You can now enable online web ads, using Google, for groups who choose to enable this feature for their web archives, and which have archives open to the public. Income generated from the ads will go directly to the Google publisher-ID established for that group, except 10% which goes to sustain server operations here (1 out of 10 articles use my publisher ID).
- Reality check: I have a test set of over 160,000 recipe web pages with ads on them, and am presently only averaging $40/month. Some people make more, but don't get your hopes too high.
. Benefits to you
- some means of financial return for the effort and costs associated with online ministry
- more timely updating of search engines with your new message content (I believe this is a strategy Google employs)
. Motivations behind this
- the server is underutilized and growth has slowed, so I am looking to gain a competitive edge that will draw more people in
- many groups have closed archives - they are not "letting their light shine" on the web, and I'd like to motivate owners to reconsider/review that setting
a number of groups post content infrequently, or with less content quality than they could put in - perhaps lacking an incentive to do better
- And finally, I would like this ministry to be financially self-sustaining
Advertising settings you could pick for this feature on your group
* proceeds to you (your Google publisher ID) for 9 out of 10 articles as noted above
- no ads - no revenue
- ads enabled, but the Google publisher ID is left at the default as a contribution from you to help underwrite server costs
The use of AdSense has been implemented in MimerDesk, and is ready for your use. You can turn it on and use my Google publisher ID (there by default) or use your own. You will get your own numbers if you sign up for Google AdSense as a publisher. All ads are 728x90 Leaderboard.
. Risks
I turned ads on temporarily for some articles in the Christian article library here. I was not happy when a cult book was advertised, which was teaching lies about the Bible. We have very little control over who decides to advertise. I will not police the ads with the ad agency - either they are on, or off - it will be the group owner's decision (unless I see a real problem). And it could be much worse - say a member writes an article on Sexual Purity...today, Google seems to have an advertising standard that prohibits most immoral content - but this may change over time. We have to be very careful.
- I have said many times that money and ministry don't mix. This idea could completely backfire and get us off-focus from ministry.
- Contention about payment. I don't want to get hassled by people for anything related to payment (correctness, frequency, advance payments, etc). Understand that if it gets to be distracting, I'll take action (whether that means turning off the ads for that group, deleting the group, etc).