Do I need to have my own domain?

And will adsense cover the costs?

[TheDave]

If I've got a personal website which is hosted on a free server (wwwXX.domain.com\myname) it doesnt look like I will be able to run AdSense ads on that page, because the sign up page says that the URL is invalid. So I'm guessing I'll need my own domain. The site is purely non-commercial and is all my work (various labors of love). There is a couple of very useful online applications which generate scripts for games, such as random map cycles, so I am expecting more visitors in the future as I add more and more game maps, mods and online applications. I'm getting about 25 visitors a day at the moment just from a few links (the site isnt listed in google yet) and some people get there with no referer (ie. they come back), so I hope to see that number increase. Given that information, do you think I will be approved for google adsense, and do you think that the money I make from adsense will cover the cost of having my own domain? How many visitors a day do you need to make adsense viable? I'm happy to leave my site on the free server, but if I can get my own domain and have adsense cover the costs, that would be awesome :)

[Birdman]

If you think your site has potential, go for the domain and hosting. It's sooo cheap. You can get a domain for < $9 and you can get hosting for < $10 a year.

[mack]

Even from a non adsence point of view your site would really benefit from a decent domain name and your own hosting.

It makes your url a lot easier to remember and will lead to returm visits. I also belive that having your own domain will help you out getting good placement on search engines.

As for adsence, So long as you ensure that the domain is registered in your name (not your hosts) then you should be in with a good chance of being acepted.

Good luck.

Mack.

[rossH]

You can get a domain for < $9 and you can get hosting for < $10 a year.

Birdman would you mind dropping one name each with those two numbers?

[TheDave]

Thanks for your replies, I'm going to give it a go :)

[vincevincevince]

wwwXX.domain.com\myname

that should be / not \ i expect - that may cause the URL to be marked invalid

[Oaf357]

TheDave,

Put it like this I have a quasi-personal site and AdSense has covered to cost of hosting for June (started using AdSense on 25 June). July will be interesting though because the newness of the ads will probably have worn out. But, I bet I'll make enough to cover hosting costs.

[davewray]

TheDave...Will Adsense cover hosting costs? Completely depends on your niche market. Sounds like you're into the gaming market...could be good in terms of what Advertisers are willing to pay for their AdWords. Let's just put it this way, I have a brand new site, just 100 unique visits per day and already in just a couple of days of running AdSense I have gotten my hosting fees covered (which by the way, is more than $10/month)...

Dave.

[ewanfisher]

I am running AdSense on a small site, and I could cover a $10 hosting account. I think it would be worth it if you can find a cheap hosting account TheDave. But it does depend on your web content. Drop me a Sticky if you want with the address.

[TheDave]

Well, 3:30am Friday morning, after a few beers, I got the credit card out and registered my domain and organised some hosting. Fingers crossed now :)

I have a question, which may seem silly, but may also be relevant. Because a lot of the stuff on my site is related to online games, I use my gaming nick to identify myself, if you know what I mean, Hi I'm B...a, welcome blah blah... Should I remove this sort of thing and use my real name? And should I go even further, and remove the personal greeting, and just have a typical news section pointing to the latest additions? I'm just wondering how 'personal' is personal?

[Oaf357]

A greeting of some sort isn't a big deal in my opinion, so long as it's not "the page". I don't see a problem with using a screen name to identify yourself either unless of course your name is a keyword phrase you're trying to penetrate into. It really depends on your situation.

<edit>

Oh... how personal is personal? That depends as well but there are some definitive things I go by. A "personal" site in my opinion is one that's content is solely about the person developing the site. But there is also another side of that coin in that some people create "personal" web sites but have gobs of other useful, non-personal content (from the sounds of things, what you've done). These kinds of sites are what make the web what it is today.

</edit>

[MrSpeed]

Should I remove this sort of thing and use my real name?

My general rule of thumb is to keep away from real names.
That's just my 2 cents though.

[europeforvisitors]

My general rule of thumb is to keep away from real names.

Depends on the type of site you have, I guess. If I were publishing a bondage site or a community-oriented site for the kind of people who buy "This vehicle insured by Smith & Wesson" bumper stickers, I might use a pseudonym. But for many topics, a real name offer credibility while building a long-term brand identity.

In my field--European travel--there's a long tradition of using real names. Karl Baedeker, Eugene Fodor, Temple Fielding, Arthur Frommer, Karen Brown, and Rick Steves are just a few of the writers and writer/publishers who have developed brand identities and the trust of their readers by placing their bylines on the covers of their guidebooks. I do the same thing with my editorial Web site, and it's one of the things that differentiates my site (and the sites of guidebook authors like Rick Steves and Karen Brown, for that matter) from corporate sites like Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, or Time Out.

[TheDave]

Well, after all that, I got denied :P Oh well I havnt lost much, and I've gained my own domain so it's all good :)

[ewanfisher]

Did they give a reason?

[TheDave]

Nope :( In a nutshell it said the site doesn't meet their program criteria, please dont ask us why, thanks for understanding.

[cornwall]

>>Well, after all that, I got denied

Are you sure you gave it long enough for the DNS of you new registration to be picked up across the web. It could be that they looked at you "old" url, as the "new" one was not showing. As far as I can see you registered and applied to Google in under 24 hours of registration.

It is worth putting old and new on email and asking for clarification that they did reject your "new" url

[topr8]

>>>Did they give a reason?

personal pages are not allowed by adsense

[TheDave]

No, they definately saw the site, but only the first page, and they probably did instantly think 'personal' page. I'm also thinking that there aren't a great deal of publishers to match my pages. The people looking at the sites probably know what they want and in what areas.

[dwilson]

Perhaps if you update that front page to look less personal, then reapply, it would be accepted.

I'm in the same boat you were, with a Geocities site that is somewhat personal but also has other information.

[TheDave]

Nah, it's a personal site, and there's nothing I can do about it :P I'm not too concerned, I might reapply in a while and maybe I'll get a different person looking at the site. :)