The Text Link Ads Experiment is Over

Just about a week after we put Text Link Ads up on some of our major sites, we took them down. While I am sure that some people are doing very well with Text Link Ads on their sites, we just didn't feel like we were getting proper value out of the links, and that our adspace was worth much more. When you consider the value of replacing Text Link Ads links with links to other sites in our network, it was a no-brainer decision.

One of the things that bothered me the most about Text Link Ads was the fact that they took 50% commission on any links that they sold. We had a site that had a Page Rank of 5, plus it was listed in DMOZ, and Text Link Ads determined that we should be selling our links for $25 per month. Well, after TLA gets their cut, it's down to $12.50 per link per month, which just isn't worth it. Linking to a site such as this one makes much more sense.

They offer a great product to be sure, but for long established sites in our network, it just didn't feel right putting up Text Link Ads on our sites. We would rather sell the inventory ourselves, or point to our own network sites. The value of strengthening our own network far outweighed the dollars we were receiving from Text Link Ads.

We may revisit Text Link Ads in the future if they choose to change their commission structure, but until then, we removed them from all of our sites.

Filed under: Making Money Online | General Knowledge