Are forums profitable?

how much would be to get a forum like this one?

 

It depends on how you monetize the forum, and the techniques you use.

You can make some decent money through adsense for a very high traffic forum, but just putting the adds somewhere where no one will see them won't do you any good. You need to have a bot that auto-posts the adds every x number of posts (say 5 or so). This will make the ads stand out more and lead to a higher CTR.

 

You can certainly regard forums as a possible waste of time if you hope to get them up and then use Google Adsense to turn them into money making machines exclusively. It's hard to imagine that someone coming to your forum would be tempted to click on ads instead of posting or searching for some particular info. My personal feeling is that forums earn most of their adsense money from users who click by mistake.

 

I completely agree with the statement above.

 

It also depends on the ad network that you use. For example, I had a forum that offered MyBB skins and themes. I put Google Adsense on it. Of course, there are barely any MyBB skinning sites, and none that I know that use AdWords.

So after getting nothing but iPhone, vBulletin, and phpBB theme ads and no clicks, I just removed it all together. I put CPM ads instead, but its not very much.


Now, I am going to try to run a proxy forum. Google should help me a lot more with that.

 

how about dp forum ?

 

it takes a lot of time for the forums to be profitable...

 

So in conclusion to my previous post.

If you want to run a forum to make money. Don't

If you want to run a forum because you are passionate about the subject of the forum, then fill yer baits. It WILL earn revenue if it is not made solely to earn revenue.

My wisdom is provided for free

 

In my opinion no. Forums are a complicated business since it is very hard to get new members and maintain the site active. I've tried many times to start a forum and every time the project died.

I would look for other possibilities and only settle for a forum if I had a great marketing plan to back me up.

 

Forums are profitable depending on the niche. If its a good and smaller niche your pages will be SERPEd on google and you will receive highly targetted traffic. This targetted traffic may click your adsense "content related" ads. Just put a "bar" so visitors think its a menu on the forum.

 

It obviously depends a lot on the niche. "Make Money Online" forums such as digital point are profitable.

 

The answer is no. There are too many forums out there and to make your forum popular is a very difficult task.
If your forum gets popular, you can earn some decent money. But to get there, you have to be very lucky.

 

Ok. The general consensus that I am getting about forums is that they are unprofitable. What about Arcade sites? They seem to be very popular but is the market over saturated? And is it possible to make some good money off of them?

Thanks,
Kyle

 

Sorry to drag up such an old thread, but I have recently set up 2 different kinds of forums, (one is an adult forum). Both are starting to make good money. If you just take a little time to make the effort to get members and keep your forum active, I don't see why you shouldn't make money with your forum.

Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box....

 

I believe the forum subject matter and the ways you get traffic matters most. As said above, webmasters don't click many ads but may be the ones with money to spend. If I were to create a forum, it'd only be after having the traffic to support constant conversation and it would ideally be on something with low competition.

 

How long have both of the forums been around?

 

Forums are hard but if you put time and effort into building one up they can be pretty valuable because you have regular posters checking in several times a day. You can build up fan bases where people are willing to donate etc.

Ive had success in the past with various forums, some great and some failed.

 

One of them has been online for 2 months, the other (adult) has been online for 4 months. Both are now making a small but steady income.

Don't get me wrong, they are not making lots and lots of money, but the point is that you should never write off forums as a place where you could get an income. Its all about finding the right idea or even using an existing idea. It just takes a little time and effort to make it work...

 

Forums used to be profitable. Nowadays everyone and his dog are into it.

 

If you create a forum niche that hasn't been explored to much, and there is a big market for it then yes you could earn a great sum of money.

You just have to crack one of those great ideas, invest and work hard and eventually you will see profit.

~ Slutz ~