Is the business model for Advertising Supported Sites obsolete?

Is Content alone enough

[cyril kearney]

One business model for a site is to turn a profit by selling just advertisements. All expenses to run the site and to develop content are paid by advertisements on the site. At the end of the year revenue is meant to exceed cost.

This is the Geocities model and others have used it too (Tripod, BeSeen etc.)

Can it still work now that ad revenues are down?

Is it even easier since web cost continue to drop?

Are the free offerings too unsophisticated to survive?

Has banning free sites from the major search engines ruined the original concept?

[Drastic]

>Can it still work now that ad revenues are down?
Yes, it can, but it is not easy. Some topics are getting impossible, like general interest and entertainment. Keeping bandwidth costs low and having a site on a topic that advertisers are interested in helps. I don't see anyone making a killing at this anymore though. More of scraping and scratching to keep rev above costs.

>Is it even easier since web cost continue to drop?
Getting harder. Revenues have dropped faster/more than costs.

>Are the free offerings too unsophisticated to survive?
Possibly, they all seem to have moved to "bombard them popups so we can survive" which is probably not a good long-term plan.

>Has banning free sites from the major search engines ruined the original concept?
I still see several of the free sites in the SERPS myself. Usually not ranking well, but they are there.

[chiyo]

yes advertising can support and maybe even make a profit for content sites. The key is specialisation and targeting however, and text ads with informative spins rather than graphic based sites. We are experimenting with text ads replacing banner and graphic ads, and results are far better than we hoped.

But general interest and maybe even affiliates could have a harder time unless they are clearly targeted and positioned. We find much interest from advertisers who wish to advertise on sites that have a strong brand and reputation or dominate a keyword area.

[cyril kearney]

I feel that sites that are supplying real content can and will survive.

The problem with too many sites is that the soup is too thin