PhotoDude.com

Wed. Apr 28, 2004

Rent A Shill

I’ve been running Blogads on this site for a few weeks, using them to promote PixelPile.org and The Atlanta Time Machine. That’s one of the things I do like about the way the program is set up. I can promote sites that I choose, for free, doing my own little thing to spread the word and send a few clicks their way.

But now, we get to the meat of the matter. I’ve been in one form or another of the advertising business since 1977, and have had this domain over 7 years. And as of today, you can purchase an ad on PhotoDude.com. The linked order page is for blogs in the Atlanta area. If you scroll down past the eight non-Atlanta blogs listed, you’ll find me at Number Nine. Currently, the only real Atlanta-based blog on that page (you can also directly order an ad on this site).

And the entry level prices are such a bargain! Not $700 a week (DailyKos), or even $375 a week (Instapundit). A mere $20 a week, $30 for two weeks, and $40 for a month (those prices may be adjusted depending on demand).

Of course, you won’t get the gazillions of page views you get for your money at DailyKos or Instapundit. Yesterday, a fairly typical Tuesday, I had about 1,200 page views, while Instapundit had about 165,000. But you get a … more select and special audience. Why, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. People just like you!

I don’t expect I’ll be placing many limitations on ads, beyond that they maintain basic standards of taste (no adult ads, no extremist language, etc.), and that the appearance of a paid ad on this site does not imply an endorsement by me. It’s not a philosophical relationship, it’s a relationship between a client and my wallet. You could see an ad from a Republican, you could see one from a Democrat, you could see one from a Wiccan Priest. That doesn’t mean I am any one of those things.

But the basic Blogads setup does give the site owner the right to disapprove any ad for any reason. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one realistic potential ad buy that I would turn down. Feel free to guess who that is in the comments.

You’ll never see more than four ads in a Blogad column, and for the time being, they’ll appear in the following order: [1] One Week ad buy, [2] Two Week ad buy, [3] Month-long ad buy, [4] Reid’s “PSA’s.” When there are two ads that have the same length “ad buy,” the one most recently bought will be placed above the other. I decided to do it that way so that a minimum $20 one week ad buy would get that “extra bang” of being the top slot. But I’m also willing to entertain offers to purchase the top slot, above and beyond this basic pricing structure.

And as a bonus, any advertiser will get a direct hand coded link that will appear underneath the Blogads columns, under the heading “Visit Our Sponsors.” Unlike the javascript encoded link within your ad, this additional link will be read and indexed by Google, giving you the added benefit of my page rank of 5/10 (Instapundit and DailyKos are 7/10, but Google doesn’t follow their ad links).

And that’s enough “fine print,” we’ll wing the rest. I mainly wanted to let you know that you now have a new way to send me money. One can never have too many.