Turned down a ton of traffic and cash

Ok, first it hurts But I can't sell my soul...

The thing is one of my sites was getting a lot of traffic for keywords that someone put in my article directory (two seperate keywords) to be exact and I was getting a whole heck of a lot of hits to those two pages and could have easily put of a great adsense page and cleaned house on the traffic, but I took them down because they just wasn't right...

This post is a little off topic but I had to pout a little.. But I'll wake up feeling good tomorrow

Has anyone else had this problem, I mean we struggle every day to get traffic for our targeted keywords and then I see this, simple page just sprinkled in keywords getting top rankings for pretty competitive keywords(don't ask cause I won't tell)

Time to get back to the basics!!

 

Why is it not right to have ads on that page?

 

They werent the kind of things i wanted on my site. ethical and moral issues. It could have offended a lot of people and im not out to offend anyone.

 

Are you crazy?

Forget ethics - it's all about making cash.

 

Was the article on a tragedy? (Because it wouldn't have been adult in nature if you were using AdSense to target it)

 

Yeh i no but it was totaly unrelated and offensive. I dont make a lot of money of the internet but i dont want to start out making it like this.

 

yes it was amongst other things, just a rearly distasteful posting.

 

If the article itself was so bad, why leave it up at all?

 

I'll have it if you want to get rid of it.

 

I never, as soon as i saw them i took them down. They had been up for 3 days before i noticed though.

 

What you could have or should have done is remove any direct link to it from your site but leave the article in place and let those find it by way of search engine (which I'm sure that is how they found it). That way you do not mix it in with your audience but still reap rewards from it. Never...I mean never remove any page from your site unless it is illegal or a violation....just because it does not interest you (or your main audience) doesn't mean it is useless, others may find it interesting, appropriate, and tasteful. You never remove pages...only add pages. What are you trying to do...starve the search engines? You gotta feed them what they want, no matter how tacky it is.

The other route you could have taken is revamp your entire site around the keywords of the article. You could have had a goldmine. Do you have a site to make money or to make a difference??

 

hmm depends what it was about really for me to make a judgement... but kudos for having moral values i guess

 

Glad to see that you are doing what you think you should be doing from the moral perspective. I always try to block my PPC ads which I don't endorse. I don't care if it makes poor biz decision, as long as I feel right about what am doing.

 

yeh i feel right about it. im not putting themback up anyway and i dont rearly want to make money from exploiting this.

I know im doing the right thing (i think)

 

From a business standpoint...if they don't get it from you then they'll get it somewhere else. Why lose the race?

If it was something illegal or a violation (for your site, your host, or ISP) then I can really understand. if your site explicitly display that it is sanctified, such as a religious site, then I can really understand. If your site is not general and strongly niche-specific and the material was not remotely related to your site, then I can understand. But from what I'm gathering your site is probably general nature and visitors are allowed to submit articles to certain categories...and the material this person choose to submit did not appeal to you. The way people found the article was through search engines which means it had keyword-rich content. Those who found it were a targeted audience, therefore you could have (as I suggested) remove any links from your website to the article and let the article continue to be found within the search results (by the targeted audience) and keep the path. You could even remove the header for the page so your site isn't directly related and it forces visitors to click on an ad to get out or the back button.

I have some sites with a Terms of Service page, if that is not violated then the page remains in tact. You should make sure your site has clear Terms of Service agreement or Terms & Conditions, which let visitors know what is appropriate and what is not. This will help you as well, know what you will find acceptable. If someone violate any of the terms then you can delete, terminate, or ban their account or communication with your site, no questions asked. This will help you decide in the future what to do with questionable content as well.

It shouldn't be about morals....it shouldn't be personal....it should be about business....unless your site is a personal website, otherwise it should be a business decision not personal decision! Your Terms & Conditions will help you make a good business decision.


Feel free to dispose of the articles by submitting it here: http://www.contentmasterworld.com

 

people have morals on the internet? Whoa! who would have thunk it...... Seriously though, good for you, I personally would take the big money and fabulos prizes.

 

I know what you feel, wanboll. I was once earning over $2k a month with an active x popup on one of my sites. I then decided to take it off, I just didn't want to screw my visitors. All my friends said that I was crazy, that giving up so much money just for morals was stupid, but I didn't care and took it off.

I am now struggling to reach that amount each month now, but I do feel much better by having a clean site my visitors can enjoy.

 

I think you have done the right thing, if poeple to your site would get a little pi**ed at the article then you do right in taking it down, you need to have people coming back plus word of mouth can be strong advertising.

 

I know it would have pissed some of but it was for myself more than anything, im not promoting something i dont believe in and i didnt want to be any part of it.

Thanks for all your posts, they have made me feel i done the right thing.