What to do with 1million pageviews?

this month is already doubling to 2 mil

[skunker]

Hey folks,
Finally found my niche and am now at 2 million pageviews a month for a photo gallery site that has no content other than the photos themselves.

My adsense earnings, though, seem low for these many pageviews. Only making xx.xx a day.

How can I maximize my revenue for this site that is heading to get at leat 2-3 million pageviews this month? Should I go with Fastclick? Any affiliate programs out there that will give me better quality ads than Fastclick thanks to my # of pageviews? I feel that FC just dumbs down my page.

Thanks for any tips.

[tomkuegler]

It is hard to say exactly, what to advise for you without seeing the site itself.

The best way to evaluate these types of things is look at your eCPM. Assuming you have one ad on a page and you are somewhere in the middle of your "$xx.xx" per day than you effective CPM is about $1. That is pretty low.

It is also possible that the nature of your site is that you draw groups of people that are not very valuable. Or that your content draws ads that are not very valuable.

There could be many things that are contributing to your low eCPM.

[skunker]

My audience is international and the photo subjects are images in the public domain.

[tomkuegler]

Well that is not a demographic that screams "high eCPM" but if you drop me a sticky note with the URL I am happy to take a look and give you some feedback.

[webmastertexas]

You should be happy you're making anything at all with Adsense. People don't go to your page to buy/click on advertising. They just want to see/download the photos you have on the site. Fastclick or other banner advertisers is your only source of REAL revenue. How much more "dumb" down can your site get if all you have is photos anyway? People will never click on your banners anyway. You're just depending on page impressions to make money. And with over 1 mil a month, you should make plenty of dough. Ditch Adsense completely and go with the obvious choice. Banner advertisers.

[markus007]

I took a look, the site is ranked alexa 1 million+. I don't even see how the site could get 1 million HITS a month.

[skunker]

It's not hits I'm talking about, it's pageviews. Also, my site is only about a few weeks old...and I am surprised it has this many pageviews already.

Oh well, I still haven't heard back from fastclick, tribal fusion, etc.

[tomkuegler]

I think that was his point... i think he is doubting that you have 1 MM HITS, let alone, 1 MM pageviews.

[skunker]

Oh, sorry for the confusion. Here's my stats from urchin:

Month of February 2005:

Total Sessions 25,791.00
Total Pageviews 1,040,209.00
Total Hits 4,072,294.00
Total Bytes Transferred 52.26 GB

Let me know if I am reading that right. Thanks guys.

[tomkuegler]

That's nice... good work

[BeauCreative]

do people have the ability to directly link to images on their own sites?

This is usually the case with image hosting sites, it will skew your stats, and that type of traffic is impossible to monetize.

[skunker]

BeauCreative,
That is a great point. I've seen lots of my images hotlinked in forums.

Ahhh, dammit. How do I prevent this?

[Zygoot]

Search on Google to find a anti-hotlink script, to prevent users linking to images hosted on your server.

You only need to create a .htaccess file with just a few lines of code to prevent it.

[webmastertexas]

That is a great point. I've seen lots of my images hotlinked in forums.

Ahhh, dammit. How do I prevent this?

If you have trouble, contact your host's support, and they'll tell you the steps. It's pretty basic.

[markus007]

check for rougue spiders etc. If you had a million pageviews you should be ranking higher then 1.4 million in alexa and have a reach rank of greater then 0

[Etarwin]

Your site is few weeks old and get milions page views per month! are you seroius?

[claxonlisar]

What's the best way to contact you, I'd like to discuss your site, etc.

You mentioned that you get International traffic, what are your top country traffic sources?

[morpheus83]

Do you get US specific traffic? Us traffic can get you good bucks on ad networks like Fastclick etc. Give it is a shot.

[skunker]

My adsense earnings just dropped about 70-80% and now it is almost worthless. This happened last week sometmie.

Yep, chalk this up...I am affected too.

[skunker]

Hey guys,
Wanted to let you know that this site of mine just entered Google and has avoided the sandbox! Again, my site is about 1 month old.

Something even weirder: My other sites which were in the sandbox since June have now been posted in the top 10 for their keywords. They are apparently out, as well.

Any connections here?