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Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

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Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#61

Post by syshum »

madacoo wrote: post #4

It's refreshing to see an assumption of incompetence rather than malice, since I seem to have come across the idea that Google is questionably motivated by ideology rather a lot recently. One thing I don't understand is why Google continues to try to use algorithmic solutions for content moderation. Surely the frequent false positives ends up hurting potential revenue? And would it not be able to hire people to at le…

At some level though incompetence has to transition to malice.

Do we really believe Google does not have the resources to hire and retain competent people? or are they willfully incompetent as a shield or cover for their malice

How many times can they play "oops our bad it was just a mistake"

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#62

Post by celestialcheese »

vezycash wrote: post #47
nkozyra wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of alternatives to Adsense but none of them are comparable. They all take a huge dive in RPM, are iffy with UX and security and tend to not last long. My personal account was locked out of Adsense in the same way years back. A violation every 5 months or so, which I always "corrected." Then one day it's just off. I respond and eventually Adsense is restored. Then a few weeks later, closed and banned.…

> There are plenty of alternatives to Adsense but none of them are comparable. There are two companies that could have helped minimize Adsense's monopoly but decided not to: Microsoft and Facebook.

Facebook had a strong display ad product for a while, Audience Network, but they shut that down Q1 this year for web traffic. Only app ads now.

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#63

Post by celestialcheese »

phoboslab wrote: post #28
reaperducer wrote: post #6

I think the more correct answer to "Why Are Currently No Ads on Techdirt?" is "Because we put all of our eggs in one basket." Don't build a single point of failure into your revenue stream. There are plenty of alternatives to Google that they should have been using in a smaller way that they could then move into prime position. That way, Techdirt's revenue might have been diminished, but not eliminated.

I'm curious, what are the "plenty of alternatives" exactly? We have tried a lot of different advertising networks and sadly we have found none that's even in the same ballpark as AdSense (revenue wise). Advertising on the web is a shit show.

TripleLift, Sharethrough, AppNexus (now Xander), Rubicon Project, OpenX, GumGum, Index, Amazon A9. There are dozens of video demand partners as well. All of those have performed as well or better, from my experience.

Where google has all of them beat is payment terms - net 21 is hard to beat.

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#64

Post by jasonv »

esperent wrote: post #57
scottrogowski wrote: post #49

A few months ago, I tried experimenting with Google ads to drive some traffic to a side project of mine which was basically a chess-over-videochat website. A little more than 40 impressions later, it was taken down for being "in violation of our Google ad policies". There was never any indication what the violation actually was. I replied and asked several times hoping to get a human to tell me what I had actually do…

I don't know much about adding ads to a website like this. Is there really no alternative to Google?

I've been reviewing self-service ad sales & serving plugins for Wordpress sites and my conclusion would be: no, there isn't.

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#65

Post by danShumway »

reaperducer wrote: post #6

I think the more correct answer to "Why Are Currently No Ads on Techdirt?" is "Because we put all of our eggs in one basket." Don't build a single point of failure into your revenue stream. There are plenty of alternatives to Google that they should have been using in a smaller way that they could then move into prime position. That way, Techdirt's revenue might have been diminished, but not eliminated.

I want to medium-to-heavy push back on this.

Techdirt didn't build a single point of failure into their revenue stream, otherwise the title of this article would be, "Why is Techdirt closing down?". Their support page[0] lists 8 different revenue sources other than Google Ads.

And this is precisely the type of diversity that you want. Signing up for 5 different ad networks isn't really good diversity, because:

A) your different revenue streams are cannibalizing each other (there's a limit to how many different ad networks you can shove on the same page), so you can't grow your revenue as you diversify,

but more importantly,

B) many of the factors that affect one ad network (ad blocking, political pressures and privacy laws, fundamental inability to moderate well) will affect all of them.

It's not good to have 5 different revenue streams that can all simultaneously be destroyed by the same event. In that scenario you've increased complexity, but you haven't gotten a significant gain in reliability. On the other hand, pulling in money from advertising, Patreon, merchandise, product commissions, and even Kickstarter campaigns means that no single event will ruin your site.

I think it's important for people looking to diversify income streams to think about what each new income stream offers, rather than just duplicating an existing stream X times. I don't see any advantage in having 5 different frameworks for serving ads on a single site. I see a lot of advantages from setting up a Patreon on the side and selling podcast ads outside of your site.

[0]: https://www.techdirt.com/pages/support.php

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#66

Post by ngold »

throwaway_1299 wrote: post #15
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems one could even argue that Google's focus on algorithmic rather than human solutions is a kind of harmful ideology It's the kind of ideology that you often find in people who think they are smarter than everyone else.

As someone who is in a similar domain / company, no one knows how to do this at planet scale unless you narrow it down to a very short list (which is typically very large sums of money). My back of napkin math from another comment: I work in a similar space and it is significantly complex and expensive to do this. Back of the napkin math - * Lets say on average customers contact Google support once a year for each pr…

Yes google should have as many people working for it as the advertising industry that it savaged. It should at least have customer service. You know a phone number you call to talk to someone.

These apologies to mega corporate is very sad. I am disappointed in you.

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#67

Post by grumple »

nkozyra wrote: post #34
reaperducer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of alternatives to Adsense but none of them are comparable. Which is why I stated that they should be run secondary to AdSense. At least they'd be ready to go when Google decided to shut Techdirt down. Something is better than nothing.

Have you done this? I've run remnant alternatives and quite honestly the RPMs almost make it pointless. I'm talking $0.01 - $0.05 CPM when Adsense was averaging ~ $3

You're saying you only made 5 cents after generating a thousand clicks on an ad?

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#68

Post by bryanrasmussen »

tmpz22 wrote: post #12
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems one could even argue that Google's focus on algorithmic rather than human solutions is a kind of harmful ideology It's the kind of ideology that you often find in people who think they are smarter than everyone else.

Imagine being plucked from college at 22 and getting payed 200k+ total compensation with an introduction telling you how you're now one of the best at your field working with the smartest people in the world... how you're changing the world before you've even been on-boarded.

I think I was a pretty cynical bastard at 22 so I would actually have thought they were full of it.

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#69

Post by [deleted] »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #8
madacoo wrote: post #4

It's refreshing to see an assumption of incompetence rather than malice, since I seem to have come across the idea that Google is questionably motivated by ideology rather a lot recently. One thing I don't understand is why Google continues to try to use algorithmic solutions for content moderation. Surely the frequent false positives ends up hurting potential revenue? And would it not be able to hire people to at le…

>It seems one could even argue that Google's focus on algorithmic rather than human solutions is a kind of harmful ideology It's the kind of ideology that you often find in people who think they are smarter than everyone else.

[deleted]

Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

#70

Post by sli »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #68
tmpz22 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being plucked from college at 22 and getting payed 200k+ total compensation with an introduction telling you how you're now one of the best at your field working with the smartest people in the world... how you're changing the world before you've even been on-boarded.

I think I was a pretty cynical bastard at 22 so I would actually have thought they were full of it.

Sometimes there's a very fine line between cynicism and realism.
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