Other Advertising Options

Text-link-ads is going nowhere. I haven't sold a single ad yet. I'm close to saying "**** this!" and trying something else.

I realized that text-link-ads has an inherently defective business model. Text-link-ads keeps a 50% cut of the sales. What prevents me from directly contacting the people who advertise on my blog, and cut out the middleman? Via text-link-ads, I only get paid if someone specifically chooses to advertise on my blog.

I don't want to clutter my page with ads, so I'm only trying one ad network at a time.

My next attempt is probably going to be either AdBrite or the Yahoo Publisher Network. AdBrite is not contextual. Yahoo Publisher Network is contextual, but I'm concerned that Yahoo is another evil large corporation headed for bankruptcy. I'm leaning towards trying AdBrite next.

This is annoying! I only need to make $1-$2 per 1000 pageviews to earn enough to pay for hosting costs! I should be able to manage that, even without AdSense.

My goal via advertising is "Earn enough to move off Blogger and get my own domain."

My blog's traffic continues to grow, which is the important thing. I'm becoming a better writer and thinker, which is valuable even if Google seizes my blog. At any time, Google could lock me out of my gmail/Blogger account and I'm SOL. I've heard horror stories of people having their Google account frozen, and it was only reactivated because they were a prominent blogger.

I'm going to begin my AdBrite experiment in the next day or two. I'll wait another week or two before taking down text-link-ads' widget. I don't want to clutter my blog with ads, so I'm just trying one at a time.