Ask HN: Should I put display ads on my site?

1 pointspixellab10y ago4 comments

I'm in the process of overhauling a free web tool that also displays user generated content. I never incorporated ads in the old site and am considering putting them in the new site on pages that publicly display user's content. I'll probably build a freemium model in the future (ad-free, more features, etc.)

Is this the right time for me to start incorporating ads?

4 comments

MichaelCrawford10y ago

Maybe.

My website has articles and essays on a wide variety of unrelated topics. Ads associated with some topics got lots of clicks, others didnt however most of my pages get lots of organic links.

My advice is to remove ads from pages that dont yield clicks. The links are worth far more than ad revenue.

pixellabOP10y ago

Good insight. I like the idea of removing ads from pages that don't get clicks.

My biggest concern is, my users are the ones generating the content. I want to be sensitive to that, but at the same time would like to generate some revenue I can put back into things like upgrading hosting from VPS to AWS, building new features, etc.

MichaelCrawford10y ago

Link popularity in general, pagerank in particular is transitive. A link to a page with no ads will result in greater ad revenue from some other page.

That is, if I link to Alice and Alice links to Bob, my Alice links generates more traffic for Bob.

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Ask HN: Should I put display ads on my site?

1 pointspixellab10y ago4 comments

Is this the right time for me to start incorporating ads?

4 comments

MichaelCrawford10y ago

Maybe.

My website has articles and essays on a wide variety of unrelated topics. Ads associated with some topics got lots of clicks, others didnt however most of my pages get lots of organic links.

My advice is to remove ads from pages that dont yield clicks. The links are worth far more than ad revenue.

pixellabOP10y ago

Good insight. I like the idea of removing ads from pages that don't get clicks.

MichaelCrawford10y ago

Link popularity in general, pagerank in particular is transitive. A link to a page with no ads will result in greater ad revenue from some other page.

That is, if I link to Alice and Alice links to Bob, my Alice links generates more traffic for Bob.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse