<rant> You know, I notice everyone seems to be highly obsessed with making money, adsense, PPC, selling links, all that stuff. What ever happened to running a website because you enjoy it? Currently, I only have two sites(I sold the rest), neither of them have adsense or any type of ad's. I pay for my $60 a month hosting out of my pocket. Granted, I make decent money when I end up selling one of my sites, but what is the fascination with PPC and such? Personally, the best payment I get is when someone emails me a compliment on my site, or I see my stats and traffic are naturally rising from word of mouth and organic links, that is better than any paycheck there is to be had. Plus, if you do a good job and truly care about your site, you will make plenty of money when it comes time to sell the site. :::jumps down from soapbox::: endrant</a>
Nice touch. I think most people do own websites just for fun, and getting paid for having fun is just the added bonus.
Well, I don't deny that I run some websites to make money but there are others that I run because I believe in the cause or the theme. The websites that I believe in are the ones which I put my heart and soul into running. It is not always about the money but the money is necessary to keep the sites and me alive.
Owning and developing websites is a lot of hard work. And you'd like to see all your hard work paying off.
There are tons of people with sites 'just for the fun of it' - but most of them don't hang out in webmaster forums because they're not as interested in the things addressed here; traffic, money, links, etc. When building sites becomes easier for the average joe (ala myspace) I think we'll see an influx of non-monetized personal interest sites but there are some pretty big technical barriers to people who don't specialize in the web.
having a cool website that users like to visit is great... feeding the family gives me a much better feeling, and it's not easy to that by selling developed and growing sites. Most of us need MONTHLY income, not semi-annual. For some, like me, it's a job. Internet marketing/affiliate/webmaster or whatever else, it's all about the bottom line. You need money to eat, pay bills, heat your home, etc... so you HAVE to think about the bottom line. That being said, I also start up the odd site as sort of a hobby... but I always end up either putting up ads or selling it. my2c
That's why, Naples, you'll be one of the most successful people on this forum eventually. These 2-bit adsense sites aren't worth a dime. The big money goes to sites run by webmasters who are passionate about their site and their subject and create something unique on the Internet.
I own websites because I enjoy wasting my time doing it. It's just an added bonus knowing that I could be making a few extra dollars from it.
I have a few sites, some are to make money the other are just for the love of it. If i could make money out of the fun ones i'd be even happier though but it ain't gonna happen
I own more than 15 sites right now and 9 are forums. I really like this. I love the thrill of having an empy white page in photshop, creating a layout and in few hours having another site or forum made, creating a new world with each site made
I work on my websites b/c I enjoy it.. The added bonus of making a little something something on the side is nice, but b/c this is more of a hobby to me, I'm not all that interested in the MFA type site... Moreover I would just like to see what type of business I could grow from scratch.
I made my first website for the fun of learning how to make a website, and a passion I felt for the theme. Then a funny thing happened, I started making a ton of money from it! So I started making websites for money, I don't make very much off of those. I am a beliver that if you make a website for fun about something you love it will make money (or at least be worth money), if you make a website to make money it won't make as much.