It feels good when you can DITCH adsense

[Jason Green]

Adsense is great - don't get me wrong - I'd never ditch it completely.

But I do love the feeling when you get a site to a certain stage that you no longer need adsense.

I always feel that a lot of the advertising from Adsense often brings up stuff I don't want on my site - like links to MFA sites, scams or unrelated stuff. There's only so many advertisers you can block.

So when I have a site that has enough alternative revenue streams that keeping adsense doesn't make sense it gives that warm feeling - and somehow feels good that I don't need this ad broker which appears to be the standard across the web.

Anyone else ditched adsense from their site?

[ssandecki]

Instead of blocking sites I report them to Adwords, much more effective

[rldowling03]

Well I am testing out Text Link Ads onmy blog, and if it ends up working well, I will most likely use that full time and ditch adsense as it is making me cents a day

[brandnewx]

rldowling, Google is currently hunting down anyone using text-link-ads. There're numerous reports that websites using TLA got PR lowered to 0.

Anyway, I ditched adsense in May 2007. Yes, it feels good. Direct ads pay much better than Adsense did. Now I'm my own boss. I set my price. I get paid instantly. I can choose or reject ads appearing on my sites. I can place the ads anywhere I want, near the navigation, under drop-down menu, with big arrows to ask visitors to click the ads (advertisers like this). I can click the ads I want to visit without the fear of getting banned. FULL FREEDOM HERE!!!

Adsense guidelines are becoming laws these days. Google Webmaster Guidelines have already become laws, as its search engine dominates the world. They force you to put rel="nofollow" on all text links you're selling, to put links less than 100 or 200, not to write the same word over and over again, and many other stupid laws aim to the incompetent company like Google.

[FairyOfLove]

Yes, i have also ditched adsense 3 months ago and working with a better network

[rldowling03]

Well its my blog so can use Text link ads if I want, google cannot stop me. Its a free world, if they want to threaten people to use them and only them by threatening to remove the pagerank, then good for them. They cant control me.

Once I find a better paying ad network than adsense, then I will definately move to them, but I have yet to find one that comes close. Only tried 2 others tho, lol

[brandnewx]

I suggest you diversify your inventory. Shouldn't completely put all ads in one basket. I would sell direct ads, affiliate, adsense, ypn and bidvertiser. Say if you were banned from adsense, you would still be earning, or better yet immediately fill adsense spot with the other networks. Having diversified, you will feel like you can completely ditch adsense. You will no longer afraid of stupid mistakes adsense may make to ban you.

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by rldowling03

Well its my blog so can use Text link ads if I want, google cannot stop me. Its a free world, if they want to threaten people to use them and only them by threatening to remove the pagerank, then good for them. They cant control me.

Once I find a better paying ad network than adsense, then I will definately move to them, but I have yet to find one that comes close. Only tried 2 others tho, lol

I like that attitude

I too have continued to sell text links. I'm certainly not going to give up $xxxx revenue just because Google may or may not change the pixels in that green bar.

[ssandecki]

Text links are a way to manipulate or cheat the page rank system and SERPs, period end of discussion. You are paying or selling the ability to increase pagerank and SERP, as a respectable webmaster this is something I don't want allowed. You can complain all you want, but it was ALWAYS against Google TOS to manipulate search results and pagerank.

Use the ref="nofollow" if you want to stay with the rules, if not don't come complaining to DP when your blog\site loses SERP or pagerank.

[Tearabite]

i've got several revenue streams that add-up to over $7k/month.. but Adsense is still the largest one..

[brandnewx]

Originally Posted by ssandecki

Text links are a way to manipulate or cheat the page rank system and SERPs, period end of discussion. You are paying or selling the ability to increase pagerank and SERP, as a respectable webmaster this is something I don't want allowed. You can complain all you want, but it was ALWAYS against Google TOS to manipulate search results and pagerank.

Use the ref="nofollow" if you want to stay with the rules, if not don't come complaining to DP when your blog\site loses SERP or pagerank.

So you think Google is god, and that you have to do everything and anything to follow its orders. Let me ask you something: is it against any standard NOT to put rel="nofollow" on "a" html tag? <a href="...">Text Link</a> is the standard. The problem is Google is incompetent and their algorithm is flawed, and they're not fixing it the right way. Why would they create a set of guidelines to control the web? As a commercial search engine, Google has no authority whatsoever to substitute HTML standard with their own and create a set of rules for all webmasters to follow.

I don't want to deviate far from the topic. But I can tell you many people buy a submission to Yahoo Directory to increase their link popularity. It seems to me that Google doesn't have the guit to ban the Yahoo Directory for selling links due to potential antitrust lawsuit.

[ssandecki]

Originally Posted by brandnewx

So you think Google is god,

No, I think you shouldn't cheat or manipulate the system, period.

Originally Posted by brandnewx

Let me ask you something: is it against any standard NOT to put rel="nofollow" on "a" html tag? <a href="...">Text Link</a> is the standard.

This is the standard for their search engine, don't like it then don't expect traffic\serp\pagerank. 98% of all text link sales for for pagerank or SERPs, which is m a n i p u l a t i o n

Originally Posted by brandnewx

The problem is Google is incompetent and their algorithm is flawed, and they're not fixing it the right way. Why would they create a set of guidelines to control the web? As a commercial search engine, Google has no authority whatsoever to substitute HTML standard with their own and create a set of rules for all webmasters to follow.

So, since the system is broken we should exploit it? I don't think so, and yes its a commercial search engine so they can dictate rules to their search engine, I fail to see your rationality on this.

Your just another person who was helping manipluate pagerank and SERPs who is now mad they are cracking down on it, so I understand your angry post. I would be mad too if I got caught cheating at something.

Originally Posted by brandnewx

I don't want to deviate far from the topic. But I can tell you many people buy a submission to Yahoo Directory to increase their link popularity. It seems to me that Google doesn't have the guit to ban the Yahoo Directory for selling links due to potential antitrust lawsuit.

WRONG!

The Yahoo! fee is for fast review of your site and does not mean you will get listed in the directory. Not only didn't you deviate but you mis-informed as well.

[<_f1r3b4ll_>]

Originally Posted by brandnewx

The problem is Google is incompetent and their algorithm is flawed, and they're not fixing it the right way.

What is the right way? Are they fixing it the wrong way? Are they even fixing it? Is there something really worth fixing?

Originally Posted by brandnewx

Why would they create a set of guidelines to control the web? As a commercial search engine, Google has no authority whatsoever to substitute HTML standard with their own and create a set of rules for all webmasters to follow.

Ok, some clarification that is needed here. I'm not supporting Google nor any other party.

First of all, Google is not trying to control the web. The web, aka internet is a free for all until a country or government says otherwise. If you want to see control of the web in action, please read about China and it's internet protocols.

Secondly, Google is only 'controlling' (for lack of a better word) how 'you' access the web through their search engine. Remember, Google is a legitimate company with stock. In short, Google ("Commercial Search Engine") the company owns Google the search engine. So why would you expect a company to not set guidelines informing internet user who want to excel in the Google search? Google wants to take care of it's search engine because it belongs to them, it is their "property" which they let the general public use freely because it is a "commercial search engine", remember?

You expect Google to not set standards so as to open the possibility of abuse?

Thirdly, nobody ever told you to only optimize for Google. If you only optimize for Google, don't expect to excel on the internet. Yahoo is equally beneficial as are the other search engines out there.

Your goal should be to optimize for as many search engines as possible. Granted, Google is popular, but they started at the bottom with hours of dedication and hard work to give you this product ("commercial search engine"). It looks as if they didn't take short-cuts along the way, why should they let any webmaster take shortcuts with their products?

If you don't like Google, don't use it. If you use Google, expect them to set how 'you' play with the product.

Simply business principles.

[brandnewx]

Well I made my points. won't debate on it endlessly

[UKWebmasterForum]

Wow, I read all the posts and I almost forgot which thread I was reading...seriously. This thread has really gone off topic. Anyway, back to topic, congratulations Jason Green. I think it's very wise of you to take such an approach, and I am glad to see you said;

Originally Posted by Jason Green

Adsense is great - don't get me wrong - I'd never ditch it completely.

Because AdSense itself it a brilliant advertisement scheme, it's the advertisers themselves who destroy it and saturate it (not all, but a lot of them). The thing is Google won't police it for the time being since they are reaping in sh*t loads of cash, but once they notice the trends saying people are swaying to another program, and they are losing members - Google will soon fix things.

[Manthem]

This is the first month where Google hasn't been my main earner. Good feeling.

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by UKWebmasterForum

Because AdSense itself it a brilliant advertisement scheme, it's the advertisers themselves who destroy it and saturate it (not all, but a lot of them). The thing is Google won't police it for the time being since they are reaping in sh*t loads of cash, but once they notice the trends saying people are swaying to another program, and they are losing members - Google will soon fix things.

I often think of Adsense as a platform that almost all sites have - but when you look into it many of the really big sites don't use Adsense - it tends to be smaller publishers that use it.

[UKWebmasterForum]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

I often think of Adsense as a platform that almost all sites have - but when you look into it many of the really big sites don't use Adsense - it tends to be smaller publishers that use it.

Yeah, true. I guess big sites can get accepted by bigger advertisement companies where the mega bucks are. AdBrite seems to be benefitial when it comes to having a bigger site, you can charge more for impressions and clicks etc.

[brandnewx]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

I often think of Adsense as a platform that almost all sites have - but when you look into it many of the really big sites don't use Adsense - it tends to be smaller publishers that use it.

Agreed. It couldn't be more correct. Big websites all have their own ad networks, because they just don't want to share a commission with Google and don't want to follow the non-sense Google put in the adsense TOS. The TOS writes like the publisher is Google's slave. It should have been a partnership not slavery. That might be why Digg removed Adsense and put MSN Ads.

I sell direct ads on all my big sites. I'm the boss. By the way, digitalpoint forum is banned from adsense now.

[qwestcommunications]

Well, I don't know what you mean by big sites. True, the really big sites that get millions of monthly visitors may not use adsense because they can probably come up with better private deals because of the size of traffic, lets not kid ourselves, many other big (maybe not quite as big as those giants) still use adsense and is easily their best earner.