Bringing the Ads Back

When I decided last month to stop running ads on Life User, the decision was based on two assumptions that turned out to be wrong.

Image via Wikipedia

The first was that an ad-free blog would be more appealing to Blogsvertise, PayPerPost and Sponzai advertisers. It appears that isn't the case: since I dropped the ads four weeks ago, I've only received one $0.50 offer across all three sites (to buy a space on my blogroll, where you'll find them under Dark Chocolate).

The second was that AdSense wasn't making me any money; it looks like they must have corrected some sort of click-tracking error and found they actually owed me $0.20 for a click I received.

It's true that I'll never be able to live off my AdSense earnings as long as Life User is my only site. It's also true that I probably won't have enough to cash out any time soon. But even if I only earn one dollar a year from my blog archives (I made $0.27 in the fourth quarter of 2009), that still means I'll be able to cash out a little sooner once I have a real AdSense-viable site (which I expect I will, even if it takes another five or ten years). And that's worth the very little trouble it takes; I'd rather get paid for my blogging efforts gradually over the course of a few decades than not at all.

Bringing the Ads Back