
Ask HN: Poor Adnetwork Participation and Usage - robert_lefebvre
The following third-party study shows an incredibly poor participation rate by websites in what is probably the dominant &quot;website monetization&quot; method. I&#x27;m concerned I have read way too much into this lack of participation by websites. I&#x27;m looking at it like 2&#x2F;3 of website operators fail to monetize their web traffic and are letting that potential income go down the drain. I&#x27;m looking for some other perspectives to explain why only 1&#x2F;3 of website participate in ad networks operated by some giant companies (such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, yahoo etc)? Here&#x27;s the link: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;w3techs.com&#x2F;technologies&#x2F;overview&#x2F;advertising&#x2F;all
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luckylion
Not everybody is trying to make money directly from their website. If you're
an online-shop, you don't want ads from random people on your site. If you're
a company/govt agency/non-profit etc running a website to promote your
services, you don't want ads on your site. If you're a normal person with a
personal site, you don't want ads on your site.

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robert_lefebvre
Thanks for the feedback. Do you think it reasonable to believe 2/3 of website
operators would have the objections you list or is it possible that the ad
network industry is under serving a large portion of the website operators?
Also, two of three use cases you mentioned were websites that were trying to
get money from visitors so is it possible they might change their opinions
with more lucrative payment for displaying ads?

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luckylion
I believe it's reasonable, yes. The SEO/Affiliate-market is strong, but the
rest of the economy is much larger and runs a lot more websites.

Commercial websites are made to (help) make money, but you'll likely not
convince somebody who has a non-ad business model to include ads. Similarly, a
lawyer runs his office to make money, but he won't let you put up billboards
with ads in his office, even if he could make a little extra money, because it
would likely impact his primary business.

