WP Text Ads

Fri, 20 July, 2007 – 10:21 am

I'd read a little on WP Text Ads via Gary on osWorld, and had forgotten about it until recently, when I had a comment left on this blog on the post about blocking Text Link Ads by mistake. The comment saidnn

Hi.nnTLA is a nice brokered-program.nnBut if you prefer not to pay any hefty commissions, you can consider WP Text Ads.nnI'm the developer of this free WordPress plugin that lets bloggers sell directly to advertisers, so they pay no commissions and get paid instantly.nnAdvertisers can buy ads for the whole blog, the home page, or per-post.nnDo consider this alternativenn** links removed **

nnNow this blog is hardly swarming with visitors, and even the domain doesn't have PR since I switched domains and have very few backlinks to the new domain, however I still don't appreciate someone who's never commented before, didn't even read the post properly (as they'd have seen their comment wasn't relevant) and still trying to use my blog as their advertising platform.nnJust to make it clear, I've got no problem on regular commenters linking to other projects, new projects etc. Hopefully this site will get back its PR in the next update as I've 301'd the old sarahfreelance domain, so fingers crossed the green will show again. However as a new commenter their comment will be checked whilst in the moderation queue. It's easy to spot someone who's actually read the post and subsequent comments before commenting themselves, so usually easy to spot those who are actually making an effort and those who are there for the linkback. (And nofollow is switched off about 24-48 hours after the comment is made).nnSo, getting back to the subject at hand, I ignored this comment and removed it from the moderation queue. Then last night I noticed the same person had commented on Blogtrepreneur. Adnan had written a post thanking his TLA Sponsors, along with other sponsors he'd sold directly. A similar comment appeared from the creator of WP Text Ads simply advertising his own product. I can only presume the creator is sitting on Google Blogsearch looking at any post to do with Text Link Ads, and the minute one comes through, visiting the site and copying one of several prewritten comments and posting it, without reading the post.nnA search on Yahoo for similar info throws up a stack of sites, some giving a review on the product but most with a standard comment in the comments section of a blog post.nnYou're probably wondering why mention it. Well first off, if you've not been targetted for a comment yet I'm sure the minute you write about Text Link Ads you will be. I decided that this guy clearly would prefer a review so I'll do that.nnWP Text Ads allows you to sell text links directly from your WordPress blog. It's a plugin you can add to WordPress and then when you sell a link you get to keep 100% of the revenue, unlike somewhere such as Text Link Ads, where you only make 50% of the revenue. Sounds good so far eh? Well that's where it ends. The free version of this plugin that the creator keeps mentioning in his comment spam, only allows you to sell 2 links, after that you have to pay a license fee per site, which is a tidy sum of $127.nnThe other downside, of course, is that you need reasonable traffic to be able to sell links directly on a website. The beauty of Text Link Ads is that thousands of advertisers will go to their site, search on a few keywords and look at the potential publishers (of which there are plenty) that they could advertise with. There's no way that most people who have success with Text Link Ads could manage to sell those links as standalone. The only way you could do it would be to get a link request via TLA, and then contact the advertiser directly knocking say 25% off the price providing they signed up directly. But there's no guarantee to the Advertiser then. We know from my previous post on Text Link Ads and .htaccess that they send their bots out frequently to check that the adverts are showing. An advertiser would have to check the site daily to be sure their advert is there. So advertisers would easily pay more to Text Link Ads than to standalone publishers, suddenly making that $127 license seem a lot more, espcially when you easily do this yourself for free:nn

n
1. Knock up a simple button or graphic advertising links

n

2. Create a simple contact page for advertisers

n

3. Set up a PayPal subscription for the advertiser

n

4. Add the link manually via WordPress

n

5. When the advertiser doesn't pay, remove the link

n

nnI'd imagine the WP Text Ads also gives statistics perhaps, how many times the link is displayed and/or clicked. But then again the advertiser should be able to see the referrals in their own stats. Anyhow, my method would take you about 10 minutes to set up and then 5-10 minutes per advertiser, 15 minutes if you were to invoice each and every payment.nnWP Text Ads does have its own Marketplace, however with only around 6 or 7 blogs in there at the time of writing, I can't see it drawing many advertisers in.nnHowever, I'm all for people checking things out for themselves and making their own decisions, so the site, if you're interested, is at http://www.wptextads.com (sorry no link, I've got no PR anyhow ).nnAnd a note for the creator, or anyone else who wants to advertise on this or another blog via the comments section, without contributing to the website. Why not contact the site owner instead and request a review. Some will do it for free, especially if it's a worthwhile product, others may request a link back. I'm sure you'd gain more respect by emailing someone than trying to sneak in via the back door. Alternatively go to Review Me and buy some reviews.

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl