The Mother Board

As many of you know websites cost a fair amount of money to operate, especially large sites such as motherboards.org. Sites that actually sell products or services do not have to rely heavily on generating revenue through banner ads, textlink ads, etc. But on the other end of the spectrum webmasters/site owners that do not sell products or services have to rely on generating revenue from other sources...

In most cases revenue generated through websites get put right back into the site in order to create a better site.

So what is the best way to generate revenue from websites? Seems this is a sensitive issue that no matter how it is approached somebody will be unhappy...

What is the best company to use for advertising?
What type(s) of ads should be used?
What is the best way to setup advertising that would persuade visitors to make purchases from the advertisers?

Post your thoughts/ideas...

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Compaq-Fu Master
Ctechinfo funding drive information

Text taken from the announcement thread on the same subject:
I have seen this on many sites. I was wondering when Mobo' would get around to checking them out. I think all the ads should stay site specific, other than that if it will keep the 'Board operational, because most of the regulars have a strong connection here, I'm all for it

The services I am using currently on my site are Adsense by Google and Commission Junction as well... 111 impressions for the CJ ads since I started using them for the site and no sales yet.

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Compaq-Fu Master
Ctechinfo funding drive information

How do we know how reputable the advertisers are. Some on this site I have never heard of. Is there any kind of rating that you use on your site and Mobo' on this one?

Most of the banner ads on this site are routed from ryduimnetworks (sp?). They are a reputable advertising agent for larger sites. cj.com is just as reputable..

These advertising agents do have strict standards that have to be met in order to participate at least on the advertiser side (i.e. company that are selling ads).

Such as?

As far as ratings for the "viewer" to use to checkout the reliability of a vendor; There are none except for maybe checking resellerratings.com..

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Compaq-Fu Master
Ctechinfo funding drive information

None of the ads on this site are going through Rydium anymore. Have not been so for a long time.

I handle all of the ads and other revenue generating programs directly.

The answer to your intial questions are not so easy and depend on the site itself, its target market, amount of page views, amount of visitors, and the type of content on the site. What works for one site might not work at all for another.

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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted - Albert Einstien

So, if i were to use this on my page, would i have to put it into each page of the forums, or just index.php?

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"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey."

I would recommend you only put it on pages with actual content.

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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted - Albert Einstien

Every commercial site is tasked with getting as much revenue as it can from whatever means are consistent with its policies. There is nothing on motherboards that I can see that says it's a not for profit organisation.

The ways of getting revenues from 'free to use' sites can be very contentious - just think of pop-ups. Mobocop's job is to grow the community whilst squeezing revenues from wherever he can legally get it. The trick is in not alienating the community. And more speed to him, I like this site a lot and wish to support it.

Advertising, sponsored links, click to buy are all legitimate ways of getting revenue and can be done in smart unobtrusive ways. When it's right in your face - pop-ups, those blasted windows that take up too much of the screen and well, we all know the ones that annoy us - we go to more friendly and considerate places. It's like parking wrecked cars in your street - ruins the whole neighbourhood.

The recent sponsored links for me are a step too far for lots of reasons but mainly because they have turned me into the offender. It is MY words that cause the bloody advert to happen and I have no editorial control over what I'm apparently endorsing. The last advert I was pushing was for Dell for God's sake - I really resent that.

Remember, motherboards is making money from this enterprise; its not a charity (but it may be a labour of love). Motherboards depends on the community to generate its revenue. The community needs to let it be known when the push for revenue goes beyond what it thinks is reasonable.

Because in the end, if the changes made for the sake of cash alienate the user - the user will go elsewhere; and that's not what any of us want.

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"that's some catch that Catch 22"
"It's the best that there is"

Is there money for downloads, which Apple seemed to do well?