Back to shameless begging…

The great Google ad experiment is over.

Starting today the ads (as you can see) that for the last year or so have been littering my sidebar are gone. I placed them there in an effort to “monetize” my blog… in other words try to make a little dough to help justify the time and effort I put into The MAD Blog. The idea was to get advertisers to pay me through the Google Adsense program, which would generate some revenue but not cost the readers of the blog a dime. It didn’t work out too well.

The way Google ads works is that you place some code on your blog and then Google dynamically places ads on your site and you are paid by some convoluted formula consisting of clicks through to the ads placed and page views. I thought that, given I have around 700 RSS subscribers and get between 2,500 and 3,500 “page views” a day from unique visitors, it wouldn’t be too hard to rack up a few dozen ad clicks a day.

I believe I averaged about four clicks per day. Total income less than one dollar per day. Fail.

Why did it fail? Because Google Adsense, the program that is supposed to provide you with ads targeted to your reader’s interests through keywords and analyzed the content of your website is unbelievably stupid. It seldom places ANY ads that might appeal to the readers of my blog. For example, as my name is “Tom” Google Adsense, in it’s infinite wisdom, often places ads for “Tom-Tom GPS Navigation” devices. When I did my tutorial on Drawing Hands, which by the way set a record on my blog for most page views in one day with 33,000, and the ads that got placed were for “Hand Lotion”. Brilliant.

Even when it’s closer to the mark Google Adsense fails miserably. There is often a few ads for personal caricature services by other artists placed by Google. Personally I don’t market myself as doing personal commissions, but if I did what would I want the ads of competitors on my blog?? Google does have some kind of “competitor filter” that is supposed to help with that, but it works on a specific URL basis so it’s almost impossible to eliminate competitor ads. Since I don’t do personal commission or party work (generally) I don’t care much about that, but do people end up on my blog looking for that kind thing? No. Those ads are generally useless.

What kind of ads would work well on my site? How about ads for art supply wholesalers and on-line retailers? Those I would think would be winners, but I have NEVER seen one of those in any Google ad placements. The targeting program needs work.

So, no more Google Ads. If readers want to contribute a few bucks to the Greater Good of The MAD Blog, they can do so by either tipping the blog through PayPal, buying some of our Cafe Press junk or by buying some of the recommended books and stuff through the “MAD Blog Recommends…” Amazon Associates links… I’m thinking about putting some Tom-Tom GPS equipment in there just for fun.