Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have read at this forum for the last couple of months and I have found the information to be very helpfull.
I have been asked about the ads on my site and I would like to make a statement as to the purpose.
I have the ad blocks labeled as sponsors yet people still ask what the ads are for.
I don't want to make any statements that are against TOS yet would like to answer visitors.
Has anyone else encountered this? If so what can you suggest i do.
I have a small home site where adertising covers the site costs. Visitors to my site are interested in the content and it is nicely targetted at a niche. It is a niche that nearly 90% of visitors which find my site come there for the content and revisit sometimes reading 5 pages or more. Over the last month I have seen a 100% or more increase in search engine traffic.
I feel that the site will be able to increase income soon. However I have to find a way to answer the advertising question because many visitors join my mailing list etc. I feel that not answering visitor questions could cost me visitors.
However I have to find a way to answer the advertising question...
No, you don't have to explain why there are ads on the site.
If your visitors can't figure out that the ads are there to make money for you, well.... explaining probably won't help.
But if you feel you must explain, why not be direct and just tell them you need/want the income.
people still ask what the ads are for
What strange audience has Your web site?
Since joining adsense June 2004, nearly 2 million people did not asked about the ads.
0 of my visitors asked me about.
I have the ad blocks labeled as sponsors
As far as I know this is agains the T&C and might get you kicked out of AdSense. I'd worry about that a lot more than what visitors think your ads are there for.
Q. Why are they there?
A. They are advertising on my site.
Period.
Specific to an industry and many are from educational orgs. I also wondered why they would ask? I have never asked anyone. But they are loyal.
I can't see where this violates the TOS..!?
Oh, and by the way,
If there are a few people you don't really want to have as visitors on your site no more, send them a mail and ask them why they recieve their paycheck from their work every month..
Q. Why are they there?
A. They are advertising on my site.
Period.
That is what I had in mind also but just wondered if anyone else encountered the same.
Thanks
I suggest you draft a statement, get it approved, and then put it on your site. Then refer any questioners to it.
Thank you sharing that with me. I'll draw up a statement and ask google.
I added some affilitate ads to the top of the page and even posted a small "explanation" about the ads. The only responses I got were, "no problem, we expect ads." To date no one has ever complained. And I have 10,000 registered users with 1.4 million page views a month.
I guess most people would still be scared to do something like this, as the part of G's TOS about "drawing attention to the ads" sounds so vague. Is there a possibility that G might interpret it that way though?
My feeling is that if it was calling undue attention to the ads, Google wouldn't have OK'd it.
And for what it's worth, I get very few comments on the ads. I doubt that's due to that statement, though, since it's not all that easy to find. But it's there.
I didn't have anyone complain about the ads. I was asked by some regular visitors why the ads showed up. That was why I was wondering if anyone else had encountered the same and how they handled it.
I don't ever intend to ask anyone to click an advertisment on my site so no words like that will be in my answer.
Looking back at the respones it was perhaps silly to ask the question. I have never had paid advertising on any of my sites. So I guess some of the regular readers may have wondered what was up. Many of my readers are involved in the same offline industry as I am and we talked for years even worked on projects jointly.
I am a real newbie at having ads that pay, I write content that seems to have gathered a decent following I have answered every email I ever have gotten concerning my site and content so I was hoping to answer this one. Thanks to all for your input, now i think I can answer without breaking TOS.
I appologize if my question wasted forum time.
I appologize if my question wasted forum time.
No apologies needed. It was an honest question, and one I don't recall seeing here before, so thanks for asking it.
On my site, at the bottom of the main index page I have a link to the advertising and privacy policy. In that document I state that I use advertising to pay for the site costs, and link to Adsense and other advertisers pages should the visitor wish to investigate Google and other advertisers privacy policies.
To be honest, I don't think you need to explain why a site carries advertising. If you feel you need to explain, then doing it via an ad free advertising/privacy policy linked to your page is the normal way of doing it.
Thanks!
I made a decision a few months ago to try out advertising and affiliate programs to see if I could generate a little cash from my site. I ran several over the last three years without direct advert income. Finally compiled the content of those into a domain site and started to increase traffic to it and spruce it up some.
I don't know anything worth while about site design or SEO but I have been reading for months about the how to's and the don'ts. My site has moved into what I feel are good search engine positions for ceratin keywords which in a large part came about because of content as I haven't paid for a link or paid for advertising, yet some great sites link mine because they liked the content.
I just didn't want to do anything that may stop that growth. I was asked why the change and I wanted to answer honestly without creating a problem with the adsense TOS. I would rather drop ads than lose a visitor that may sometime choose to hire me as a consultant in my business field.
Yet the ads are earning enough to pay site costs which was the intended goal in beginning the ads in the first place.
Now i wonder if that income can grow further?
Thanks,
Yourself and some others have said near the same. I will create a page like that I think and give the url to those that ask.
Now i wonder if that income can grow further?
It is quite likely it will as your traffic increases your income will increase.
Years ago when I first put some Amazon affiliate ads on my history related site I was afraid people would be offended so I put in a note that it was to pay expenses. Actually I almost closed down my site at that point as it seemd to be a lot of work plus I had to pay much higher amounts for my server, etc. back then.
Well once it surpassed expenses I took the apologetic notes down and never mentioned it again. Now with adsense income has grown far beyond expenses and I don't worry about it.
I wonder if the reason people asked about it was because they already knew you and were curious about the new ads. Who knows, some may be wondering if they could earn money with adsense.
I'm glad you brought this up though. I think a lot of people with academic related topics do wonder if they dare have ads.
I don't get the confusion about advertisements / sponsors. But, like they say "common sense isn't so common"
