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Surely relying on ad revenue from people redirected from search engine results is the short-sighted strategy? It makes your revenue stream rely on the whims of

Surely relying on ad revenue from people redirected from search engine results is the short-sighted strategy? It makes your revenue stream rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. The comments on the article even imply that Wikipedia "suffers" from having their content embedded in Google search results in this way; as if Wikipedia relies on ads, or has free bandwidth to waste, or cares more about getting visitors than spreading knowledge. Unlike Wikipedia, StackOverflow is a commercial venture with ads, but are we really so jaded that we expect them to sabotage those who want to use their content? Have CC licenses turned into nothing more than trendy logos, to which we only pay lip-service? SO's informal opinion-of/relationship-with Google is well-documented, for example: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/04/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/04/16.html http://blog.codinghorror.com/trouble-in-the-house-of-google/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/trouble-in-the-house-of-google/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-importance-of-sitemaps/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-importance-of-sitemaps/

jfoster 12y ago
> Surely relying on ad revenue from people redirected from search engine results is the short-sighted strategy? What's the long-sighted alternative? > It makes your revenue stream rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. Involvement with search engines makes your traffic rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. Ad networks will predictably go wherever the users are. Search engines are rather unpredictable.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  "What's the long-sighted alternative?" StackOverflow's primary income source is Stack Overflow Careers.
  - mooreds 12y ago
    Yes. That's why they took more investment this year: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html
  - jfoster 12y ago
    If they let Google cut off their supply of eyeballs, Careers isn't going to do too well, either, though. Google is adding a tall hurdle to the front of their user-onboarding funnel. It's a fair point that ads are not the best way for them to monetize, but practically any other form of monetization also involves getting users from a search engine onto their site.
- chriswarbo 12y ago
  > Involvement with search engines makes your traffic rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. That might be the case, but I was interested in revenue, not traffic.

jfoster 12y ago

> Surely relying on ad revenue from people redirected from search engine results is the short-sighted strategy? What's the long-sighted alternative? > It makes your revenue stream rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. Involvement with search engines makes your traffic rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. Ad networks will predictably go wherever the users are. Search engines are rather unpredictable.

bryanlarsen 12y ago
"What's the long-sighted alternative?" StackOverflow's primary income source is Stack Overflow Careers.
- mooreds 12y ago
  Yes. That's why they took more investment this year: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2015/01/20.html
- jfoster 12y ago
  If they let Google cut off their supply of eyeballs, Careers isn't going to do too well, either, though. Google is adding a tall hurdle to the front of their user-onboarding funnel. It's a fair point that ads are not the best way for them to monetize, but practically any other form of monetization also involves getting users from a search engine onto their site.
chriswarbo 12y ago
> Involvement with search engines makes your traffic rely on the whims of uninterested third-parties. That might be the case, but I was interested in revenue, not traffic.