Does Adsense work well for forums?

[Patrick]

That would be a violation of the Google AdSense TOS.
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[Triumvirate]

As far as ads go I've always found the google adsense ones to be the ones I am most likely to click on. Not that I do all that often, but when I do click ads it is usually an adsense one.
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MMO Gaming

[Teknomancer]

[Patrick]

That's true. Of course, there is right and wrong and what we must decide as individuals. Bad clicks hurt everyone, I daresay.
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[Teknomancer]

Yes I agree. Even though google has loads of IP trackign schemes to detect most false, duplicate clicks we should try and use it cleanly. As they are probably prompt with the money, so should we be with following the rules.
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[Elbethil]

I don't use adsense, but as a user of some forums that have adsense, I will say that it is quite annoying to read a thread with embedded ads. I find I'm more likely to click an ad if it's in the footer or side. When an ad is stuck in my reading area, I just get annoyed and do my best to ignore it.
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- Elbie

[Teknomancer]

AdSense can be placed just about anyplace on the page. Not necessarily on the reading area. Careful, unobstrusive placement isn't annoying.
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[Patrick]

I have placed ads in the reading area. At the end of the day, we don't serve that many ads (no popups, no interstitals, no invues, no popunders, no loud ads, etc.), it isn't hard to ignore them if you want to.
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[drathbun]

FWIW, and this is directed at Patrick ... I really really dislike the inline ads you've added at your "hacks" site. In fact I left the site for several weeks in a minor protest... not that you probably noticed. I realize it's each webmaster's decision where to place the ads, but putting them inline with the content just tweaks me the wrong way.

I use Adsense adverts on my biggest forum and have so far made the minimum required to get a check ($100) every month that they have been active. I have one line of ads at the bottom of the page only. BTW, it used to be against the TOS to disclose any income numbers... they (google) have amended the TOS so that it's legal to disclose gross amounts. You can't disclose individual click amounts or other detailed information.

Bottom line: if you have the activity (I serve 40K page impressions a day on weekdays) then I believe that Adsense adverts are an excellent way to make money from your forum. You have to be sure that you don't display them on inappropriate pages (login pages, thank you pages, registration pages, etc).

FWIW, I also have google ads on much smaller / less active sites and make less than $5 per month from those sites. I would not bother with the ads unless I made at least $50 (gross) per month, otherwise you're waiting forever for your checks.

As a comparison... I make about $10-15 per month on Amazon affiliate links.
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[Patrick]

Yeah, I didn't notice. Protests don't really do anything for me. You should have sent me a message saying that you didn't care for them. I'm not saying I would have removed them, but I would have taken it into account, certainly. They may or may not stick around for a long time.

As I said, my sites just don't serve many ads. We're a little top heavy (although not nearly as top heavy as many other sites) because that is where networks say their ads have to be, that is where people pay for their ads to be and that is where you get the best performance, generally. I disable inappropriate ads, I disable noisy ads, I don't serve popups, popunders, interstitals, invues or any of that. There are so many types of ads that I could serve - that many other sites serve - that I don't. I just serve in line ads and I feel that it is tasteful. It's not like their bright orange. They blend in, you can ignore the 60 to 90 pixels of height that they take up. There are so many ads I could serve, but I just don't like them.

This is my full time job. If I'm not making the money that I am able to make in ways that I feel are appropriate, I'll have to go get a full time job elsewhere - and the sites will stop or be curtailed or sold to someone who will care less. That's just the harsh reality. I don't want to go there - this is what I want to do - but I have goals for my life and where I want to be in the future. I dedicate my time to these sites and I work hard. If people can't respect the fact that I need to earn revenue and that I am doing so in ways that I feel appropriate (I'm not throwing popups at them, etc.), then I won't miss those users. I care greatly about my users and I do whatever I can, but this is my life - if they can't respect me, they can expect just about the same sentiment from me.

I'm not talking about you. You don't like the ads and that's fine. You don't have to. And you can decide whether or not you want to visit and use the site based upon that. I'm speaking of people who act like I am doing something wrong or ethically wrong, that I shouldn't serve ads there or that I'm evil for doing so, or something.
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