Is it just me, or has Google AdSense taken a nose-dive lately? The majority of the advertisements pushed through AdSense seem to be worthless, scammy products and services. Google has even started canceling people’s accounts mid-month. That’s right, they wait until the poor publisher has generated some clicks and then BAM! Good bye AdSense account without explanation.
As a publisher, this cuts deep. Although I have ethics issues with ads on blogs, they are often necessary to cover the cost of hosting. In our case, randomoli is hosted by WordPress, and (for now) we do not need advertisements. If we did need ads, where would we turn? Google dominates the market…there are alternatives of course, but how can they compare to the corporate giant?
Turns out, there are plenty of other choices out there, and they are nowhere near as bad as you’d think. One quality alternative ad network to Google AdSense is Text Link Ads. TLA works by adding a low-key sidebar widget of plain old links related to the content on a website. These links don’t stick out like sore thumbs or banners. For each link posted on the site (but not for each time these links are clicked), the publisher receives around $25. Much more than AdSense’s pennies (AdSense is based on click-troughs; seriously, how many people mindlessly click through Google’s ads?).
Another choice is direct marketing, or working one-on-one with the advertiser. This alternative requires a direct relationship, which by nature requires more time and effort than using a network. It’s a trade-off, but it’s also often worth it.
So, these are the best options we found in our research. More information can be found here.
~Steve
