4 ms·

I have a site that has around 4-5m visits per month, yet all attempts to monetize it have failed. I'd love to use Amazon's referral program or Google Ads, but I

I have a site that has around 4-5m visits per month, yet all attempts to monetize it have failed. I'd love to use Amazon's referral program or Google Ads, but I can't because the site's content is somewhere between reddit and 4chan - deemed too shady for anything else than porn ads. So, the site still remains a hobby project - exactly as when I launched it 6 years ago.

ashray 14y ago
If it's a forum style thing then discussion systems with a high number of pageviews per unique visitor (vbulletin/reddit/etc) will generally have very poor advertising revenue. Maybe you need to look at a different model though ? Sort of like reddit gold, premium memberships, or some other services that may somehow add value to your site ? It's often surprising how many people are willing to pay $2-$10 per month for something! If you really mean 4-5m million visits (and not pageviews) I'd love to take a look and see if I can help you figure out some sort of solution. Send me an email (addrress is on my profile).
- phoboslab 14y ago
  There's no email address on your profile :) The site is http://pr0gramm.com/ http://pr0gramm.com/ (NSFW) - mostly german visitors and yes, it's 4-5m visits, not pageviews. It's kinda impossible to define what a "pageview" is on that site anyway.
  - ashray 14y ago
    Whoops! Added in my email address :) Cool site btw, IRC still has some pretty weird stuff going around :P
  - gabemart 14y ago
    Have you considered partnering with a company that would play off the kind of irreverent content IRC carries? The company TshirtHell.com came to mind as (IIRC) they've fostered controversy in the past. You do something like every xth image on your site is the image from one of their Tees with a referral link to buy as the source. You could tweak x to find the right balance between annoying and profitable.
  - socialist_coder 14y ago
    A lot more Hitler related images than I would expect. I didn't think Germans appreciated that type of humor (my wife is German).
- r888888888 14y ago
  I run a similar semi-pornographic site. The problem is payment gateways like Paypal do not like sites with adult content, and traffic typically isn't high enough to justify splurging on a merchant account.
jyu 14y ago
(Obvious suggestion) look at how similar content sites are being monetized. A lot of ad networks advertise on PirateBay. Maybe you can contact them and include similar ad units.
csense 14y ago
Recently 4chan had an excellent monetization idea: Require passing a CAPTCHA in order to post. Allow users to buy a code that will let them post without passing a CAPTCHA. Accept bitcoins to avoid payment providers' prejudices and help users remain anonymous if desired. Of course, you want to add some limits to discourage people from publishing their codes. For example, a rate limit on posts (with a slightly more generous burst allowance, e.g. you get 10 CAPTCHA-less posts / hour, but if you don't use them, up to 100 CAPTCHA-less posts are automatically "saved" in your token's reserve). Or a limit on the IP addresses, e.g. whenever a code is used on more than one or two unique IP's within a short time, lock it out. And of course the gold standard: Manual monitoring for spam, illegalities or other ToS violations, punished by account cancellation (and referral to law enforcement for extreme cases). You could sweeten the deal with custom markup: Make posts by paying users be a different color or something, to show they support the site. Or if users have a traditional forum account (as opposed to anonymous posting), add an icon or something to their profile. If I was implementing this, I'd have three tiers: The "cheap tier" (around $5) for just CAPTCHA-less posting. The "medium tier" (around $15) for CAPTCHA-less posting and a note in your profile that you're a supporter. The "high tier" ($40-$60) for different-colored posts. If you want to know why I suggest three tiers, Joel on Software has a post that explains it very well [1]. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...

ashray 14y ago

If it's a forum style thing then discussion systems with a high number of pageviews per unique visitor (vbulletin/reddit/etc) will generally have very poor advertising revenue. Maybe you need to look at a different model though ? Sort of like reddit gold, premium memberships, or some other services that may somehow add value to your site ? It's often surprising how many people are willing to pay $2-$10 per month for something! If you really mean 4-5m million visits (and not pageviews) I'd love to take a look and see if I can help you figure out some sort of solution. Send me an email (addrress is on my profile).

phoboslab 14y ago
There's no email address on your profile :) The site is http://pr0gramm.com/ http://pr0gramm.com/ (NSFW) - mostly german visitors and yes, it's 4-5m visits, not pageviews. It's kinda impossible to define what a "pageview" is on that site anyway.
- ashray 14y ago
  Whoops! Added in my email address :) Cool site btw, IRC still has some pretty weird stuff going around :P
- gabemart 14y ago
  Have you considered partnering with a company that would play off the kind of irreverent content IRC carries? The company TshirtHell.com came to mind as (IIRC) they've fostered controversy in the past. You do something like every xth image on your site is the image from one of their Tees with a referral link to buy as the source. You could tweak x to find the right balance between annoying and profitable.
- socialist_coder 14y ago
  A lot more Hitler related images than I would expect. I didn't think Germans appreciated that type of humor (my wife is German).
r888888888 14y ago
I run a similar semi-pornographic site. The problem is payment gateways like Paypal do not like sites with adult content, and traffic typically isn't high enough to justify splurging on a merchant account.

jyu 14y ago

(Obvious suggestion) look at how similar content sites are being monetized. A lot of ad networks advertise on PirateBay. Maybe you can contact them and include similar ad units.

csense 14y ago

Recently 4chan had an excellent monetization idea: Require passing a CAPTCHA in order to post. Allow users to buy a code that will let them post without passing a CAPTCHA. Accept bitcoins to avoid payment providers' prejudices and help users remain anonymous if desired. Of course, you want to add some limits to discourage people from publishing their codes. For example, a rate limit on posts (with a slightly more generous burst allowance, e.g. you get 10 CAPTCHA-less posts / hour, but if you don't use them, up to 100 CAPTCHA-less posts are automatically "saved" in your token's reserve). Or a limit on the IP addresses, e.g. whenever a code is used on more than one or two unique IP's within a short time, lock it out. And of course the gold standard: Manual monitoring for spam, illegalities or other ToS violations, punished by account cancellation (and referral to law enforcement for extreme cases). You could sweeten the deal with custom markup: Make posts by paying users be a different color or something, to show they support the site. Or if users have a traditional forum account (as opposed to anonymous posting), add an icon or something to their profile. If I was implementing this, I'd have three tiers: The "cheap tier" (around $5) for just CAPTCHA-less posting. The "medium tier" (around $15) for CAPTCHA-less posting and a note in your profile that you're a supporter. The "high tier" ($40-$60) for different-colored posts. If you want to know why I suggest three tiers, Joel on Software has a post that explains it very well [1]. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...