That's pretty awesome! I hope more bloggers follow that lead. I've sunk a lot of my own money into Subtext and other projects. Fortunately the ads on my blog have made it not be a huge burden for me.

Wow, a historic moment for Coding Horror! I have to admit that I am a bit sad, but this is always a personal decision and I do like the fact that some of the money is going to the development community. (We have ALL benefited from these sites as well as this blog). After reading this blog entry, I will be curious to see how "tasteful" the ad placement is.

There is a reason Coding Horror is very popular, let's hope it stays that way!

That's killer! Sam Ramji at MS might be in a position to do something as well! Cool stuff Jeff! Just when I was telling my wife you're the Geri Springer of the .NET world...

I enjoyed your no-ad style blog. Hope the ads doesn't change my perception.

As much as I hate advertising, at least the profits are going to a good cause. You have a courteous plan, but I would be willing to bet that most of your audience uses Adblock anyway.

Great blog!

Coding Horror is popular because the quality of the articles here is absolutely top-notch (why else would it be?). I'm completely willing to see text ads on this site and, if they're relevant, I might even find some of the ads useful.

I must say, though, it's also nice to see an article that explains the decision before-hand instead of just launching it with no notice.

Keep up the great work!

I'm willing to click on those ads to boost revenue for projects, but only if you post a weekly Ad revenue update :)

ditto on the weekly Ad revenue report!

I read you rblog through NewsGator - I see very few ads that way, I think? Seems like only BoingBoing content includes ads through the aggregator.

I'm fine with the ads as long as they aren't too excessive. I'm also happy to see a portion of the revenue go to a good cause.

The stuff written here is worth seeing a few ads.

Nice. As far as I'm concerned, you absolutely deserve to receive some compensation for the high quality content you regularly produce (not to mention the entertaining conversations that frequently ensue ;).

If anybody deserves to generate ad revenue, it's you.

That advertising levels table is very subjective to the type of site and how many monthly visitors you are getting. Small sites will have difficulty selling TextLinkAds, and really big sites will get terrible CPM through adsense.

Whatever you do, don't use Adsense on this site... programmers simply don't click on ads. Ever.

I'd like to think I had something to do with this idea, which is why I think it's super awesome.

Will anyone even see the ads?

I have been running Adblock for so long, when adding ads to my site, I thought I was doing something wrong, until I realized that I had been blocking them :D

"Is it possible to advertise responsibly, with respect for your audience-- and yourself? I think it is, if you're careful."

The guys at Penny Arcade struggled with this for a while. At first they took donations from their readers. When they went with banner ads, they were very selective about who they displayed on their site. Often only displaying ads for games that they played or liked. They continue to enforce that model and at 2 million pageviews/day...they have the clout to keep doing it. I believe Scott H. does something similar with the adspace on his site. He can correct me if I'm wrong. If you've got the traffic, you can back it up. I imagine you have the traffic. Me, I could probably sell ad space to Uncle Spiffy Jerk Turkey Fries Shack, but not anyone else. The revenue I get from my ads nets me about a beer every two-three months. But I'm not

So, the question is: what will you do with the other $25K/month? I expect to see pictures of the Coding Horror Ferrari this time next year. ;)

I've tossed around the idea of ads now and then on my site as well. I don't get nearly as many page views as many others, but it would be nice to have some extra money to pay for the hosting.

But like you, I've also felt ads are obtrusive and have always felt that way. While I'm not old enough to remember when there were few ads on cable TV, I am old enough to remember when there were very few ads on the internet.

> Will anyone even see the ads?

You can expect something similar to what Google Blogoscoped does. I don't think this will be blockable in the traditional sense, but it should be minimally invasive.

> what will you do with the other $25K/month?

I don't mean to be coy about the actual amount, but I think it's unhealthy to disclose actual ad revenues-- for the same reason people's salaries aren't public information at any company I've ever worked for. It breeds strife and dissent.

I'm all for transparency, but some things don't work that way. It is possible, in a few select cases, to know too much..

I've never, ever understood the anti-ad stance on the net. Sure, in some cases people may be doing it for fun but there are also people out there trying to make a living by providing you with content. That doesn't happen if people block ads, and most of those who block ads are probably not going to pay subscription fees either.

Granted, you have the extreme where a site is more ad than content *coughmyspacecough* but a few ads here and there shouldn't be a problem.

Unless you want to pay for your content, deal with it.

"I don't mean to be coy about the actual amount, but I think it's unhealthy to disclose actual ad revenues"

Of course. Not to mention it weakens your negotiating position when it comes to selling ads.

Sadly, 10k wont go very far next time MS is suing one of its supporters.

Good stuff though. I would recommend getting somebody to sit down and develop an application framework for ASP.NET so that there would be some solid alternative to Rails on .NET.

Even if you used revenue for yourself, it wouldn't be problem or something to be ashamed of.

codinghorror.com delivers superb content. The presence of ads won't jeopardize its quality.

I too don't understand people who are anti-ads. For one, I Adblock almost every site I visit. Adblock is the Internet equivalent of TiVo, filtering out all the content for you. Anyone who is so put off by ads can do the same. The only ads I can REMEMBER seeing in the past couple months are in-line ads on forums.

I don't really care if people are biased because of their ad revenue, if not, they are likely biased for some other reason. I mean, there's no way that we know if, instead of advertising, a blogger gets free gifts from companies in exchange for favorable reviews. A lot of people I know are inherently anti-Microsoft, I don't see why I should trust them anymore than I trust someone who is pro-Microsoft because MS pays the bills. What's the difference? The perception of most people on the Internet is extremely transparent.

This isn't product placement on ABC News we're talking about. We're not talking about journalism for the most part, but some random blogger with an opinion. One guy and who knows what the hell he's thinking. To imply corruption from advertising is to assume he's already doing a good job. No one should ever be given the benefit of the doubt on the Internet.

I think most people blow the annoyance of advertising way out of proportion. Like the first post says: advertising is already so pervasive that a lot of people don't even see it. It won't lead to a collapse of the Internet or the blogging community, it will lead to a collapse of current advertising methodology.

With regards to "As a courtesy, turn off ads for Digg, Reddit, and other popular referring URLs. " you might want to consider the Adsense for Content Programme Policies at https://www.google.com/adsense/policies which state:

"Any AdSense code must be pasted directly into web pages without modification. AdSense participants are not allowed to alter any portion of the code or change the behaviour, targeting or delivery of ads. For instance, clicks on Google ads may not result in a new browser window being launched."

Hiding the ads based on a referrer would seem to come under that category.

[)amien

@Damien - it can be done with server-side code which works around that issue.

I've been hosting advertising from Project Wonderful (http://www.projectwonderful.com/) for a while. They run a sort of continuous-auction process for ads - advertisers put up a bid of a per-day price for your site, the highest bidder at any time gets their ads displayed, and you get 75% of the revenue.

I've had mixed success - the model is a good one and works well, and the ads displayed have for the most part been pleasant and interesting, but there's a huge predominance of webcomics, and even though I get about 30k pageviews/day (from about 1700 users), I typically earn about 50c a day.

That said, for a single-subject site such as mine, I have no doubt it beats the ads that Google AdSense would deliver me.

Jeff Atwood:
I documented how spyware can do a drive-by infection of your machine through your web browser. To be absolutely clear, I never clicked on any advertisements, or downloaded and executed any files. All I did was open a GameCopyWorld web page in an unpatched, original circa-2001 version of Internet Explorer 6.0.

I sense a certain, umm disconnect, in this? I run firefox/ubuntu, so I 'suppose' this wouldn't happen to me. But you just got through telling how bad this stuff can be??

This rocks, Jeff!

Nice. I suggest you get feedback from us on what projects you plan to spend the money on. I can't think of any right now!

I ,for one, welcome our new advertising overlords. If it means that we get a steady diet of thought provoking content regarding software development from Jeff as a result? Great. Where do we sign er uh click.

Like most people I know I run with adblock on. I've gotten so used to it that when I use the SQL books online and it brings me to a place like
devx.com (I think it was this one) and see all the Animated ads splattered around I can barely read the content. I'm sure with the bandwidth that this site uses up some revenue would be appreciated.

I sometimes feel bad for visiting non-commercial sites that most likely survive based on ad revenue and not contributing.

I disagree with the positioning of 1 and 2 on that list. I think that they should be flipped around. CPM is a guaranteed amount per M (roman numeral for 1000) clicks, whereas Affiliate programs require your viewers to actually buy something from the sponsor.

Jeff,

How will you be selecting which projects to donate to? Would you poll your readership for candidates or did you have someone in mind?

This is the first time I have ever read your blog Jeff. /hat tip to Pete @ nerd Guru. Great post!

I just have to point something out as I have done every time this particular point comes up other blogs:

"Lack of Professionalism. In traditional journalism, there's strictly enforced separation between the writers and the marketers selling ads."

As a person who has paid for advertising, and dealt with magazines and other forms of media for many years now this just is not the case in my experience.

Advertiser influence on editorial is there in every form of media. The "strict line between editorial and advertising" in any form of traditional media is a myth.

pressure from advertisers ranges anywhere from just a little good will from the publication you spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars with to out right "if you don't tell our story this way we are pulling our ads".

Not to mention the unspoken understanding that every form of media has "if we bad mouth these guys we just might lose their ad business".

It's easy to bash someone who doesn't advertise with you and never will. It is much more difficult to do so when you need those dollars to feed your family.

Not condoning it, I just know it to be true.

That was a very insightful entry. It'd be nice if you donated money to some non-.Net projects as well.

@Rob Conery,

Yep, Sam Ramji will be involved (even if he doesn't know about this just yet :)

ai

While I usually enjoy your blog, and DO find some very useful information here (Spyware, don't run as Admin, etc.), I would have to say that you seem (of late) to be writing well constructed posts that get (are supposed to get?) post responses. "Pandering" would be too strong a word -- but I definitely think you have a habit at times of writing for responses (One is the loneliest, EULAs and ilk), rather than not writing something until there is a more "meaty" topic.

Personally, I'm surprised that you've waited this long to put ads on your site. If for no other reason but to recoup bandwidth costs. I mostly read the site through bloglines so as long you don't pollute the rss feed, you can put as many ads as you like on the website :D.

Where are the ads?? Oh yes - I'm using adblock :-) Frankly - you don't always realise how bad it feels to be submitted to ad-bombing until you manage to escape it. Life is so much more peaceful without ads: stop watching TV for three full months and you will understand what I mean. That beeing said I'm not opposed to moderate advertising - as long as it doesn't make noise, raise a window, or blink in your face like a christmas tree :-)
Cheers, --daniel

How much for a large pink flash banner with video and sound in the header?

Seriously I don't think anyone would unsubscribe here if you decide to generate some revenue from the quality content you deliver here. You've got the trust of your readers and I'm sure a lot of thought went into this decision. nice move!

How much for a large pink flash banner with video and sound in the header?

Seriously I don't think anyone would unsubscribe here if you decide to generate some revenue from the quality content you deliver here. You've got the trust of your readers and I'm sure a lot of thought went into this decision. nice move!

You have my vote for the ads. I run adblock but only to get rid of annoying ads on sites I regularly visit (like facebook). Google Ads have actually been _useful_.

A lengthy but informative explanation for adding ads that I'm a little tempted to click the ads when it come out.
Well, you deserve to make some money out of the site. Just keep the ads clean and relevant though.

The thing about AdSense is that, while it's the lowest earner (though I feel those figures are overstating this; $2 CPM isn't unusual even for a low-earning niche) it doesn't annoy the users much. Graphical and flash ads, by contrast, are eyesores at best, and at worst are actively distracting. And text links are generally an attempt to manipulate Google; if they catch on that you're using them nasty things may happen to your page rank.

I've read and respected your opinion on a variety of topics for a long time. I fear that this decision could make it harder for you to remain objective when evaluating and commenting on areas that overlap with your advertising. As mentioned above, I hope that you can be selective on your advertising so this never happens. Thank you for donating to the open source community.

I will do what I do with other ads - Block them or ignore them....

If you only make money when people click on them .. then don't expect any money?

Ads on the website: no problem.
Ads in the blog feed: deleted blog feed.

Don't you become more committed to the products advertised on your blog precisely when you sell your ads directly ?
I'm not sure how Google Adsense works exactly but I don't see advertisers pulling their ads or threatening to do so when they're sold through a network...

(sorry if my language seems odd, I'm not a native English speaker)

Given your 4 points of advice above, I probably will not even see these ads (not that I would be able to follow them at work anyway). But I don't see it as a problem, really - for all that you go on about usability, I trust that you won't make an eyesore out of it. :-)

Just, please, don't use animated/flashing/seizure ads.

No problem with ads as long as they're "reasonable" in both number and content. If possible, I blog any ads that move. If the ads include audio and I can't block it, I stop visiting the site. If the page I'm visiting looks more like an ad kiosk than a web page, I block everything. As long as the implementation is reasonable, you're welcome to the income.

Before netflix was super popular, I discovered it from penny-arcade.com. They do "sponsored" ads where the vendor approaches/pays them. Then the guys that run the site choose if the ad should be on their site. I never felt that the ads were a bad thing - I actually 'trusted' clicking through the ads because:
1. I knew it helped support the site
2. The guys running the site trusted the advert company to have a good product

All I have to say is "whatever." Firefox's <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865">AdBlock Plus</a> with some good filter lists and I don't see this crap anywhere anymore.

I hope you start advertising for Webroot. (I just renewed my lapsed subscription for SpySweeper, having read your praises of the company the day before, and during the first sweep it found 41 pieces of malware. I had let my machine go without it for a mere week.)

Even Public Television has ads these days, so go for it. You've done the hard work of getting this blog off the ground; it's time to reap some of the rewards.

Ads are fine, as long as you respect the readers (which I believe you will). Please do not use anything with animations or sound. I block these in a heartbeat and they are quite annoying.

> You can expect something similar to what Google Blogoscoped does. I don't think this will be blockable in the traditional sense, but it should be minimally invasive.

I don't see any ads on the blogoscoped page, probably as I'm blocking *.googlesyndication.com using adblock ;-)

It would be interesting to know what % of visitors have adblocking enabled: Maybe you can somehow mine this from your server stats?

Jeff, you make me want to click ads :). Way to go, no one has ever made me wish to do this. Now get these ads up so I may.

There are two places to put ads on this blog that will maximize revenue and won't bother the reader.

1. Just below the blog, above the comments.
2. Just below the comments, above the reply section.

I see no reason why you must only put them on aged posts. As you mentioned, those that don't care just scroll on by them and don't pay attention. That is, as long as they aren't those stupid animated advertisements, but rather a simple static image.

Occassionaly when I am on Anand-Tech I will see an ad and go "Wow Video Cards with 768MB of RAM are on sale. w00t!" (click)

Oh yeah, ads, whatever, don't notice them anymore, don't mind them.

.NET !?!? You sell-out! Microsoft shill! .Net will mean the end of the Internet's free spirit!

:-)

Making money for true Open Source projects is a worthy cause.

One thing to consider for a future post, is that not all things marketed as open source are truly open source.

For instance, anyone found Solaris on the FTP Mirrors ?

Wow Jeff, that's fantastic -- way to go!

:)

> I'll never understand bloggers who place their own personal desire for an additional few grand of income over basic respect for their readers.

Jeff,

Try a low-wage job, or moving to a third-world country. That should improve your understanding. "An additional few grand" is a BIG DEAL to some people, myself included.

Writing takes time, and writers need to be paid to take that time, one way or another. I see nothing disrespectful about it.

I'm deep into the learning of Win32 API right now. And I don't like it.
If I come to this blog, it's certainly not to learn some about windows programming, which I pretty dislike (did I mention ?).
So ads, especially if they serve advocating Windows programming, will almost certainly forbid me access to this blog (I hate'em, no kidding)..

More generally, I find it a bad reason to turn ads on to support an other website. If a website is so great/usefull, it can afford to have ads without killing its user base.. If its not, it has to improve to the point where it can. Or loose the ads.
And there are very few websites whith content allowing this kind of risk..

I think that while direct sales ads give you the most control over content, this may actually be BAD in a blog.

The best way to be unbiased in you real content as it relates to the ads is to have no control over the ads.

Here is a better solution:
Contract with an ad supplier. They will find relevant ads to the community that you write to, and keep it G rated if that is what you want. That way, when ACME Corp does something stupid, you are free to write about it, even if they have advertised on your site, because you didn't have anything to do with the deal.

>In traditional journalism, there's strictly enforced separation between the writers and the marketers selling ads.

In my experience (buying thousands of pounds worth of ads in event and wedding print magazines) there is no such separation in most magazines. If you pay for ads you get editorials and mentions in the features. In fact you get to write the editorial. Some of the magazines will even make up a 'readers letter' and give you a plug that way. Few magazines would be able to exist without large amounts of advertiser revenue, so be very skeptical of what you read in magazines.

I'm sure there are exceptions though.

// ==UserScript==
// @name no ads
// @namespace codinghorror
// @include http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
var tds = document.getElementsByName("td");
for (var i = 0; i < tds.length; i++) {
var td = tds[i];
var tdtext = td.innerText;

var re = /\[advertisement\]/i;
if (tdtext.match(re)) {
td.innerHTML = "";
}
}
})();

// ==UserScript==
// @name no ads
// @namespace codinghorror
// @include http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
var tds = document.getElementsByTagName("td");
for (var i = 0; i < tds.length; i++) {
var td = tds[i];
var tdtext = td.textContent;

var re = /\[advertisement\]/i;
if (tdtext.match(re)) {
td.innerHTML = "";
}
}
})();

Of the seven types of ads listed in that table, AdSense delivers the highest results for us, not the lowest. It depends on your niche, or whether you even have a niche. A general purpose blogger discussing all kinds of things will not get good results (although you can add code to limit what gets looked at by AdSense to improve focus).

AdSense CPM should go up over a period of months if you leave it on and don't move the ad zones around. It gets smarter (this takes about three weeks). Then you start to get site-targeted ad promotions, which pay significantly higher CPM (this takes a few months to happen). Ultimately, in some niches, 80 percent of your AdSense ads can end up being targeted at your Web site.

As for blocking ads for Diggers, etc., we use an ad server that rotates AdSense with other ads, and our Google account manager is aware of that and says there is no problem. It seems like a similar situation.

Thanks for the info!
We've been considering advertising for our site, just enough to cover our expenses.

A CPM of $1 for Google Adsense might make sense if you don't use the competitive ad filter but I'm disappointed if I have a CPM of less than $5 and occasionally hit twice that!

That is an admirable feat you're doing there.

While I don't have any ads on my homepage, I neglected using them for over a year on my blogs too, until that one fateful day when I felt I deserved a little something for all the time I put into my blogs.

A'las, AdSense sucks for relevancy and I wound up turning them off completely, even closing the account. Against the wishes of this article, I have recently reopened it (for some of my blogs) after learning I actually had some money waiting on me in that account.

Finally, I just assume that a lot of the people who wouldn't be clicking on them anyway are the same people that prolly don't see them anyway (AdBlock, etc.). That, coupled with the fact that IT-related sites are never gonna make any real ad money anyway (I've never clicked on one ad my whole life), makes it kinda fun too pick up a few pennies for something that I'm doing for my own education anyway.

G/L on your experience.

--Scott L

Good to know a fellow GreaseMonkey will not accept ANY advertisements. Here's my version...

// ==UserScript==
// @name remove coding horror ad
// @namespace txt.adblock
// @include http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/*.html
// ==/UserScript==

var adTDs = document.getElementsByTagName('td');
for(var i = 0; i < adTDs.length; ++i){
if(adTDs[i].innerHTML.search(/\[advertisement\]/) != -1){
adTDs[i].innerHTML = 'Screw Advertisements!!!!!!!!';
}
}

"Reward frequent readers by keeping your new content free of ads. Use time-delayed ads that only display on articles after they've aged for a week."

What happened to this one?

I think your ads are done in a pretty sensible way. They are clearly separated from the rest of the site content, don't flash or try to grab my attention, and don't interfere with what I'm trying to read.

I thought the point above was one of the coolest pieces of advice you listed, though, and I'm curious why it didn't happen. Was it a matter of principle, or of technology, or what?

Interesting post, has left much me of which to think.
http://adartenews.blogspot.com

>> 4. Always offer full content in your RSS feed. Don't force people to click through to your site and see your advertisements.

So instead you're forcing people to see the advertisements whether or not they click through to your site, by including the ads in the RSS feed? :-) I haven't seen any other sites do that, and at least so far I've found it pretty annoying.

> I haven't seen any other sites do that

There are plenty of feeds with ads in them. At many sites, the only full RSS feeds are the ones with ads-- the ad-free RSS feeds are abbreviated.

For example, see the "syndication" column in the left column of http://lifehacker.com/ , as well as http://www.boingboing.net , http://blog.outer-court.com/ , and many *many* others.

I don't like ads either. But they're inevitable. That said, I do try very hard to be respectful in the way that I advertise.

I got here a little late, but this jsut goes to show that you never know when somebody will show up and READ a blog! As I am expanding my blogs and needing to earn revenue, I was glad for the information on the extra levels that one can get. I'll eturn one day with some results! In the meantime: thanks. Come visit me too. Mary

I don't believe that using advertising on your site / blog is selling out (though I don't use it). It all depends on the integration of the ads and their format, and how intrusive they appear to readers.

I noticed your ads only a while ago (maybe since they don't show up on new posts), and found them to be extremely well integrated into the design, almost enough that it made me want to click them ;-)

> That said, I do try very hard to be respectful in the way that I advertise.

And you're doing a great job. I've just noticed that my Firefox's AdBlock lets your ads through - and I will keep it that way - they're decent and non-obtrusive.

Way to go!

Hi Jeff,

Marketers Al and Laura Ries have a great book on this topic: "The Death of Advertising and the Rise of PR". They confirm what you've said here: that people are immune to advertising and put far greater trust in social proof and word of mouth.

Great post!

Liz

Direct link text link ads (no no-follow) can quickly run you into trouble with Google. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/

I'm tired of all the emails asking to put links on my site.

A CPM of $1 for Google Adsense might make sense if you don't use the competitive ad filter but I'm disappointed if I have a CPM of less than $5 and occasionally hit twice that!

One strong theme from this post that resonates with me is ad relevance. If you have ads that are relevant to the content and the audience, then you are providing a service for some readers who may be interested in what the ads offer. From the advertiser\'s point of view, it makes more sense and is money better spent.

During a motoring TV show, it probably doen\'t make sense to advertise Barbie dolls. The same sort of thing applies to ads in blogs.

Got any more info on the "time-delayed ads that only display on articles after they've aged for a week" ?

Hi. This is a useful post.
I have a question I hope you can help me with for levels four and five, what is the time duration? I am trying to set up a marketing scheme for my blog and until this is set, I have had people contact me - 'leave this link for three months on this page for $5' - 'leave this link on this page for one year at $50'- 'leave this link for the life of the page for $100' etc. What has been your experience? Thank you.

I got here a little late, but this jsut goes to show that you never know when somebody will show up and READ a blog! As I am expanding my blogs and needing to earn revenue, I was glad for the information on the extra levels that one can get. I'll eturn one day with some results! In the meantime: thanks. Come visit me too.
http://zolotoygarazh.ru/

One question that I am very interested in is what levels of traffic/success do you need to start chasing down direct advertising, such as text links, etc. One of my sites (I won't mention it lest everyone think this is spam) was a social networking site before social networking got cool that has around 300 regular members. Obviously that's too low, but I'm thinking about wasting some more time on the site and just wondering what level of membership I need to target?

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One strong theme from this post that resonates with me is ad relevance. If you have ads that are relevant to the content and the audience, then you are providing a service for some readers who may be interested in what the ads offer. From the advertiser\'s point of view, it makes more sense and is money better spent.
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One strong theme from this post that resonates with me is ad relevance. If you have ads that are relevant to the content and the audience, then you are providing a service for some readers who may be interested in what the ads offer. From the advertiser\'s point of view, it makes more sense and is money better spent.
http://landzone.ru

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