Today we are introducing a feature that has been suggested by many users who either use our AdSense integration or are looking into it. Just a word to those who are not familiar with it: we are allowing our users to put AdSense ads on their pages and we share revenue with them. This is done through AdSense API, a program from Google that makes such integration a piece of cake. When you are using AdSense with Wikidot, Google pays you directly based on the number of clicks in your ads and some other "magic" factors.
Anyway, the problem some of you have is:
- You want to display ads on your Wikis and earn money. This is obvious.
- You do not want to discourage regular users and members by exposing to ads. This is especially important on community wikis, forums etc.
We have performed a study on a selected number of sites. Our solution, very simple, is that now you can display AdSense ads only to users without a Wikidot.com account (aka anonymous users). Why can this benefit you?
- Some of the Wikidot users appreciate the fact that Wikidot is ad-free by default. Most likely they would also appreciate your Wiki as ad-free too, especially if it is a community site, like a forum.
- Regular users do not click ads — this is called ad blindness. If they visit your site often, at some point they simply ignore the ads.
- So you are not likely to make much money from them at all (our study shows that on average only 5% of clicks come from registered users).
- On the other hand your regular users can contribute vastly to the number of pageviews, up to 80-90% on community sites like forums.
- This together makes your ad perform terribly in terms of click per impression ratio (CTR).
- Anonymous users, that come from search engines (like Google) contribute about 50% to the total number of visits. Anonymous users generate up to 90% of earnings today on some wikis.
- By disabling ads for your regular users you can improve performance of your ads and (magically!) this can vastly improve you total earnings.
So the most important benefits of displaying ads to the anonymous users only are:
- Browsing your Site is now nicer for registered users (no ads).
- Improve performance of your ads (if you are lost in our explanation above, just try this).
- Can improve your overall earnings!
We highly recommend setting this option to everyone. In fact, the ads are being displayed to anonymous users only by default now. If you do not like it, you can change it back. Simply go to the AdSense panel and click on configure wikis, but please give it a try for a while.
If you are deep into AdSense, probably you already know that many services are using such an distinction between visitors with very good results.
If you have never used our AdSense options, now there is one more reason to try it. Your regular users will not be exposed to ads, so they should not mind at all, but you could get some nice pocket money!
Links:
- Wikidot + AdSense explained
- AdSense management panel
- moc.todikiw|troppus#moc.todikiw|troppus — we are happy to answer any questions!
Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me
