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A one year review of WidgetBucks
By Alex on August 16th 2008 - 11 comments
I was going through some of my old writing and I found a few stories I never posted, and this is one of them. A sort of "guest post" by the old me. I am expanding on it as well to include current and relevant information.
WidgetBucks is a new advertising company that was launched back in October of 2007. They've exploded onto the scene faster than any advertising company in recent memory, so much so that they exceeded their 6-month goals in less than one month. At a time when AdSense is reducing their clickable areas, webmasters are looking for new sources of income. The question is, will WidgetBucks live up to the hype?
Like most people, I was hesitant to replace AdSense and private ad sales for WidgetBucks positions. I didn't know if they would actually pay better, or if I would even get paid. I replaced one ad unit with WidgetBucks half-way through October, and a week later I had replaced two or three AdSense units with WidgetBucks units on a few different websites I run.
I heard a lot of people complaining in the first two months. They said things like "they pay too much per click, I bet nobody will get checks, it's a scam" and "They banned me for earning too much money and now they won't pay me, scam". Needless to say, this didn't make webmasters feel very secure in switching over to WidgetBucks. I had my doubts, but I was never worried about not getting paid. Two months after I joined, I got my first WidgetBucks check for over $1,000.
The reason people were complaining about WidgetBucks being a scam and being banned and such, is because they abused the service. AdSense would have banned them for using the same tactics. These webmasters probably knew that, but decided to go black-hat with a new advertising company. Then they complain and call it a scam when they get banned.
My personal results for October were a lot better than I expected. The clicks and the CPC were high, and usually very steady. And even though I started using WidgetBucks halfway through October, I still earned as much as I earned with AdSense the entire month of October. This means I now had the potential to (at least) double my income.
Unfortunately, as the months progressed, WidgetBucks made changes to their algorithm. Clicks that earned me 50 cents in October were only earning me 30 cents by January, and those same clicks continued to fall in value over time. Three months ago, I finally started replacing my WidgetBucks units with CPM advertising companies. I still have one WidgetBucks unit on every one of my websites, but I only earn about $100 from WidgetBucks today, down from over $1,000 just a year ago.
If you've never tried WidgetBucks before, there's absolutely no reason not to try it. The widgets tend to do better on certain websites, and you might just have one of those websites. When I signed up I thought I might make an extra $100 or so a month, but it started at over $1,000 a month. But even if it was only $100 a month, that's money you wouldn't have made with AdSense.
My suggestion is to sign up with WidgetBucks and add one unit to your website. Test it for a month and see if the extra income is worth the extra ad. Don't let my lack of results discourage you. If you have a niche website related to WidgetBucks advertising categories, this could be a gold mine for you.
Sign up for WidgetBucks, just click here.
Weekend link love
By Alex on August 11th 2008 - 12 comments
I know it's not really the weekend anymore, but I hope you'll forgive me. As you may have heard, I sold Best Pic Ever on Friday, and I've been working this weekend to get everything moved over and finish the deal. I also went to a killer Tech N9ne concert, so it's been an extremely busy weekend. Here are your links!
Adsense Myths and Cures goes over the biggest AdSense rumors, and tells you why they're not true.
Huge collection of Google Analytics tips.
SEO and server-related issues goes over important reasons to have a good server when you optimize for SEO and current event sniping.
Things to consider before buying a laptop.
How to get to the front page of Digg from ProBlogger.
Extremely effective link building method, so effective he can't believe it's not blackhat, but I can. It's a good read.
That's it for this week.
The nerve of some people
By Alex on August 6th 2008 - 14 comments
As you might have noticed, I have a Sitepoint ticker in my sidebar showing bids for a website I'm currently selling. It's been there for three days, but today I started getting emails and messages asking why I'm selling the same website on Digital Point for 1/10th the price. I know I didn't post it for sale there, so I cruise over and do a quick search, and find this thread.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8768604
Some tosser copied the auction from Sitepoint, word for word, and put it up "for sale" for $1,500. Hilarious considering the current bid is $6,000. I posted a message on the thread and reported the user. The Digital Point mods closed the thread already, I wish they would just delete it. But at least you get a chance to see it now.
I was pretty mad, but they closed it down pretty quickly, but how stupid do you have to be to do something like this. Let me know what you think about this, I'm done venting.