Commercial and Non-Commercial

what's the difference?

[StoutFiles]

I was hoping to put an RSS feed on one of my websites; however, the terms state that only non-commercial websites can have them.

What defines a site as non-commercial? I did a review of the definition of commercial and it was "to sell something". The site I'd like to use it on does not sell anything...but it does have Adsense on it, naturally with a dedicated server I can't afford to host it without some income coming in. Does this count as selling something? Is any income generated counted as commercial?

They also said that the feeds were fine on blogs. Are blogs really non-commercial these days? Most have ads or donation buttons on them as well...

I checked the history of WebmasterWorld for the answer but a true definition was never found.

[Syzygy]

Are you deriving any sort of income from your website? If the answer is yes, which in your case it is, then it is commercial.

Well, that's my view.

Possibly the people whose feed you want to use have a different definition; perhaps they just see adsense as being a standard thing for a site and not really commercial in the sense of you being a vendor of products or services.

It's worth seeking clarification.

Syzygy

[StoutFiles]

I've sent out emails; waiting for responses on them.

Is there any reason they would NOT want me to use their RSS feeds? Sure, I'd set it up to look like my news but in the end I'm still sending the traffic to their sites. If I had RSS feeds for my content I would gladly let someone use them to send me traffic.

You're probably right on the definition Syzygy; if any more people agree feel free to chime in.

[tangor]

Might want to check out that "commercial" definition. The farmer who allows a billboard company to rent a spot (adsense) on his property next to the highway is not "in business for profit".