As I watch my Google traffic and revenue plummet, I am more dilligently trying to find other legitimate advertising revenue streams for my web sites. I don't know what Google has done to affect the referral and organic search aspect of their robot, I just know that whatever they did, it sucks for me.
My most visited entertainment oriented web site, Interactive Lunacy, which has had nearly 1.25 million unique visitors since I began tracking it, has seen its traffic go down about 35% and the revenue from that site down more than 60%. If this is the result of changes that Google has made to their engine, I'm not exactly sure how this makes any sense when it's causing Google's Adsense publishers to find ways to replace AdSense ads with other ads. Sure, it may benefits the AdWords paying customers a little, but once you get to the non-paying listings Google will be sending visitors to websites which no longer feature AdSense ads. And that is good, Google people, how?
As I searched for other ad publishing options, one that frequently popped up in my searches was BidVertiser. Just because it shows up in Google doesn't mean it's good or even legitimate but it seemed like it was worth giving a try. At least for starters I know that their staff knows how to administer a decent dose of SEO.
The sign up and approval process was easy. After signing up, you seem to be approved immediately. I then went to their ad template link and created a 468 x 60 banner ad which I placed on a few of my Interactive Lunacy reasonably trafficked web pages. My CTR (Click Through Ratio) for Adsense Ads, at it's current terrible rate is between 1.5 and 9%. After having Bidvertiser ads on my site for a couple of weeks so far, my CTR is 0%. Not one click yet with a few hundred page views.
Although they claim that advertisers bid on your online real estate which should make ads relevant, I see no indication that the Bidvertiser ads running on my pages are in any way related to my content. They all seem to be those deceptive "Download - Play" ads.
They also had slide-up ads, which they claimed received a higher CTR, but I didn't see that (obviously, with no clicks at all). Since I find those ads to be very annoying, I disallowed the slide-ups, hoping that I'd get an occasional click. Still...nothing.
So, my initial impression of the Bidvertiser program: Primarily Poopy. I will now search for other possible revenue streams to add to the reduced Adsense money. I'll keep you posted.
