Why should I use adsence at all?

We spent years of work on getting great websites up with tons of information on nature conservation. So much that we could not place it logically in just one domain, and started spreading it out over a number of domains.
We don't get the visitation we had hoped for, but we have some 400 - 500 visitors per day. Why in the world would we want ad-sence links that would take a visitor away from our information that we worked so hard for to put on the net? It does not make sense to me to offer a 10 cents click to have your visitor go somewhere else if you can have him/her spend time on your website. Or did I miss something? If so, please let me know.
Cheers,
Daan

Hello Daan,

Oh, such a good question!

I have been into computers since the introduction of the VIC 20 and have loved it ever since. It is more of a hobby than anything else and throughout the years, I have created many sites and provided many free services.

I once ran a bulletin board (WildCat) using multiple phone lines and high speed 1200 Baud modems – I offered free support and software which became very popular, so popular, that it started to consume all my time. Never once did I receive (or ask) for any type of payment for the service.

For many of us with similar histories, it has always been hard to pay for servers, bandwidth and equipment.

That is, until Adsense came along. With adsense (or Yahoo), you can earn enough to pay for - or at least offset - these expenses. If you are lucky enough, it can also provide extra spending money as well.

I despised ads, period! Google changed that a bit and in order to offer the services I do, I need help offsetting the costs, and adsense fits the bill without being too obnoxious. There are people that donate money from time to time (and I greatly appreciate it!), but unfortunately it does not cover all the costs, so I use ads to help offset these costs.

It still does not bode well with me to place ads on a forum, and right now, I’m able to afford running the forum without advertisements. If the costs get out of hand, I’ll have to reconsider, but it is my intention to have an ad free support forum.

If you can afford not to place advertisements on your site, more power to you! You are correct in that visitors will click the ad and leave your site, perhaps for good. In your case, 500 unique visitors per day, averaging a standard (3% click thru rate [ctr]) would be about 15 clicks at say around .10 per click – you would receive $1.50 per day / $45 per month. (.10 is good by the way!)

$45 can pay for a server, and on a limited budget, that’s a lot of money! $45 could make the difference between offering a free service or no service at all.

So you see, it all depends on your situation. Ads will stunt a sites growth, of this there is no question.

Hope that helps,

Best regards,

Jim.

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Thanks for you response, Jim. It is not that I don't like the money. I would love to get money. However, since 1997, we have spent over $200,000 or more in professional time providing information on nature conservation, hoping that we can stimulate people to visit national parks in developing countries.

Moreover, we try to generate income for financing rangers in developing countries. (May I advertise http://www.adopt-a-ranger.org ?). If someone clicks on an add, we will have lost that person for a donation.

I presume everybody has a story and wants his/her site to be visited. The value of a click of 10cts is so low compared to the effort that one puts into a website. Particularly people with commercial websites, would not want to lose a client to a click. When Google places adds on our site, they are for donations for other conservation organizations. Why would I want that? I presume that every website owner wants to communicate something through hisher website and adds just simply sucks those hard-won visitors away.

So I think that the Google adds are highly counterproductive for the objective or any website.

I placed this question, because I thought that I had missed something or maybe there was a secondary benefit, like Google would improve its scores for people with Google adds, which would make sense from Google's point of view, as it would generate more income for them.

By the way, Jim, I like the new look of your site!
Cheers,
Daan

Hi Daan,

If Google ads improved ranking for a website, that would be great! But it is not the case and you are not missing anything other than money, which as you said, may not be worth it.

You might consider adwords to get people to your site. Also, put your link in your signature on this forum (it gets activated after 10 posts (pervents spam)) - I am most confident it will help you in the long run

Thanks for the complement on the new format - it takes a LOT of work to come up with a new design and it was not easy

Best regards,

Jim.

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