Money Two Oh

Click on the ads

Monday, 09. 8. 2008  –  Category: Featured

Not your own, of course. You already know that clicking in your own ads violates the terms of you contract with Adsense and it will very probably lead to an account suspension. Same thing goes with the other ad platforms, I believe.

I’m talking about clicking on others’ ads.

Every time I read a worthwhile post on anybody’s blog, every time I see something that I like or that I find useful, I make a couple of clicks or three.

I just look for an Adsense block (we all can spot them in two secs) and I “command-click” on a couple of the “sponsored links” there, so that they open in a new tab in the background (that’s in my Mac, not really sure how it works in other OS’s). Then I shout in my loudest voice: cha-ching!

I happen to be an ad lover, so it’s pretty easy to get a click out of me. But it really doesn’t matter whether the ads I’m clicking actually are of any interest.

It’s no big deal. It doesn’t take more than five secs. Blog owner just makes like ten cents with each of my clicks. It’s not an amount of money that would make anybody scream “cha-ching”, I guess. Maybe I’m more of a weirdo than I thought.

I don’t see it as giving a tip, as Seth Godin suggests. When I started to do it, I was actually thinking something like “I love this stuff. I really want to read more from this guy/gal. I’ll click on a couple of ads so that he/she gets somehow encouraged to keep on posting more of this good stuff so I can keep enjoying it.” As you can see, I’m far more selfish than Seth!

Anyway, regardless of the motivation, I really believe it’s a good practice and I intend to promote it.

What about you? Do you think it makes sense? Do you already do it or will try to start doing it from now on?

And, by the way, yes, I know it’s ironic there are no ads to click in this blog…

Tags: account suspension, Adsense, blog, cha ching, motivation, Seth Godin