have you looked at placement optimization?

My recommendation is to sell the space directly on BuySellAds. At $1.00 CPM it
would fly off the shelves, but you can get much more than that with a little
patience (and provided that your visitors have at least some kind of quality).

~~~
taylorbuley
One thing to remember is that publisher revenue is net Google's monetization
cut. Publisher's see just 68% of ad revenue sold on their site. So $150 is
really $220.58 in gross, which is significantly higher.

Another point to remember is that typically publishers only sell to Google
AdSense their unsold (so-called "non-guaranteed") inventory. Typically you
take this money because it's better than nothing, and because you couldn't
sell this inventory yourself. Usually this non-guaranteed inventory has a
lower value then the stuff you'd sell yourself.

There's a lot of reference-style material on news sites, and the CTRs on that
are not bad. Just look at Wirecutter and its affiliate model.

That said, industry average for news display ads is about 0.05%... 1 click per
2,000 impressions. No bueno. Say 3m impression get 1.5k clicks, that's $0.33
CPC net or about $0.49 CPC gross.

------
alexchantavy
Off topic: this is the first time I've heard of GroundUp, and I really like
the "Dear Editor" format of the comment page on this site.

I'm used to seeing mainstream newspaper websites with downright toxic
commenting environments, so seeing "Dear Editor" followed by a thought-out
response is very refreshing. Maybe they have a "better" readership/screening
process/whatever, but I think this higher quality commenting behavior is in
part due to how GroundUp has simply tweaked the wording of the comment box
interface - by framing the comment with "Dear Editor".

~~~
Antrikshy
It's not just the framing. They call their comments "letters". Try clicking
the "Write a letter in response to this article" button. The UI is designed to
promote constructive comments.

~~~
yjain
Thanks for the comment. I found a link to [http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-
guides.html](http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides.html) there which is
very interesting!

------
PaulHoule
When I started with Google ads, Google was classier than other ad networks.
Other ad networks were stuffed with free ringtones, sketchy supplements and
other scams.

Then at some point Google gave me the option to opt out of various
objectionable topics and soon Google ads got as bad as the others. Maybe
Google bought the bad ad networks, or partnered with them or something.

Quite a bit of subtext is largely unexamined. AT&T and Verizon, two of the
biggest advertisers, have pulled out from YouTube. AT&T is the biggest pay TV
provider in the US now (DirecTV) and Verizon wishes you would watch Go90 so
they could sell ads against it. Both of them benefit if ad spend goes
elsewhere than YouTube.

~~~
WorldMaker
I worried when Google bought DoubleClick many years back if Google would
become as bad as DoubleClick. I don't think we can point fingers at any one
thing precisely, but that did seem like an omen at the time.

I think the problem with ads on the internet is that it will always be a race
to the bottom. Ads on TV and in newspapers/magazines have scarcities in play
to somewhat help manage them. Ad space on the internet has never been scarce.

The ad companies (Google and Facebook especially) see themselves as somehow
unbiased market platforms, and I think we are coming to point where the lack
of scarcities leaves "neutral" platforms vulnerable to very cheap "attacks". I
worry that ad platforms need to exert a lot more editorial control in the face
of that and/or start building a lot more artificial scarcity into their
platforms, and I don't think any of them are appropriately incentivized to do
that.

I also worry that Google and Facebook's ad spaces are content spaces: search
ads at the top of search results, and sponsored "posts" that have
like/share/comment abilities. I think that also requires a custodianship and a
moral obligation to editorially control those spaces that neither Google nor
Facebook have thus far been inclined to take enough responsibility for.
Facebook especially, when liked/shared ads graduate to "real" viral content,
entirely blurring the lines between ads and content and giving direct power to
cheap micro-targeting attacks without having some editorial immune system to
help avoid the worst memetic viruses. (Facebook claims to want to do better,
but their fiduciary responsibility incentivizes them not to treat ads as user
hostile infection points.)

~~~
tripzilch
> I worried when Google bought DoubleClick many years back if Google would
> become as bad as DoubleClick.

Me too, but not so much about the content ("ads is ads", I used to think), but
about privacy and the relentless tracking that DoubleClick was doing. And
_oooh boy_ , did that omen ever come true.

Another thing was the moment when I realized the implications of having a
giant Internet-wide ad-network implemented in the form of injected third-party
javascript. I mean, at first it seemed real clever. This wasn't a big thing
back then, just yet. Originally ads were just clickable image links with an
affiliate code in the GET parameter and http-referer tracking (which already
provides an advertiser _way_ more info about their audience then a printed ad
in a magazine would, so _yes_ that _is_ more than sufficient for advertisers
who honestly want to advertise instead of spying on people).

It's a miracle that over the existence of AdSense, nobody ever managed to XSS
the entire Internet. Even if that can be attributed to the AdSense team
awareness of their unique position of responsibility and engineering quality
control or something; We _still_ dodged a bullet with that one, because it
just so happens that it was the Google that came into control of the largest
XSS vector in history. But having quality control and a culture of
responsibility didn't _cause_ becoming the largest and gaining control (it
just means they got to _keep_ it, because it hasn't gone horribly wrong--for
which we are _lucky_ ). A while back I read a comment on HN arguing (though
I'm not sure if they realized) that whether something is a "good product"
depends more on how well it is marketed (and therefore finds its way to people
that can use it) than it depends on the _quality_ of the product. That's
horrible, but like too many horrible things, also true in some sense. So it
just so happened that the ad-network that was marketed best and became one of
the largest and most successful, also happened to be one that was of
sufficient quality to not break the Internet.

------
justabystander
Ad networks regularly serve various forms of malware and spyware, as well as
tracking beacons that put my data at risk of being stolen or misused. And once
it's in a database somewhere, it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen
and someone attempts to hijack accounts or steal an identity.

It's funny how you never see the sites that whine about adblockers offer to
accept legal responsibility for their complicity in the potential theft and
property destruction served from their site. When you take away the option to
protect myself, you accept responsibility for attacks. After all, if it's
_morally /legally wrong_ to alter the presentation of the content they serve,
then they also morally/legally responsible for incidents when they serve it
improperly and cause losses/damages. Quite obviously it's not financially
viable for them to pay for their negligence, and so it's also not financially
viable for me to trust that a site won't host some sort of attack vector.

The pennies of advertising revenue earned from my modest browsing over the
course of a year doesn't pay nearly enough to compensate for the time I lose
through dealing with malicious ads. Unless online advertising cleans itself
up, adblockers will be the best option. And sites that don't respect that
aren't sites I'm interested in.

~~~
chrisan
Genuine question: has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the
past?

I thought they were, while still annoying, safe from serving such content. So
much that if they detect your site has malware they prevent it from serving
their ads
[https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1308246?hl=e...](https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1308246?hl=en)

As such I went along with allowing google ads since it seemed like a good
middle ground between not wanting to have everything pay-walled off and still
allowing sites to generate ad money

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I have gone so far as to suggest a significant portion of Google's revenue is
likely serving malicious content, which leaves them very little incentive to
do anything about it.

Almost every senior citizen I've ever had clean up malware for got it from a
malicious search ad. And the tech support scams they continue to list take
advantage of tons of people as well.

I've pointed out before that Google happily lists phone numbers of tech
support scams on search terms for Windows tech support, but doesn't show ads
at all if you look for Chromebook support, pointing you straight to their
official contact.

As a note, if anyone would like to see examples of this in action, I can go
get screenshots and example links and everything, it just takes a little while
to put together, as I would prefer to offer evidence of what I see "today"
rather than any past examples I might have.

~~~
halflings
> I have gone so far as to suggest a significant portion of Google's revenue
> is likely serving malicious content, which leaves them very little incentive
> to do anything about it.

That's quite a serious accusation :). One that is not substantiated by the
facts:

[https://blog.google/topics/ads/how-we-fought-bad-ads-
sites-a...](https://blog.google/topics/ads/how-we-fought-bad-ads-sites-and-
scammers-2016/)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
A Google blog post is not "the facts". A Google blog post is, in fact, an ad
for Google. Your sources should be independent, and independently verifiable.
What Google says they do is useless, because it cannot be verified.

~~~
victorhooi
Do you have anything specific that would refute anything in the report? Simply
mounting an ad-hominem attack doesn't add anything to the discussion.

It's like somebody saying "Tesla cars suck - they explode". And Elon Musk
comes out and says, "No they don't, here's the testing/validation we did". And
you say "Oh but...but....you work for Tesla. It must be lies!"

If there's factual inaccuracies - of course, that's a different story. But you
seem to be simply saying, "They must be lying, because that suits my
narrative, so I'm not going to bother trying to refute it".

------
phantom_oracle
For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I
am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker.

Then you see all those shitty ads for:

\- finding a russian bride

\- getting rich through some millionaires secret

\- anti-aging remedies

\- adware

and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers
pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is losing.

People keep saying that "journalism is dying", but this industry and its ad-
model isn't very "old" in historical terms. For every Business Insider that
dies, the world will carry on. For quality journalism (an oxymoron of sorts)
and news that matters to people and their circumstances, I assume people will
keep forking out money (like they do for The Economist).

If someone smarter than myself can elaborate, how is Googles business-model
for ads on 3rd-party websites sustainable for the long-term?

~~~
dheera
My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render
your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the
rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian
translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom
stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish.

Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses should account
for that. If it is not sustainable, new business models will be invented. One
thing I've been hoping for is inventing some form of advertising that was
actually fun for the user -- fun enough that they would not want to block
them.

Or invent a system by which 10% of the ad revenue gets cut out to the end
user. That will incentivize people to unblock ads.

~~~
paulcole
> I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish.

Legally I have no idea. But ethically/morally, I'd argue you don't. By
visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views
for content and you're breaking that agreement.

Doesn't feel right to me.

~~~
rootusrootus
I agree. It's just like any other kind of piracy. If the content isn't
valuable enough to see with ads enabled, then the ethical answer is to not
view the content at all.

~~~
dheera
I read newspapers without looking at the ads. I use highways and public
transportation without looking at the billboards. I don't see how it's any
different.

I would say it should be arguably illegal to resell content with ads removed,
but how something is rendered in my brain or inside the confines of my home is
upto me to decide. There's nothing illegal about ripping out the ad pages
before reading a magazine at home.

~~~
zoul
There is a big difference between print and web: by the time you rip the ads
out of the newspaper you have already made it to the ad statistics (“our
newspaper sells X copies daily”). On the other hand, with an ad blocker an ad
load is never recorded. In the first case, the publisher still makes money, in
the second he doesn’t.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Along with several other factors, this is what makes advertising online _more_
valuable, as far as I can tell. Online ads can be far better quantified, in
terms of impact, can appeal more to their target audience, can more easily
provide a service alongside their advertising content, etc. Advertisers were
given a magic wand, but decided to break it over their collective knee and
carrying on waving their empty hands about instead.

------
aws_ls
I think this speaks for 1000s and 1000s of small(er) website publishers. All
squeezed by Google.

For example, we run a website having millions of page views a month. And
similarly frustrated.

If we can divide the slot between 10 advertisers directly, we might make much
more. Perhaps even double than what Adsense pays. The only reason, why we
don't attempt that is time and effort getting directed in an unwanted
direction.

And many small businesses are always struggling for bandwidth to do the core
job (and projects that enthuse them). And Google is getting full advantage of
this situation.[1]

Sometime back, I even wrote to them on falling CPCs (eCPMs) but of course,
Google has a culture of not replying.

Its amazing to see, Internet living with a broken Ad model, for so long. I
can't wait for a browser like Brave to take off. Where we can collect an ultra
small amount from users for pageview, and still make more than Adsense.

[1] I suspect, this squeeze is happening more recently, because Google itself
is feeling the pinch from Facebook. As its stealing a lot of its Ad revenue.

~~~
jes5199
Internet advertising is a bubble - it delivers so little value but so much
money is flowing through it. It has to pop sometime.

~~~
gozur88
What's the alternative? Broadcast television viewership is shrinking, and
skews older. The demographics advertisers like are spending their time playing
games and watching youtube videos.

~~~
bduerst
Sponsored referral, social, direct mail, content syndication, out of home,
etc. are all different channels, but depending on your product and your goals
only a few are worth it (including search/display ads).

------
harwoodleon
I started, ran an sold an ad based business in 2008. To say that most of the
activity in the ad space was dubious back then is a complete understatement.

Most of our traffic to the adverts was generated, purely to syphon off money
from the advertisers and we established this by fingerprinting the traffic
with JS tools at the client side. This was what let me to the conclusion that
the business is dysfunctional, the customers at best are getting wildly ripped
off, their privacy effectively sold off and they open themselves up to huge
amounts of malware too.

Advertising is a horrible business model. But until a new way is found,
people/businesses don't have any other choice of marketing their activities.

I totally stand by the publication. Any publication that really cares about
it's readers will try to find another way.

(Edit: I am viewing this page on a Brave Browser, check it out, it has ad
blocking and publisher micropayments built in
[https://brave.com](https://brave.com))

------
mevile
I always imagined that some website/mobile app/service would appear that would
let you buy subscriptions for access to multiple publishers at once. I think
people have a hard time spending $5 here a month $10 there a month, but would
spend maybe $49 for a range of access to sites. I don't know why something
like that hasn't taken off yet. You could pick the sites you want access to or
they could do a pay out based on where you went and what you read.

~~~
Mz
You can also just do a tip jar model or patreon.

So far, for me, the tip jar has been more successful than ads or Patreon
(though I am new to Patreon, so, time will tell). I would be happy to get rid
of ads altogether (with the exception of one site, for REASONS) if I thought
that would drive up tips. But I have experimented a bit and it didn't seem to
drive up tips.

Then, whenever I read these discussions, there is a great deal of vitriol
about the evil of ads, yet, most people don't actually want to pay for
content. They just want it free. When you suggest this is a broken model and
content producers also deserve compensation, the answer is typically "not my
problem," basically.

As a content producer, I find it enormously frustrating to read some of the
awful things that get said. It reminds me of the line in _All in the Family_
where Archie says men are supposed to have experience before marriage and
women are not and his daughter asks "Who are they supposed to get their
experience with?"

My snarky son's answer: Elderly widows should be deflowering young men. It
fits all the parameters of the expectations while horrifying most people.

An awful lot of people are only thinking about "I don't want ads" and that's
it. They basically want it for free, then don't think about what that means
for the big picture.

/rambling vent

~~~
username223
> You can also just do a tip jar model or patreon.

I've contemplated this kind of thing, but it feels like panhandling, and I'm
reluctant to go there. I would do it if I thought I could do so tastefully and
respectfully.

I'm a (non-tech-related) "content producer," and I absolutely refuse to put up
ads or be a shill or "native advertiser." Instead, I wrote a book, and if
people want to support what I do, they can buy it. It's not enough to be a day
job, but it probably could be with day-job levels of time and effort, and my
"content consumers" appreciate my integrity.

~~~
Mz
When I had donate buttons, I literally had someone tell me I was panhandling
the internet. Tip jars are a better way to signal "It took work to create
value here and compensation is appreciated." It has gotten a very different
response from people.

I am glad your strategy is working for you. But, if you are interested:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-
make-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-make-paypal-
tip-jar.html)

~~~
username223
Thanks for the link. I may give this a try and see if people use it. I think I
have more drive-by readers than regulars, so this probably makes more sense
than Patreon.

BTW, kudos for writing the "Survival Guide." I ran across it at random awhile
ago, and it has some great advice.

~~~
Mz
It would be great to hear (via email) if the tip jar works for you. So far the
only data I have is my own.

------
jjcm
The ad driven models are slowly killing publishing. They're right in what
they're saying - their competition is clickbait that just wants attention. A
view is a view, and an ad will pay out the same regardless of the quality of
the content on the page. I really hope we find a way to distribute payment for
quality content in a better way. It's something that I've been working on
personally because I like publishing content, and I hate having to choose
between marring my content with ads, or losing money if I hit the front page
of reddit.

~~~
GooglyMoogly
>A view is a view, and an ad will pay out the same regardless of the quality
of the content on the page.

That's not really true. Advertisers can bid on how much they want to pay for
each individual impression. Advertisers will likely bid more for ads on high
quality websites. Advertisers will also bid more for people willing to buy
stuff.

~~~
notgood
>Advertisers will likely bid more for ads on high quality websites

Citation needed

> Advertisers will also bid more for people willing to buy stuff.

Unfortunately, there is no correlation between people willing to buy stuff and
high quality content.

~~~
eli
We don't typically sell them this way, but the CPM for an ad on e.g.
retaildive.com is much higher than anything on Google's network.

> Unfortunately, there is no correlation between people willing to buy stuff
> and high quality content.

Citation needed :)

~~~
notgood
Do I really need a citation to prove dumb people have money? Because that's
basically what you are asking. Or perhaps you believe that when people click
an ad on "low-quality" site the are less likely to buy than from the same ad
on "high-quality" site?

Seriously, the "enlargement penis" spam works because the average person is
not that selective on the ads they chose nor the websites they visit.

~~~
Noseshine
> _the "enlargement penis" spam works because the average person is not that
> selective on the ads they chose nor the websites they visit_

I don't think you understand "average". It's the extreme tail of the
distribution that is targeted by such ads.

Example:

> Nigerian scam emails 'deliberately implausible'

> New research from Microsoft suggests that email scammers maximise profits by
> entrapping only the most gullible.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9346371/Nige...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9346371/Nigerian-
scam-emails-deliberately-implausible.html)

------
rampage101
I recently tried putting Google ads on one of my websites. Over the course of
10,000 page views Google shows there were only 7 click throughs.

It does not even make sense because it means there was basically zero mis-
clicks. I don't know how they count a click-through but it seems to be more
than just someone clicking on the ad.

Also I'm pretty tired of hearing how Google are the good guys and 'do no
evil'. It's obvious through their latest YouTube scandals and AdSense they are
literally stealing billions of dollars from individuals around the world.

~~~
mrtksn
You can improve that with better ad space placing and styling but seems about
right. Also 1000 impressions pay about 1 click.

The earnings per click will vary wildly depending on your content
"quality"(whatever Google's algorithms decide is quality) and category(content
about insurance will probably bring better paying insurance ads and content
about 9/11 conspiracies will probably bring less paying ads).

AdSense has many problems but it's not a scam.

------
Jean-Philipe
My experience with google ads was not great. I once ran google ads for my
mom's online shop. Before, there was a constant stream of visitors and
revenue. With google ads, the visitor rate went up crazy - the revenue, not at
all! Despite the fact that the ad was very specific for what you could buy for
how much. Once the google ad credits were all used up, the visitors rate
dropped to almost zero. As if google was punishing us for not running ads
anymore.

------
Safety1stClyde
I too deal with Google as a "publisher", and some of my experiences are
similar to theirs. For example the odd way that they complain about certain
forms of content, apparently prompted by an algorithm and unchecked by a
human.

It seems to me that Google is a kind of corporate "Rain Man" \- they have
amazing abilities, and yet there are also these astonishing failures to deal
with problems which could easily be resolved by a normal corporation.

------
bazillion
I've been saying that the ad model is broken for a while, and prescribing a
real fix for it: a new form of native advertising that actually benefits the
user. My company, PLEENQ[1], makes it so users can hover over an image and
click on the individual products within it to go where they can buy the
product. Here's a demo video:
[https://youtu.be/V_oTtDUV0yI](https://youtu.be/V_oTtDUV0yI)

My solution is to basically build features around the content of sites that
enhance the areas of the site that already attract the users. More
importantly, it simplifies the revenue model that the article talks about --
people click on your links and make purchases, and you get a share of every
single purchase (CPA). The important thing is that it's compatible with any
other revenue models a site might use. If, like GroundUp, they take donations,
then it's just an extra revenue source on top of that.

I looked on GroundUp.org for building an example video of how that would work
so I could show the community, but it doesn't really fit the model of PLEENQ.
Regardless, there are a vast number of niches that this new form of native
advertising would drastically improve the revenue for. Imagine an auto blog
showing a picture of an engine, and you being able to hover over any part
within the picture and purchase it from Auto Zone.

Another thing is that it can be used to split between revenue generating
links, and informational links. Perhaps you have a news site, and a lot of
your articles have pictures of politicians that your users might not be
familiar with -- how about hovering over that person and being able to click
on them to go to their Wikipedia page? I think that would greatly benefit a
user browsing the site, and wouldn't cheapen in any way the experience of the
site itself (in fact would greatly improve it).

[1] [http://pleenq.com](http://pleenq.com)

~~~
nso
While cool as a tech (hello again <map>, i did not miss you) , most sites do
not have large pictures of sellable items -- and far from every country has
amazon as a reasonable choice due the cost of shipping and import tax.

Maybe it is cool for pink bloggers (
[https://goo.gl/OFWwmp](https://goo.gl/OFWwmp) ), but I don't see the use case
for the masses like you do with adsense.

------
hartator
Adsense has became a less and less attractive option. Ad quality is poor,
revenue per click lower and lower, policies are enforced weirdly and keep
changing, force you to display annoying cookie modals, etc.

------
hawski
I had a bit silly idea about financing of web services.

Create beautiful, fast and very lean web serivce - "easy" part. It should be
very lean - every page at most few hundred kB.

Serve the website with useless bytes at front. Example: page weights 100kB -
add 500kB of garbage to it at front. You can place them in html or js comment.
You can add useless EXIF data to jpegs. You could place small number in every
HTTP header. Or you could add artificial latency to every request.

Then you sell those useless bytes or milliseconds. Your bytes could really be
unicode glyphs. Example: a dollar for every byte per month. When a user leases
a specific byte you can send it to him by an e-mail for increased silliness
factor. He leased it, so it will not be sent to anyone else as long as he
pays.

That way you can specify a ceiling of profits. 500kB at one dollar per kB can
bring you at most $500k per month. It seems fair, a bit like Patreon targets.

I thought about doing a service this way. And even a platform - providing web
server configs and plug-ins that would do all this selling of bytes process,
also payment processor for bytes that would also run on the idea.

~~~
noxToken
I absolutely hate the idea of serving garbage byte to users - even if it is
only 500 kB worth.

The internet already has enough useless cruft. CNN loads 4.9 mB of data with
no adblockers. Fox News loads 2.6 mB. MSNBC loads 4.2 mB. The Guardian (US
Edition) loads 4.3 mB. Padding a site with 500 kB (or really any amount of
bytes) is unfair to mobile users without unlimited data plans.

A user who visits your site twice per week and navigates to 5 different pages
on your site each visit receives about 12 mB of garbage bytes per month.This
isn't that big a deal if only one site is doing it, but imagine if that's how
all sites did it?

~~~
hawski
If people would support the site all the garbage would disappear for everyone.
If a dollar for a byte is a bit too high, you could place a ceiling at $5000 -
it would be around 100 bytes for a dollar.

It would be an alternative to ads. Ads are a padding plus unfairness and
dishonesty. They also track you and run code on your machine. This would be
just a padding.

A creator has to eat and people don't have to use his site. Those that like it
and would want to make it even better can pay.

And don't forget that a first step was to create a _lean_ website. 200kB +
500kB padding would still be more than 2 times less then any website you
mentioned. For this to work the website would have to prove from time to time
how it would work without useless bytes. You could also serve less useless
bytes.

However it could still work with added latency instead of bytes. Example: 50ms
every 100kB.

------
rdl
You really need different monetization for different kinds of sites.

1) Low quality, high volume, low overhead: google ads.

2) High quality/high value, low volume, niche: subscription/services

3) Medium quality, low volume, niche: donation

The only form of advertising I'd ever want on my site, unless it is a very low
quality, is direct sold by my own staff (i.e. me). I'd probably optimize for
effort and just do a single "sponsor" for each month, or maybe ongoing. The
low-touch way is probably to pick a relevant CPA program (say, Audible) and
pitch that to your own audience.

~~~
camillomiller
Everyone always forgets about Amazon referrals. For certain categories it's a
valuable and inobtrusive monetization method

~~~
rdl
They recently killed electronics referral fees, though.

------
wonderway
I often wonder how much revenue my hometown newspaper makes off online adds --
[http://newspressnow.com](http://newspressnow.com).

When you first go to the site, a Credit Karma ad or Rite Aid ad popup appears
(promoted by Kixer).

Close that and you see a site just overwhelmed by ads, some local. Then they
have the "Sponsored Links" by Content.ad saying:

\- "Cheaper and Stronger than Adderral"

\- "Don't watch this video around you wife <insert photo of model>"

\- "Fruits that fight diabetes"

\- "Biblical solutions to weight loss"

The local owners of the newspaper, sold their cable company for $350 million
which they had owned for 45 years (Cablevision->Suddenlink).

If an exceptionally wealthy local newspaper owner can't offer content in a
reasonable way without egregious deceptive links, who can?

This type of behavior should be heavily criticized, especially by those who
can afford to avoid it. Instead, it's considered business as usual.

------
danieka
I noticed how civil all the comments are. I wonder if automatically prepending
all comments with "Dear Editor" makes people think twice before writing the
more common and nasty form of comments usual found in the comment sections of
news pages?

~~~
scrollaway
It definitely looks like it's prepending with Dear Editor and appending the
date/name as signature. Really cool :)

------
anoisyboy
I added this article to /. (Slashdot) and it was marked as spam, sending it's
rating black and instantly damaging it's chance of being seen, yet here it has
proper and full engagement?!? How did someone at /. consider this spam?
Hopefully someone here can shed some light.

~~~
campuscodi
Don't worry. People on slashdot complain about HN mods.

------
beezischillin
It's such a weird time to be alive: with all the controversy around
advertising nowadays we're kind of seeing Google's previously invulnerable
tendrils around the Internet slowly being peeled off. That being their major
source of income, they must be worried. I am too, but for another reason -- I
don't want a company like Facebook taking over and establishing a monopoly
(say what you will about Google, companies like Facebook are even less
ethical).

~~~
JKCalhoun
Is it no easier to peel back the tendrils of Facebook though?

------
J-dawg
This might be a stupid question, but is it possible to monetise a website
successfully using entirely "dumb" adverts with no ad networks involved?

I mean ads which are simply an image inside an <a> tag. Presumably this is how
everyone was doing it before the ad networks existed? (I was around in the 90s
but never really thought about it.)

I guess it would take a lot of extra work and expense to approach potential
advertisers and make deals. But on the upside you could host only well-curated
ads that are relevant to your audience. Presumably they would also be
difficult to block (although I suppose ad blockers could start recognising
images, maybe they do this already?)

Has anyone had any success doing this? Is it likely to become more common as
ad blocking increases?

I feel like I'm missing something incredibly obvious!

~~~
GuB-42
I've seen it done on some websites. Typically as a partnership with an online
shop that sells things of interest for the website audience.

It is probably very effective if you have an audience with well targeted
interests. For example a site about espresso coffee may partner with a shop
that sells high end espresso machines and specialty coffee.

However, it is much harder if a website has a broader audience. A news network
probably has no clue about what visitors want to spend their money on, so
either they use an ad network that does the targeting for them, or they are
limited to less beneficial generic partnerships.

------
pasbesoin
At some point, someone is going to turn static visual (and text, I suppose)
ads (back, per the "text" part) into a competitive advantage. Why? Because
they actually get through. For the graphics, forcefully stripped of any meta-
data and corners of the format that can become mal-ware vectors.

I'll put up with ads that don't move or make noise at me. And that don't/can't
try to infect me.

But, no one wants to do that.

Stalemate.

My fear is that, in addition to increasingly locking down the web, the new DRM
extensions will be used to force (crap-laden) ads upon us. Content and crap
will all get packaged up together, as an encrypted binary. Et voilà, no more
open Web.

P.S. Yeah, I don't want to look at gross medical ads, either. So, I guess I
have a few more qualifications, personally.

------
killjoywashere
> our articles get much more traffic on mainstream media that republish us,
> but we receive no advertising revenue from this

Um, so, shouldn't you be charging a syndication fee, probably a percentage of
_their_ ads displayed on your articles?

------
sidcool
Honestly, I won't use an ad-blocker if the ads weren't so creepily targeted
and so annoyingly pervasive. Hell, I don't even mind looking and clicking on
some ads if they are not intrusively shoved down my throat.

------
arundhatikher
I fully acknowledge the frustration with AdSense. And their rules are prudish
and seemingly intermittent in nature-- at one's whim, if you get my meaning. I
see nothing wrong with the above image and there is no nudity involved. I've
seen more skin on a public beach.

The real question at this point is, how are you going to pay for your site? I
realize AdSense payments are tiny, but they are at least something. How do you
plan on replacing those payments? Our site wouldn't be able to pay our writers
without that tiny bit of revenue.

In any case, I applaud your efforts and wish you the best.

------
gregable
A large problem here is that ads only support one type of content: low-cost
and large-audience.

Content ads, more or less, offer a fixed amount per impression. Sure, you
might get a higher ad price for certain audiences than others, but this is
related to topic, not the quality or cost of content.

If you only make a fixed amount per impression, the only business model low-
cost content targeting a large audience. High quality (aka high cost) content,
with a narrow interest audience needs a different model.

That different model is probably charging your reader. However, the moment you
set up a paywall, the content disappears. Search engines will not suggest the
content, feed readers can't access it, suggestion interfaces won't suggest it,
etc. The content might as well not exist.

We don't need micropayments. We need a model where paywall content can be
discovered. Systems whereby paywall content can be accessed by aggregators who
then can suggest/search/deliver the content, but will not give the content to
users without payment.

------
guelo
I applaud the advertisers. For a good long while racists were afraid or
ashamed to push their racism too publicly. I liked that world, less hate and
venom being spewed around poisoning the public sphere. But something snapped
in the last few years and all the assholes have become loud and proud of their
assholiness and they are celebrated and encouraged to be the biggest asshole
they can possibly be. From what I can tell it is linked to gaming and 4chan, a
new culture of young aggressive males raised on shock and gore and porn and no
consequences. For the good of civilization this needs to be bottled up.
Racists need to be ashamed again. Assholes need to return to pretending to be
decent human beings. The great human achievement that makes civilized society
possible is keeping testorene fueled young males under some control to allow
things to be built up instead of always being torn down. If we lose that then
everything is lost.

~~~
hoppa_liza
While I generally agree with you, I do not think _control_ is the best route,
but rather guidance. Oppressing/bottling high energy individuals is
destructive on the long run even if it seems otherwise at the beginning.
Directing this energy into a constructive path however is more beneficial to
the individuals themselves as well as the communities they live in.

------
tripzilch
That's awesome to hear. In particular reading the comments and finding that
this sentiment is echoed among many of us.

For what it's worth, some of us just never _stopped_ putting cool and
interesting content online, for free, without monetizing it with ads (except
perhaps as a short-duration experiment in the early 2000s when this madness
started taking off).

If I wanted to get paid to let someone shit all over and between that
content/media, I'd be writing/designing _very_ different content. ... unless
maybe it was an art project to explicitly demonstrate the fragility of
excellence (okay maybe that's a cool idea actually--this besides the point :p)

------
nathan_f77
"Less than $200" seems like a very small amount of money for 329,000
impressions. I imagine the number might be higher if the readers were mostly
from the US, instead of South Africa.

But still, you're not going to make a lot of money from a few hundred thousand
impressions. In my experience, a YouTube video with 1,000,000 views will give
you around $1,000. That's nowhere near enough to sustain a company or pay any
employees.

Right now I'm working on a game (which I hope to launch soon and show on HN!).
While I dislike ads, I'm still going to put them in my game, because I enjoy
making money more than I hate ads. I think Google and AdMob will mostly serve
ads for other games, so they're not so bad.

------
tke248
If malware writers can get toasters to mine bitcoin a browser should be able
to do the same for content creators, this would incentize people to make more
engaging content the longer people stay on your page the more you make.

------
meatyapp
Interesting to see this on HN. I use AdMob in my app. Do my stats seem normal
to you guys? ~70-100k impressions a day = ~$4-9, not enough for me to eat...

pics of the details can be found here:
[http://i.imgur.com/NDubFOO.png](http://i.imgur.com/NDubFOO.png)

Please help:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/reactnative/comments/64wwge/ads_mak...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactnative/comments/64wwge/ads_making_little_money_pic_included_any_advice/)

------
elorant
The real problem is that Google approves pretty much everyone for AdSense.
Which works in favor of scammers and plagiarism. Someone scrapes content from
respectable sites, parse them through an article spinning mechanism and voila,
you have a legitimate looking site with absolutely no original content on it.
Google shouldn't be approving any of those sites for ads. But they do, and
that's a bit shocking for all of us who grew fond of them because of the "do
no evil" mantra. Well Google, you're doing evil and perhaps it's time to do
something about it.

------
tracker1
If google would simply charge a "review fee" for new adverts, or when a target
for an advert changes (via detection), that could cover the cost of manual
review. Another fee to "challenge" review, etc...

This would allow good advertisers to pay once or twice a month for reviews on
new ad campaigns and the spammy throw it all at the wall campaigns less
likely. But google isn't interested in quality... but quantity, so they can
charge higher rates per view/click.

------
wkoszek
Google Ads I've put on my koszek.com once. Then while doing some layout
changes I saw all sorts of things being displayed. Some really inappropriate
-- in my Google Summer of Code writeups I got some ulcer and sex-related ads.
And I removed it then, never looked back. Not worth compromising your quality.

Right now I only use Amazon Affiliate and I guess only because it's (a) easy
to get a link to the books I review (b) they are actually controlled by me, at
least in theory. No flipping products Amazon is randomly sending me.

------
mtgx
Seeing posts like these always send me back to when I was reading comments
saying that Google _needs_ to track you all over the web because that's how it
serves you "relevant ads".

How is that working so far? For all the tracking Google does through Google
analytics, Google search, and the Play Android framework, you'd think ads
would be a lot better by now.

What's funny is that Google seems quick to _fire publishers_ but it's never so
quick to _fire advertisers_.

------
Flenser
It's interesting how the comments on that page are so respectful. I wonder if
it's entirely due to the templated "Dear Editor" and "Sincerely" formatting,
i.e. remove those words and I wouldn't infer the same perception of
respectfulness, that the templating encourages more respectful comments, or
just good moderation and I can't see all the bad comments that have been
submitted but not shown.

------
return0
Google incentivizes so much of the content you read on the web, it's fair to
say it's "Google's web" at the moment. What alternatives are there though?
People can try dropping adsense, but for most websites it would hurt them more
than they can handle. I wish there were better advertising systems, but,
compared to the rest, adsense is actually better. Advertisers need to come up
with better ideas.

------
nurettin
Months ago I was excited to get google ads into my app and monetize a project
on google play for the first time ever.

After a few dozen bucks, the ads turned into virus scams, +18 hotlines, which
I am pretty sure I unchecked the last time I logged into admob's web
interface, so I removed it. Good riddance.

Now thanks to google (ironically) I sell in-app purchases to enable features.

------
tps5
> Perhaps at some point online publishers [will] find a new way to solicit
> advertising from reputable companies that pay properly.

Someone get on this.

~~~
username223
That was The Deck, and they recently shut down:
[http://decknetwork.net/](http://decknetwork.net/)

In the near future, it will be total war between amoral lowlife hucksters, and
cheapskate users.

------
reilly3000
Those rates are consistent with much of the world. It's typical in the US,
Canada, UK, and AU to average about a dollar per thousand visitors. There is
very little demand from advertisers for global ad inventory. Part of it is
fear of click farms, but mostly corporations are simply interested in reaching
consumers and top tier markets.

------
72deluxe
The argument appears to be about whether to block adverts and whether this is
ethical or not. The real reason for adverts is to pay for the site and its
content.

I think the real argument should be about how we pay for content on a site and
how to solve that problem instead of arguing about the adverts.

Why didn't HTTP 402 ever take off?

------
tabeth
If no one would pay money for your service then isn't it inherently valueless?
Advertisements is just a scam that's gonna pop eventually.

I'd pay a lot of websites a buck a month for access. Multiply this by millions
and you see. It's only when you introduce advertisements that the craziness
begins.

~~~
return0
> Multiply this by millions and you see

I would be curious to know how many websites have millions of paying
subscribers.

------
QuadrupleA
It would be interesting to do a study, for a busy site with a big enough
sample size, counting ad clicks locally and then comparing with Google's
reports. I imagine you could attach your own javascript events etc. to do your
own comparative statistics, and see if Google is cheating.

------
Joberror
Haha! In quote,

"Google pays a tiny amount each time an ad appears, and a somewhat larger
amount if readers click on an ad. To understand exactly how the payment system
works requires several PhDs, a four-digit IQ and stay-awake drugs."

That's enough for GroundUp to make these decision.

------
mack73
I have a solution to the problem of having an ad network (Google) as the
dictator of the internet.

1\. Create a new browser where the concept of a URL is missing.

2a. Make terms, keywords, concepts first-class citizens. Ban URLs alltogether.
Search using keywords to get to the places you want to go, not by typing URLs.

2b. Make it so that the browser gets smarter as you go and accustomed to your
prose (the way you formulate your queries).

3\. Make it so that the internet index is centralized so that all your
browsers use the same "lookup URLS through keywords" service. Also let people
use a local index version.

4\. Create a buzz around this new browser. Start in the tech community of your
choice. They will love using something that has a fair chance of becoming a
Google-killer.

5\. Your mom and dad already want to use this new browser. URLs are not
important to them. Today, they google for "www.facebook.com" before starting
their internet session.

6\. We are done here. Internet has re-booted. We all profit.

Point 2b makes this perfect for the [random tech incubator], wouldn't you
agree?

~~~
nottorp
Except you'll replace Google with another Google...

------
bg0
Are you doing any alternative methods of ad revenue or just removing ads from
the site entirely?

------
kome
Those people finally woke up, when others will start following the example?

Advertising is not an easy job: and it takes more than a few lazy banner to do
it right. The current model, the one pushed by Google, has no future. Using
adblocks is a duty we have to change the system.

------
tripzilch
Sometimes, I really wonder how the advertising industry actually earns their
bread.

By which I don't mean how they provide a service, in exchange for monetary
compensation, in exchange for goods (bread).

I mean I wonder how they _earn_ it.

------
StreamBright
People should realize that Ad-blocking became a way of protecting users from
malware and scam that even Google includes in their system. I understand that
they do their best to remove these sort of things but they are doing a shitty
job.

------
drumttocs8
Well? So why isn't there a better source of ad revenue than Google Ads?

------
known
Relevant
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13992576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13992576)

------
malikNF
But they still have google analytics on their site.

------
Elect2
To me the biggest problem with Adsense is that I can not place the ad code to
"modern" pages with ajax-loaded content.

------
jlebrech
I wouldn't be on any social network if i had to pay $1 a month, but how much
am I worth to them i wonder.

~~~
dhimes
I would pay if they would keep my privacy, but I realize it would lock a lot
of the world out. From last year's financials it looked like you were worth
just over that to Facebook.

------
Practicality
So many of these problems go away if we just enforce higher quality (less
annoying) ads.

------
eddd
Average CPM for ad online is 5$. Would you pay 0.005$ for rendering most of
the websites?

~~~
dhimes
Seriously? I pay about $0.50 per CPM.

------
epmaybe
Is there a group discount for subscriptions to major journalistic outlets?

------
manfredsinger11
very interesting. I was thinking of removing Google Ads from my site too. I
think websites such as BuySellAds can easily double my site's revenue.

------
malchow
Seven years ago I cofounded a genuine alternative platform to Google Ads
(Publir). The company is doing remarkably well and we have many happy
publishers (and users). Happy to answer questions here or via PM.

------
paulcole
>So Google accepts get-rich-quick ads featuring famous people without their
permission

Just curious but is there any way to know for sure whether those images are
licensed or not?

------
madshiva
Who will pay for my comment? Yeah I make comment I should be pay with Ad.
Seriously the Internet was about freedom not money. 99% of journalism article
are crap and I will not pay for 40 pages that don't go to the point and
summarize. You get all the blablabla for nothing, and can find the info at
another place. Tell me where is the value added? Almost everythings that I do
I share it for free, it's like that, I don't care, I'm not Mark Z. I don't try
to find how to get money first... Let the web free, free of Ads.

------
627467
I've been saying that when you're selling ad space, knowing your buyer is as
important as knowing your audience. In the traditional online ad (Google and
alikes) model that knowledge is lost to third party algorithms. And worst,
feeds the generic ad blockers which destroy the reliability of said
algorithms.

Theoutline.com is an example of how the new relationship between
brands<>publishers<>audience will evolve.

~~~
phoneyphone
For those who want no ads at all, try using Outline.com

