Earn Over the Web

Well, three weeks after the implementation of the Explorer Destroyer script, I have decided to remove it. During the period of its existence, I only managed to convert one user to Firefox. That’s only $0.50 earned, and only one person saved from the grasp of the vile IE7. After looking at the analytics statistics for this site, it appears that most of my users use Firefox anyway.

One large gripe I have with Explorer Destroyer is that somehow, when Google indexed my pages, it read Explorer Destroyer’s message as the meta/description for my pages. This means that instead of helpful excerpts or titles, on most of my pages Google results show only “Get firefox now, …” I don’t know how long it will take the big G to recrawl my pages and update them as such, but as far as I can see, Explorer Destroyer may have dented what little search engine ranking and traffic this blog has. Although it’s possible this happened because of bad code insertion or a WordPress theme compatibility problem, all of the instructions were followed.

Even though I had a bad experience with Explorer Destroyer, it doesn’t mean that the above malady will affect all sites or that it never leads to referrals. It will simply suffice to say that ED is a great script with a great purpose for some sites, but EarnOverTheWeb will no longer use it.

If you own a blog or website and have been looking to monetize it, chances are that you have come across Text-Link-Ads. Of the many ad providers/affiliate proagrams available, TLA is at the forefront. They offer high payouts, targeted ads, easy setup, and more. They also take a relatively low comission compared with many other similar services. As a publisher, you can place:

• Text-Link ads
• Post level ads
• RSS ads (feedvertising)
• Affiliate links

They also offer a few free tools like a calculator for how much you will earn at different placements, and a ranking tool.Text-Link-Ads makes it easy to insert ads, once your site has been approved, you simply get the ad code and place it on your site. Even if your site is not approved, you can still earn $25 for a successful publisher or advertiser who is referred to the program through your link. This allows for you to place affiliate banners promoting the program almost anywhere, without having to have a minimum pagerank.

If you are an advertiser or publisher who is looking for monetization or alternatives to adsense, you should try Text-Link-Ads.

If you’ve ever looked around at your options for advertising on your blog, you realize the efficiency of directly selling your own ads. Middlemen and large companies have monopolies over the industry. They get money instantly, take their cut, and pay you what profit is left weeks later. There’s nothing much you could do about it. There are plugins that allow you to handle the sponsoring of posts and similar things, but until now there were none that allowed you to sell text ads. This is where WPTextAds comes in.

WP Text Ads offers advertisers 3 ways to buy ads in content-relevant pages:

• Individual post
• Home page
• All pages

Rather than a fixed price, now your advertisers can choose to buy ads for $5 per post, $30 for the home page or $50 for every page. You set the prices, and he benefits from the savings.

These choices help your advertisers save money, and you are more likely to win them as new customers.

WPTextAds has tons of features, and is fully customizable. The free version should be enough for most small blogs, supporting two ads in each of the three site areas (home, post, full site). The full version costs $127, but there is a 180-day money back guarantee, it seems the creators are certain you will make profit. I think that if you are monetizing your Wordpress blog, this plugin is a must.

I’m going to assume that all of you have heard of Firefox, and that most of you use Firefox. If you don’t, you may have noticed already that when you visit this site in IE, you get a message at the top of the page suggesting that you switch to Firefox. This message is courtesy of a script called Explorer Destroyer. Here’s how it works:

• Script autodetects IE
• Displays switch splash screen to IE users
• Switches people to Firefox
• Three levels of seriousness
• Google gives you referral money for switches
• Infuriates Microsoft

Essentially, you download the script, insert your adsense ID, and add it to your site. Visitors using IE (the inferior browser) will see a script at one of three seriousness levels, depending on your choice. At level 1, visitors using IE see a message encouraging them to download Firefox (with a download link) running across the top of the page. At level 2, visitors using IE get a friendly splash page encouraging them to download Firefox. At level 3, users cannot even access your site with Internet Explorer. Here is a screenshot of level 1:

Personally, I would recommend using level 1. Level 2 and especially level 3 are too unfriendly and may turn viewers away. Earning $1 per referral is not worth blocking access to up to 75% of users.

If you haven’t already switched to Firefox, I would highly recommend it. There are so many reasons to switch: security, ease of use, speed, stability, extensions, and looks, that the decision is clear.