Sites for money?

More and now I see less sites that are about helping and sharing infomation than just making money. I mean none of my sites have adverts on (We get a good amount of hits and would make quite a bit) as I think it destacts the user. Whats your view on this subject? Is it just more apparent or are more people making sites with the idea of money insted of sharing things. I mean I think more sites build the site around the adverts and the adverts around the site.

 

I never used to have any ads (4 years or so) but with more revenue you can produce more quality content. How long would Google last if It didnt have its adverts to fund development?

 

with the money you get from ads you could hire a writer and buy some new unique content.

 

How many magazines do you know that try to get by without advertising? If I get paid for my time I can spend more time creating content.

 

Yes, but more of my point is that sure make money on something your doing for more than money, but it pisses me off when the net is so full of adverts on sites that just use articles ect, aka the only intrest is making money.

 

I think it all boils down to quality...is the content interesting? Is the site easy to navigate and easy read? I don't mind if a site has ads as long as it's not a struggle to get through. Some sites definitely come off as spamtastic because they're so packed full of ads, text links, and affiliate hooha. A good designer should be able to find a happy medium.

I have been known to dump services because of their poor site design. GoDaddy is one...I really loathe the way they bomb you with ads, even while in the midst of purchasing. It's ridiculous.


The bottom line is that a spammy site is a spammy site, and people will simply go elsewhere. C'est la vie.

 

aslong as the money remains so high people are going to continue to be adwhores

 

And the problem is that almost everything is PPC and visitors are getting smarter and locating the ads and not clicking them, so sites feel they need to overdo it

 

yeah.. i do think it is more of the quality. when you get more money basically from these ads, you have more resources to come up with more meaty and quality contents. i think quality and money goes hand in hand.

 

IMO, there's just as much good information out there now as there was five years ago, and far far more than ten+ years ago when I started using the Internet.

However, there's also a hell of a lot more 'worthless sites'. IMO the worst of the worthless sites are the domain squatters. At least most of the 'adsense whores' are forced into putting decent content up in order to get the right ads to show and to bring the visitors in. Typo-squatters and the like have nothing put pages of adverts, and that does annoy me.

You're right in that the ethos has changed now though. Before everything was altruistic, because no-one thought they could make money from their site. Now, people realise they can. I don't think the altruism has necessarily gone, but rather than it's been diluted by the potential to make money.

 

Ah, good topic. I have struggled with this because when I first got online, the web was pretty much the domain of a lot of starry eyed geeks with big ideas and professor sorts who wanted information to be free. I remember when the first spam circulated, what an uproar there was in every community I was part of. How dare they?! everyone said. I often felt that the web was about community and communication and I had very mixed feelings when commerce entered the fray. And yes, now it seems like commerce is the predominant aspect of the web, which is somewhat sad. But let's look at it another way (I try to tell myself) - so many of the great and insane ideas of the late 90's for web based content fell into disaster because there was no business model, no revenue generating capacity in the business plan to sustain the site. The bottom line is that building content takes time, building bandwidth takes money, and most people have learned that they have to make some money creating the content they do, or it is pointless - you won't survive. Still, content is king and the dollar (or whatever currency) is almighty.

 

Mmm, Very true WebTurtle. I think the worse type of pure money making object is Turnkey shops (Drop shipping ones).

 

What I like to do with my sites is offer something free like advice on different things people are looking for. Of course ads bring in revenue, I dont charge for my own services.

 

I've added ads to my site. My motivation is that people clicking the ads are (A) inexperienced enough to think they're part of the content or (B) they actually look for something that's not exaclty what my page is about but close enough for the ads to match.

For (A) I provide a service to the developers listing products on my site, I steer away people you don't want as customers

For (B) I provide a service to the visitor, who actually increases the chance that my page will lead him to what he seeks.

Both are of course just exuses for me to make me feel good about making the money, but it feels nice to be able to motivate the ads even though they are quite ugly

 

Advertising isn't that bad unless you clutter up your website with ads. Sure, the most important thing is that the user can see what he is looking for first - your content. Decent ads will bring you some money so you can improve your website - maybe buy good content or links. So why not ?

 

I think the big nature of the change has been the amount of money. It used to be that, even six or seven years ago, the traffic to your site would have a far higher percentage of tech-savvy, privacy-valuing people. As more and more people have come online that don't know what they're doing as much, or just are more inclined to click on ads, incomes from ads have gone up and the temptation to go purely for money gets higher.

 

I'm not sure there are many sites created that are just there so they can get hits and make money, except the Pay To sites of course. I wonder how many people are in it just for the money, I've never thought of that.

 

Wait...

if your not making sites for hits or money why else would you waste the time publishing it on the internet.

 

take a drive down any major highway near a metropolitan city. Its lined up with banners that are very annoying. The internet is simply a reflection of this.

 

The same reason people get their memoirs bound and published, and the same reason that vanity presses exist.