Be Google’s Toadie?
Although I am the keeper of this modest personal blog, as well as the keeper of an even more modest art site, I’m also involved with a much less modest anime blog (Sea Slugs! Anime Blog). I started it around the beginning of the year with two of my friends from Cornell, and it has grown greatly in only a few months. I love having an anime blog, and I think of it as a great resource for fans of anime series (especially lesser known series), so it was no problem at all when it got so popular that I had to move it off of free webspace and on to a more robust web host. I’ve currently got a very nice package going with Surpass Hosting, who has been very good to us, and the total cost of hosting and domain registration probably totals under $100 a year (I use Wordpress, so I don’t have to pay for blogging software). It’s really not too expensive for a hobby. However, recently I have been hearing the siren song of using advertising space on my site to help defray the cost. Unfortunately, the issue is more complex than that (at least in my mind). The service I have been looking into the most is the Google Adsense program; anyone who has used Blogger for a while remembers that they used to run Adsense banners across the top of free blogs. Most of the time I just ignored the ads, although sometimes they caught my fancy. I highly doubt that Sea Slugs! would generate enough clicks to fully cover hosting costs, but now that I have to buy a car, I am starting to think that every little bit helps… There is also the bittersweet possibility that I will have to upgrade my webhosting package if my bandwidth grows too large.
So there are some pros and cons to having ads on the page. The cons are pretty obvious: 1) I’ll probably have to fiddle with the layout and end up with something less swank in order to accommodate the ads, 2) I may make people angry who will see me as a sell-out, 3) I am lazy and a site redesign would probably take me a while, 4) Sea Slugs! could lose visitors. There are probably some more I am forgetting. And of course on the other side are the insidious pros: 1) Possibility of money to defray costs, 2) enrollment is free, 3) possibility of helpful ads.
Ok, ok, I know you’re thinking that that last pro is something that I am putting in to just assuage my feelings of immense guilt and self-loathing. It’s not; I have other stuff for that. One of the things that I have seen is that Google seems to be pretty decent at bringing up ads that are relevant to the page. Because Sea Slugs! is highly topical with a rather narrow focus, there is a good chance that the ads will bring up links to stores that actually sell anime related goods. For those who have not visited, Sea Slugs! primarily reviews episodes of anime that have not yet been released in the US. These episodes are in their original Japanese, with subtitles provided by groups of fans who encode the episode and distribute it for free online. I know everyone who watches fansubs gives lip-service to “This is a free fansub, please support anime by buying this when it comes out on DVD,” and I believe in this. Goodness only knows how much I have spent on anime and manga (uggghhh….). So doesn’t it make sense for a site devoted to reviewing fansubs to also have a resource for those who want to purchase the real deal? Even crazier is the fact that as series get older, it gets harder to find them online, and easier to find them on legit DVD’s. Hmmm…
But they’re ads! From their introduction in the early 90’s, online ads have really gotten a bad rap. Who can forget the endlessly spawning pop-up ads (I actually had a class project where I had to make the most annoying website imaginable…), the epilepsy-inducing blinking text, and the horrific animated gif banners that took up 1/3 of the screen? Some ads have actually gotten worse, by utilizing flash to open up right in the middle of the screen (damn you ESPN). Plus, how can you objectively review anything, when you have sponsors? Personally, I think that Google Adsense has done a brilliant job of addressing both of these issues. First off, Google’s text ads are low-key and not terribly fugly (plus they are customizable). Also, Google has shown that it can filter effectively. When you combine this with the ability to further filter your results, there is a good chance that the Google Ad will bring up something relevant. Google monitors the ads to remove ads that suck and ads that generate little interest. A rather Darwinian approach, really. Finally, because the ads are based on the user’s location, as well as the ever-changing (well, whenever we get around to updating) content of the site, there is no way of knowing what sponsor’s ad will show up. Plus, I don’t remember ever bashing/endorsing any anime distributors.
So for those of you who have taken the time to read this whole rant, yay or nay? I’m still undecided, so I want to hear what others have to say. Has anyone actually used Google Adsense before? Is it good, bad, or ugly? Inquiring minds want to know!
As a final note, Google maintains that having Adsense on your site will not increase its Pagerank, so I’ll play along with that for now.
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