Manifestly I have no understanding of internet revenue, but is this a way to help Fluther out?

Yes.

Yes. Even when I’m logged out though, I don’t see the ads. (Adblock+ hides ‘em from me.) I wonder if Google knows I can’t see them?

What ads?

@rosehips You don’t see them if you are logged in.

So, you’re suggesting that we could all log out and go on a clicking spree? Interesting…

Yes, Fluther gets paid a (very) small amount each time Fluther displays an advertisement. We also get paid a small amount each time somebody clicks on an ad. Advertisements are only seen by visitors who are not logged in.

Theoretically, we could boost revenue by displaying ads to members, but I’m not sure if our users would like that.

We could also make the whole “ads-and-membership” issue into an opt-in program. Users could voluntarily see the ads as a way to earn money. Given how little money each individual ad earns, this idea isn’t worth it. Just to give you a good perspective, website advertising profits are often measured in the range of “cents per thousand views.” Google policy also says “I will not click on my ads nor encourage others to do so.”

Of course, we could simply increase the number of ads displayed to nonmembers. We already display 2 ads per page, and I don’t want to simply make this place look any uglier.

So by that logic what is the point in displaying any.
For example: I may click on one ad in a month, just a guess. If I understand correctly, whether or not that is by accident or not doesn’t matter. Still the number of clicks in Fluther is maybe being generous here and factoring in for nonmembers, an average of about
3 per member? We have how many members? A couple thousand?

Is there any money actually being made?

“Factoring in nonmembers” is a big thing, since 81% of all visits to Fluther are from nonmembers who do not visit more than once per month. Fluther gets ~375,000 visits per month, so many more than 300,000 visitors per month are nonmembers. Let’s say that each of these members views a single page, which has two ads. From this, we easily arrive at a minimum of 600,000 ad views per month. Given that Fluther’s revenue is barely enough to run the servers and pay Auggie’s salary, it is easy to tell that we do indeed get paid on the order of cents per thousand views.

Also, there is a difference between clicking an advertisement and viewing an advertisement. Viewing an advertisement means that the person is seeing the advertisement on a webpage. Clicking an advertisement means that you actually visit the advertiser’s website. Fluther gets much more money per click than per view, but very few people click.

I logged out and didn’t see any ads.

So if we don’t log on, we could give you guys at fluther more revenue for a bit before we logged on?

@rosehips The ads are not displayed on the home page. They are displayed in threads. You might also have adblocking software. Try logging out and visiting this thread.

Ok I contributed. : )

I gave at the office. And I was aware of this. I dunno why – all my ads are about hair products and penis enlargement.

^^heehee Mine were all online degrees, I hate google

Mine used to be – until I got my degree from the University of Phoenix, after a five year struggle. Now it’s about penis enlargement. How do they know???

Googleism?

Ech. I think I got it. I hope I haven’t given it to anyone else.

WARNING

Intentionally clicking the ads to earn money will cause fluther to get blacklisted by google, and will hurt the site by taking away the revenue source.

Take a look at the terms and conditions for displaying ads on your sites, if you intentionally click, they will know, be it by IP numbers, cookies, or just a strange spike in activity, anything other than organic views and clicks will put the site at risk.

^Oh thanks for the info! That would be unfortunate.

Yeah, it’s bad idea to try to cheat Google. Up above, I mentioned that it goes against Google’s policy, and breaking that policy will kill our site faster than you can say “some long word.”

Can I make up a new word?

Going to any way.

Googleism-akin to McCarthyism.

^ Yeah that’s a coining. Not.

Not my fault they didn’t name McCarthyism something smarter. I wasn’t around then. The Google Public Relation Forum or the Committee on Un-Google activities just seemed clunky.