Given Techdirt's philosophy I'm surprised they don't restrict themselves to only accepting individually curated, self-hosted ads.
Those don't make any money.
Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
91–100 of 158 posts
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know much about adding ads to a website like this. Is there really no alternative to Google?
For a small site, Amazon Associates is probably the most reliable and non-shady opportunity besides Google. If the site get's a few million pageviews a month, options improve.
If you're in a niche area you could try selling ads directly to relevant companies, preferably with a geographical connection
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#93Earlier 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.
I don't think it's the job of private actors to stop a monopoly from forming. Google's acquisition of double-click should have never been approved by the SEC.
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#94A 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…
How does one ever start a business after such a ban? Does this require a co-founder who runs the marketing?
Just don't use AdSense. Starting a business depending on AdSense money is a bad idea to begin with, even if you have a good account. It can just randomly be banned and you will never know why.
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does one ever start a business after such a ban? Does this require a co-founder who runs the marketing?
Just don't use AdSense. Starting a business depending on AdSense money is a bad idea to begin with, even if you have a good account. It can just randomly be banned and you will never know why.
And the other way round? How do you make your business known if you cannot buy the top search result position?
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#96Earlier 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.
It's like being told you are heir to the throne, and many engineers carry that same princely arrogance obliviously. At least doctors and lawyers have gone through a second gauntlet after acing school to temper this somewhat. Those fields might not even start making good money until you are years above the entry level, even with a pricey professional degree.
I would argue a second gauntlet only makes matters worse not better for "arrogance".
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#97Google would probably be happy if their ads ran only on sites that had only the site's own content. It wouldn't be surprising if Google de-monetized all sites that allow random users to submit comments.
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just don't use AdSense. Starting a business depending on AdSense money is a bad idea to begin with, even if you have a good account. It can just randomly be banned and you will never know why.
And the other way round? How do you make your business known if you cannot buy the top search result position?
Be the best, get some seed customers and get them to do your grass roots advertising?
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#99I've never understood why media companies don't treat ad sales as a core business. They are in the business of delivering ads to eyeballs, so why are they outsourcing their core business. I can see outsourcing the ad platform. However sales should be in house, and they should exercise editorial control over who is allowed to advertise.
For the same reason why newspaper ads are rarer these days I would guess - next to nobody goes to them for their ads so the prices demandable tend to be lower than commodity or harder to fufill.
Re: Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous
#100A 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…
How does one ever start a business after such a ban? Does this require a co-founder who runs the marketing?
You hire a digital marketing agency or a marketing manager that has contacts inside Google Ads to get you unflagged. I work at a national nonprofit and while we could handle the marketing in house, we simply get too much in donations from Google Ads to risk being randomly flagged with no recourse.
$3k/month to an agency to handle all the Google/Bing/FB ad campaigns and A/B testing and to deal with Google's automated BS gives us close to 10x the ROI.