Goodbye Ads

What!, you say. Why? Well…

A long long time ago when I first started this blog on Webs.com, I added a widget for Amazon.com. I then incorporated it into Blogger. I had hopes of making a little money here and there but never thought it would bring in any significant profits. Well….I was right. Not long after I started writing, the state of Colorado decided to collect sales tax from companies that sold items via the web and Amazon decided to not sell anything via their associates in Colorado. So Colorado associates have been frozen out due to this still ongoing standoff.

Then Blogger (via Google) offered AdSense which places random ads at the bottom of your posts. You get paid if someone clicks an ad. Since April of this year I have managed to rack up .81 cents. Wow. They won’t send me a check until I reach $10 (after all clicks have been verified and approved). So at this rate it might be a couple of years before I see a check.

So the money was not there and I really never thought it would be. I would have to get millions of hits on this blog to generate any inkling of revenue. And let’s face it, I don’t live the kind of wild and risk filled life to make my blog that interesting.

I have also been reading other bloggers as they debated this issue themselves. Several feel that having ads makes it look like they are endorsing a product or that their posts have been influenced by a company whose ads appear on their page. All good points but I really don’t have an issue with that.

My main reason is that I really don’t like going to websites and being assaulted by ads. Pop ups. Scrolling ads. Floating ads. They are everywhere. The ones that really annoy me are the pop up surveys. How can I rate my experience on your website? Your survey popped up 2 seconds after I logged on and blocked me! I didn’t even get a chance to see your site. So, if I feel this way about ads on websites, why would I subject you to them? Exactly!

So as soon as I can get everything cancelled with AdSense, the ads will be gone.

I‘ll still link to websites and products that I mention because that is the right thing to do. I’ll still link to the musical artist in the “now playing” line at the bottom of each posts because you need to support these people. Go see them live, buy their stuff, support your local artists, etc.

As for Amazon, I will still link book titles, etc. to them because even though I have never ordered anything from them, they are an awesome resource. I will also leave the Amazon MP3 widget on the site as well. (See the previous paragraph for the reasoning behind this.)

So, here we go.

 

 

While writing this, I was listening to "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" from "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked - Single of the Week" by Cage the Elephant

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