WordPress Launches WordAds, An AdSense Alternative For WordPress Sites

[engine]

WordPress Launches WordAds, An AdSense Alternative For WordPress Sites [en.blog.wordpress.com]

Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads. We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.

Well we think we’ve cracked it, and we’re calling it WordAds.

You need to apply to run the service.
[wordpress.com...]

[Habtom]

I wouldn't promote it as an AdSense alternative and certainly wouldn't name it WordAds (Adwords ?). Couldn't they find a better way of introducing it to the public?

[httpwebwitch]

hey man, if it's easy, and it's a WP widget, and it integrates into your blog with a button click, people are going to flock to this.

Federated Media is a good choice.

[mhansen]

[tinfoil]

I predict a measured and powerful response from Google, who will deem all WordPress driven sites using the WordAds program in violation of it's own intellectual property rights, and deindex all sites powered by WordPress, under the guise of DMCA.

[/tinfoil]

[scooterdude]

te he

[pageoneresults]

I searched Google for WordAds and got "Did you mean: AdWords"

That's a good one Google!

[scooterdude]

delete

[Webwork]

I sense a shift in the force . . . No, no . . I mean I sense a trademark infringement lawsuit . . AdWords vs. WordAds . .

Really? WordAds?

I guess you could call WordAds "descriptive" . . and "ads" + "word" aren't the easiest words to claim exclusive rights to . . and I'm sure the Word guys and gals ran this past their on IP lawyers . .

Plaintiff Google's Exhibit 1, on the issue of "confusingly similar":

I searched Google for WordAds and got "Did you mean: AdWords"

I'm sure the Word camp will have a comeback. G's algo is a bit easily confused . . :-/

[nickreynolds]

Looks like it's just for wordpress.com blogs which I think aren't currently allowed to run advertising such as Adsense. I see part of their problem being that bloggers wanting to monetize their sites are probably already hosting their own downloaded blogs outside of the Wordpress.com setup.

[tangor]

However, the new program isn’t a free-for-all: it’s only open to “publicly visible” blogs with custom domains, and selection “based on level of traffic and engagement, type of content, and language used on a blog” – this last probably designed to protect sensitive advertisers against being placed next to too many profanities.

[theregister.co.uk...]
Will have to see how this all works out.

[explorador]

MFA exist thanks to Wordpress, perhaps this will be a good thing! (not that WP meant to cause MFA but you get the idea).

[Dot_Media]

It'll start on wordpress.com but when it comes off the indy hosted sites will probably use this in far greater excess that big G's adsense, i will.

WordAds = Wordpress Ads. I think it's different enough to pass the smell test only because of Wordpress's dominant market position in the blogging software world and because of it's prominence.

[numnum]

However, the new program isn’t a free-for-all: it’s only open to “publicly visible” blogs with custom domains, and selection “based on level of traffic and engagement, type of content, and language used on a blog” – this last probably designed to protect sensitive advertisers against being placed next to too many profanities.

The blogger from WP responded to a query about language by indicating that WordAds(TM?) will be available only for English-language WP.com blogs/sites, at least initially.

Has WP disclosed the specific traffic threshold (unique visitors in one month, I assume)?

[tangor]

Only publicly visible blogs with custom domains will be considered for this program. If you are interested but don’t have a custom domain, you can quickly sign up for a custom domain for your blog(s) below.

[en.wordpress.com...]
Following the link to sign up for a custom domain indicates:

Registering a domain through WordPress.com and mapping that domain to your blog costs $17.00 per domain, per year. For $8.00 more, you can also make the domain registration private.

Mapping a domain you already own costs $12.00 per domain, per year.

[en.wordpress.com...]

If nothing else, WordPress will see some new revenue before any advertising is presented.

[ken_b]

Anyone think this will suck any significant number of publishers away from AdSense?

[dibbern2]

some, yes. significant: doubt it. What we aren't seeing is the equivalent of an AdWords engine, which is highly sophisticated. Where will they build the advertiser base? Or did I miss something?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If it's local to wordpress.com then no, it won't impact adsense in any noticeable way. I doubt many will even switch since Google packages their affiliate network in with adsense reports and has analytics etc.

If they plan on integrating this into wordpress downloads as an option from the dashboard I may very well break away from using wordpress altogether, my current wordpress site is highly modified anyway (core file changess, mostly to reduce the "generic" bloat and improve security/performance). I just don't want/need ads to become a core function, I implement those myself.

I wish the service well, I'm sure it will do well with many, but I think they've overestimated the significance of wordpress in general, surely enough to be calling a competitor "sad" and showing disrespect in general. We're watching.

[tictoc]

How do you become an advertiser on this network?

[anand84]

How do you become an advertiser on this network?

Wordpress has partnered with Federated Media [federatedmedia.net] for this. So I guess you may need to go via them.

[vik_c]

Why not just call it WordPressAds instead? Not too late even now.

[wheel]

Google's soft underbelly - there's other people out there now with large enough volumes of traffic to justify taking them on in the ad marketplace. It's worth remembering that Google isn't search....Google is ads. If they're losing ad revenue, or there are other ad alternatives, all of a sudden we may be back to the old days where Google cares about webmasters again.

Every Firefox download comes with Google as the default search engine turned on - how many people change it?

All WP has to do is make this widget turned on by default in every WP download with a link to 'register to receive your portion of the proceeds', and they will have an instant huge available marketplace - and I bet a sizeable portion of people woouldn't even register for a cut of the ads.

Something as simple as that could easily make enough of a dent in Adsense to be noticeable to Google.

[anand84]

All WP has to do is make this widget turned on by default in every WP download with a link to 'register to receive your portion of the proceeds'

I don't see that happening at least in the current form. Federated Media has pretty stringent criteria for approval and I am not sure what percent of Wordpress blogs are even going to be accepted in the WordAds program. But then, this is definitely a start and I would like Wordpress to launch their own in-house ad network that will serve the WP masses. Till that happens, Google should not be too worried.

[mlemos]

I think this can be positive for the publishers in general, but I am afraid this new ads system may have light years to catch up on the maturity of AdSense.

First, AdSense capitalizes on the overwhelming number of advertisers attracted by Google from being already in AdWords.

WordAds has to make a very serious effort to attract a significant number of advertisers, or else it will be hard to present ads that are relevant to each blog content. If the ads are not so relevant, the campaigns do not work so well and advertisers may end up not loosing interest for WordAds.

Second, Google uses a sophisticating bidding system that makes advertisers compete for ad spaces. So competitive niches get the advertisers to pay more and reward more the publishers. Less competitive niches pay less but the publishers still get relevant ads due to the site of AdSense market.

Other than that I do not think it is a good idea for Wordpress people to hand pick blogs that will be accepted in their program. That will severely limit their market.

Another point is that only accepting blogs in Wordpress.com that run on a custom domain, sound like a bait to make more people to buy custom domain premium packages in the hope to be accepted in the WordAds program.

Anyway, I hope this new advertising player will provide good competition to AdSense because some niches in AdSense do not pay so well nowadays because they are too crowded with publishers. If a good number of advertisers move to WordAds, I am sure that those niches will be come less crowded and they start paying better in AdSense.

I also hope that WordAds becomes significant so it acts as a wake-up call for Google to fix their long time issues with AdSense to keep the publishers happy with them.

[pradeepkoundal]

Is this feature available for free wordpress blog? I tried to find our WordAds widget but couldn't find it.

[techmaster]

Wordpress will have to launch its own search engine too to successfully run its wordads program.

[SurfinWP]

Is it a good message for new webmasters with new setup sites?