How embarrassing. Is the revenue from such a junk ad really enough to warrant eroding the credibility of a site that's purportedly about user experience? It's a bit like blasting 100 db audio ads in a new restaurant's dining room because "revenue is important."
One or two weeks ago I submitted an article[1] I posted to my blog to both HN and Reddit. I also added a Google Ads block hidden in the sidebar (admittedly not the best spot) to get some experience with Adsense since I had never used it before. So far I'm on 6000 page impressions and 5 clicks with the estimated earning of a pack of chewing gum.
So extrapolate from this what you will if I had plastered more ads in more prominent places.
Conventional wisdom is to drop the ads from a piece when it first goes live so that Reddit/Digg/HN/Stumbleupon can jump on it without distraction. Those sites come with a 0% clickthru anyway so you're not losing anything.
Then, a week later, you can put the ads back in place. All the linking has been done, so now you get people flowing in thru organic SEO. Those people are more likely to stick around and possibly click ads.
I've never heard that put so elegantly before. I just quoted you on my Facebook. I've never used AdBlock and I never have, but I've always wondered how many people actually use it because the people who do use it would have you believe it's the majority of people on the net (from our demographic, at least).
I'm curious about the numbers as well. I couldn't imagine surfing without it (or Privoxy or Junkbuster in the days of yore) although I do disable it for a few sites I support.
* AdSense is commonly known as blogger welfare. There are a few people making huge money from it, but they use techniques you would probably never want to adopt (content farms, keyword arbitrage, etc...). Generally speaking, you use AdSense to supplement your main monetization strategy that should be something better.
* Boxes, like the one criticized in the article, tend to convert very well.
* Programmers are the worst demographic to monetize, particularly with ads, and even worse with the often not-so-contextual ads from AdSense.
* ProgrammingZen and Math-Blog used to receive similar amounts of traffic when I used to have ads on both. I make 4 figures a year from AdSense ads placed on Math-Blog. ProgrammingZen on the other hand generated a few dollars a month at best, much like your experience. Keep in mind that Math-Blog is still fairly technical, so I wouldn't discount AdSense a priori, but the less technical the better (in general).
* Having a programming or very technical blog I'd suggest that you try to monetize/support it through affiliate links to reputable merchants like Amazon. I make 4 figures a month from the Amazon Associates program alone (albeit not from ProgrammingZen alone, of course).
Thanks for the points. One of the reviewers of the article (Hi Marijn!) made most of these as well. It was never my intention (or expectation) to make money with it, I just wanted to see the other side of AdWords since I might have a need for those in the near future.
I hang up on telemarketers with no qualms of being impolite. I don't read content behind paywalls (and don't complain about them - it is readily apparent that I'm not in their target demographic).
I treat people that know me courteously and they like me.
Telemarketers are a whole different story: You never asked them to contact you. : )
Websites are a whole different story. You decided to visit them. Once you are on their site, they decide the rules. (As long as they are not doing anything illegally.)
Also note that I sometimes choose to block ads even if it
Wait, what? Where was I unpolite? More to the point: if anything is rude, it's tricking users into looking at ads instead of the content they were promised when they clicked on a link.
By trying to decide what is accepted behaviour for web site owners to do on their own web sites. (Apologies if I misunderstood your point.)
> More to the point: if anything is rude, it's tricking users into looking at ads instead of the content they were promised when they clicked on a link.
Do you also complain about advertising at shopping centers, bus stations, airports etc?
> By trying to decide what is accepted behaviour for web site owners to do on their own web sites.
The point of Adblock is not to control what web site owners do on their own web sites, but only to control how I experience that content. As I wrote in my OP, "Adblock is one damn easy way to improve your own user experience. [emphasis added]"
Web site owners are welcome to try and get their visitors to look at ads. Their visitors are welcome, in turn, to take measures to block those ads.
> Do you also complain about advertising at shopping centers, bus stations, airports etc?
Yes, as a matter of fact - rather, I don't complain about it but I do try to avoid going to those places for just that reason. However, whereas it's hard to block out billboards in external locations where one is physically present (unless one is willing to accept a Steve Mann-level of technological mediation), it's quite easy to block ads on web pages that are served freely into my own browser, which is installed on my own computer.
