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Internet advertising services and affiliate networks
List of Advertising networks and Affiliate networks, which include CPA Networks as well as contextual and keyword targeted advertising services. Basically networks and services that provide the means for webmasters to monetize their websites. Pay per click search engines should be listed in a different category. The content network version of search engine's PPC services belong in here though.
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers - How to Make Money Blogging
Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.
Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).
Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.
RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.
How Much Money Do I Make from Blogging
How Much Money Do I Make from Blogging?
by problogger
I get asked how much money my blogging makes me on a regular basis. These days I don’t go into specifics about it - all I will say is that it continues to be well over six figures per year (but less than seven figures). What you’ll find below are my top income streams - ranked from highest earnings to lowest.
Keep in mind that this is a summary of all of my blogs. It does not include any income that I earn from b5media where I’m paid a salary as VP Training.
I hope you find it useful to see the mix and variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.
1. AdSense
Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn.
Google uses its Internet search technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted advertisement system may enroll through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the advertisements are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website.
Despite not using it here at ProBlogger any more I continue to use AdSense with real effect on my other blogs. While I do use AdSense Referrals and their search feature it is their normal ads that work best for me. I have them all set to show image and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel ads work best (usually with a blended design).
2. Chitika
ChitikaLast time I did this sort of summary Chitika ranked #1. This time around it has been overtaken by AdSense - not because Chitika slipped in how much it earned but because AdSense went up and because I also replaced a few Chitika ad units with WidgetBucks ones. Chitika offers a range of ad units that I experiment with. I find their eMiniMalls work best and that Related Product Units are also good. Their Shoplincs product isn’t performing as well as it once did for me - mainly because I’ve been promoting it less and have driven less traffic to it. Over the time I’ve been using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a quarter of a million dollars!
3. Amazon Associates
This has been one of my big movers in the last 12 months. I used to make a few odd dollars from it - however in recent times it has become a significant earner for me (as I’ve shared previously). This quarter it overtook TLA as my third biggest earner - largely on the back of me directing traffic to Amazon from my product related sites - mainly digital cameras. While the commission on cameras is only 4% this adds up when those that you refer buy higher ticket items.
4. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships
private-ad-salesThis includes ad sales of the 125 x 125 ads here at ProBlogger as well as a couple of private ad deals that I did with sponsors on my camera blog (including sponsorships with Canon, Kodak and Adobe). This area has jumped up since last time also as a result of the new design here at ProBlogger and our expanded sales team at b5 who now sell ProBlogger’s ads for me.
5. Text Link Ads
TlaThe income from TLA has dipped slightly over the last few months simply because I took the decision to stop selling them here at ProBlogger and most of my other blogs. This was because I wanted to focus more upon selling the 125 pixel ads instead and felt that the ads I was attracting were not as relevant to this site as they could have been. As it turns out this might have been a good move because it seems Google has been penalizing blogs that run them lately.
6. ProBlogger Job Boards
Jobboardheader The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to grow each month in the number of advertisements that are being bought. This enabled me to invest most of the money that they’d earned a while back into getting a new back end for the boards and to redesign them. It hit me today that the boards are now bringing in around $1000 a month in revenue which is pretty nice considering that they are now so low maintenance to run! I’ve just given a development team a new brief to expand the job boards in the coming month so stay tuned for some new features coming soon which could see this revenue increase and more importantly for it to become an even more useful resource to readers.
7. Miscellaneous Affiliate Programs
miscellaneous affiliate programsI run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs - most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own. These include - - Digital Photography Secrets (a camera technique series), Pro Photo Secrets (a great photoshop product) , Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program, SEO Book (Aaron’s legendary resource). This area is set to continue to grow in the current quarter with me having had reasonable conversions from the promotion of the excellent Teaching Sells course.
8. Miscellaneous Advertising Programs
miscellaneous ad networksI also play with a number of other ad networks. Some I run as tests to see if I should review them here - and some are just advertising that run in the background on some of my smaller blogs. These include AuctionAds, Feedburner RSS ads, Vizu (a poll advertising system), Kontera and Bidvertiser. Together these don’t add up to major earnings for me - not because they are not good, but because I don’t use them heavily (a blog can only run so many ads on it).
I think that that covers most of it. Since last quarter I’ve also been experimenting with WidgetBucks as well as one other ad system that is still in a closed beta test. I’m certain that WidgetBucks will feature in next quarter’s list because I am getting good returns on that so far. In fact at it’s current earnings it’ll debut at at least number 4 on the list and perhaps even at number 3.
How Much do I Spend?
As mentioned last time - I don’t spend a lot of money in order to bring in my income. I do have some basic blogging costs (hosting etc) and play around with a limited amount of advertising (AdWords and StumbleUpon) but rely more heavily upon word of mouth and organic ways of drawing income into my blogs. I also have some costs in paying writers on a couple of blogs - but these don’t make up a massive part of the overall earnings each quarter.
Five Ways to Drive Traffic to your Blog
When you blog for money you need to create your own content (and lots of it!), implement advertisement programs like Google AdSense and WidgetBucks, and last but not least – you need traffic.
In our offline lives we dread it, but online we embrace it. I want to give you 5 ways to start driving traffic to your blog today. With a little time and patience, you will slowly start to increase your viewer ship.
(In no particular order)
5.) Post comments on other blogs.
Blogs are everywhere – there’s certainly not a shortage of them. You should have no problem finding other bloggers in your niche that are popular and interesting. Bookmark those that you like, follow their topics daily, and if you find something that sparks your interest – comment.
Become a participating voice in the community. The more interesting your comments are, the more likely your peers will follow you to your blog. And who knows – you might stand out among the crowd and be recognized by the author, which can spin off into better opportunities.
4.) Register with blog networks like: Technorati, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog
It’s important that you get your blog out there for others to see. You can start the process by submitting to search engines, but that’s just the beginning. Technorati, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog are just a few of the high profile blog networks on the web. Register with them, network with other people in your releated area, and get your word out.
When you register with these services remember a couple of things:
1.) Create a detailed profile. Let people know a little bit about you and draw them in. Without that personal interaction people may flee quickly.
2.) Tag your blog properly. Tags are very important – they’re usually one or two word descriptions of your blog. So for example my blog would fall under categories like: Money, Business, and Finance. Dig around the specific service and look for popular tags and try to use those for your blog. It allows people who are interested in these topics to easily find your site.
3.) Register with several forums.
Do a Google search for forums that are related to your niche and register. Try to be an active voice in the community. People will flock to you if you’re interesting. Not only that but it allows you to find out what others are doing and what makes them appealing.
When you register with a forum, make sure to fill out the profile, similar to the blogging services. And equally as important – make a signature that is a direct link to your blog. Your signature is shown in every post that you make – helping you gain visibility. This is all the more reason to create thought provoking discussions.
2.) Social Bookmarking and Article Submission.
Social networking, bookmarking, and article submissions are all the rage today – don’t let it pass you by. Some of the major networks include delicious, Furl, and of course, Digg. These sites will allow you to tag, bookmark, and submit articles that you think are interesting. What’s more interesting than your own work? People should know about it so go spread the word.
1.) StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon really falls into tip #2, but I decided to break it away from the pack because it provides quicker results. Like the rest of the social networking sites, you create a profile and network with others. But what makes StumbleUpon so darn unique, is that you can “stumble” thousands of sites that you’re interested in by the click of a button. So what does that mean for you? Well, you can stumble your own site. By doing this you get into the Stumble rotation, and any people that you network with can stumble across it as well.
In my experience StumbleUpon can bring great surges of traffic for short periods of time. Due to the nature of the service, you’re likely to get overlooked more than not; however, those that do stop – tend to stay. And if they like the site, they can rate it and review it for all the friends in their network to see. Are you getting the picture here? Your viewer ship has the potential to explode!
As with most things in life, there’s no silver bullet for getting traffic. It takes a lot of research, careful planning, networking, patience, and time. If you have what it takes and start using my recommendations, you will definitely start to see an increase. Hopefully that increase in traffic will help you blog for money.
How to earn money with blogs?
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Wolfram Alpha ‘knowledge engine'
Highlight
Wolfram|Alpha (also written WolframAlpha or Wolfram Alpha) is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, instead of providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer. It was announced in March 2009 by British physicist Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009.
Tech
Wolfram|Alpha is built on Wolfram's earlier flagship product, Mathematica, which encompasses computer algebra, symbolic and numerical computation, visualization, and statistics capabilities. It is written in 5 million lines of Mathematica (using webMathematica and gridMathematica) code and runs on 10,000 CPUs (though the number is upgraded for the launch
Knowledge Engine
A NEW site that aims to catalogue “as much of the world’s knowledge as possible” and use it to answer every question imaginable has the tech industry buzzing.
Developed by British physicist Stephen Wolfram, the Wolfram Alpha “knowledge engine” was this week opened to the public — and much fanfare.
The idea is that if Google sorts through all the pages on the web and tells you which one to read, Wolfram Alpha reads them itself and then tells you the answer.
In Wolfram’s words:
“We’re trying to take… all the data and methods and models and algorithms that have been accumulated in our civilisation and make them immediately computable so that anyone anywhere can just go to the web and use all that knowledge to compute answers to their specific questions.However Wolfram Alpha’s usefulness depends entirely on what you ask it.
Things it can tell you include the time the sun rose on the day you were born, the amount of energy required to melt 50g of gold and how long it would take a journalist to write 3000 words in shorthand.
15 of the Meanest CAPTCHAs ever
You've seen them all around the web, CAPTCHAs are those distorted images of letters and numbers used to prevent the automated use of websites. They are supposedely random, but sometimes they seem to be "telling you" something; others are just plain ridiculous or humanly impossible to read. Here's a collection of the strangest, most bizarre tests agains spam bots.
Did you ever had the feeling you were being insulted by a CAPTCHA?
Mr Sensitive CAPTCHA
Toilet Humor From Google AdWords' CAPTCHA
Google's Nazi CAPTCHA
Craiglist's CAPTCHA wants revenge
Because filling CAPTCHAS can be fun
World's hardest CAPTCHA
This CAPTCHA drops it like it's hot
Meanest CAPTCHA ever
CAPTCHA for nerds
CAPTCHA, as clear as water
Delicous CAPTCHA
World's first Braile CAPTCHA
Proletarian CAPTCHA
Cruelest CAPTCHA ever
20 Awesome PC Case Mods
Computers come in many different flavours, but apparently that ain’t enough for everybody. Case modding -the modification of a computer chassis- has become a big hobby for thousands of enthusiasts around the world. Meet some of the best PC Case Mods we've seen.
TIE Fighter by David Barry
Bender by Jan Erik Vangen
Whiskey Bottle by Janos Marton
Kana by Katsuya Matsumura
Hulk PC by Chris Blarsky
R2-D2 by Ken Kirby
WMD II by G-gnome
Moo Cow Moo by Stan Maynard
Atlas Mech by Don Soules
Microwave PC
Maid PC
Heineken PC
Windows XP Box PC By Andy France
Atari 800 ITX by Andy Hutson
Underwood No. 5 by Joel Zahn
BBQ PC by Dean Liou
Coffin PC at QuakeCon 2005
Optimus Prime by John Mangus
Toaster
Gramaphone PC by Tony Greenberg
How to Make Money From Your Blog
StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004. By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income. Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day (updated as of 10/29/06). I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion. In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there. Would you like to know how I did it?
This article is seriously long (over 7300 words), but you’re sure to get your money’s worth (hehehe). I’ll even share some specifics. If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later.
Do you actually want to monetize your blog?
Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs. If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.
If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first. If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine. If you think it’s evil, fine. But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path. If you want to succeed, you must be congruent. Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. If, however, you find yourself full of doubts over whether this is the right path for you, you might find this article helpful: How Selfish Are You? It’s about balancing your needs with the needs of others.
If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it. If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads. Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere. If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations. Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best. If you’re going to sell products, then really sell them. Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy. If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it. Don’t take a half-assed approach. Either be full-assed or no-assed.
You can reasonably expect that when you begin commercializing a free site, some people will complain, depending on how you do it. I launched this site in October 2004, and I began putting Google Adsense ads on the site in February 2005. There were some complaints, but I expected that — it was really no big deal. Less than 1 in 5,000 visitors actually sent me negative feedback. Most people who sent feedback were surprisingly supportive. Most of the complaints died off within a few weeks, and the site began generating income almost immediately, although it was pretty low — a whopping $53 the first month. If you’d like to see some month-by-month specifics, I posted my 2005 Adsense revenue figures earlier this year. Adsense is still my single best source of revenue for this site, although it’s certainly not my only source. More on that later…
Can you make a decent income online?
Yes, absolutely. At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home. I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler. If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it. I’ve always done it full-time.
Can most people do it?
No, they can’t. I hope it doesn’t shock you to see a personal development web site use the dreaded C-word. But I happen to agree with those who say that 99% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs will fail. The tagline for this site is “Personal Development for Smart People.” And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook), smart people are a minority on this planet. So while most people can’t make a living this way, I would say that most smart people can. How do you know whether or not you qualify as smart? Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you have to ask the question, you aren’t.
If that last paragraph doesn’t flood my inbox with flames, I don’t know what will. OK, actually I do.
This kind of 99-1 ratio isn’t unique to blogging though. You’ll see it in any field with relatively low barriers to entry. What percentage of wannabe actors, musicians, or athletes ever make enough money from their passions to support themselves? It doesn’t take much effort to start a blog these days — almost anyone can do it. Talent counts for something, and the talent that matters in blogging is intelligence. But that just gets you in the door. You need to specifically apply your intelligence to one particular talent. And the best words I can think of to describe that particular talent are: web savvy.
If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some. But if becoming truly web savvy is more than your gray matter can handle, then I’ll offer this advice: Don’t quit your day job.
Web savvy
What do I mean by web savvy? You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies. What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization. But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:
- blog publishing software
- HTML/CSS
- blog comments (and comment spam)
- RSS/syndication
- feed aggregators
- pings
- trackbacks
- full vs. partial feeds
- blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
- search engines
- search engine optimization (SEO)
- page rank
- social bookmarking
- tagging
- contextual advertising
- affiliate programs
- traffic statistics
Optional: podcasting, instant messaging, PHP or other web scripting languages.
I’m sure I missed a few due to familiarity blindness. If scanning such a list makes your head spin, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a full-time living from blogging just yet. Certainly you can still blog, but you’ll be at a serious disadvantage compared to someone who’s more web savvy, so don’t expect to achieve stellar results until you expand your knowledge base.
If you want to sell downloadable products such as ebooks, then you can add e-commerce, SSL, digital delivery, fraud prevention, and online databases to the list. Again, you don’t need to be a programmer; you just need a basic understanding of these technologies. Even if you hire someone else to handle the low-level implementation, it’s important to know what you’re getting into. You need to be able to trust your strategic decisions, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re a General who doesn’t know what a gun is.
A lack of understanding is a major cause of failure in the realm of online income generation. For example, if you’re clueless about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll probably cripple your search engine rankings compared to someone who understands SEO well. But you can’t consider each technology in isolation. You need to understand the connections and trade-offs between them. Monetizing a blog is a balancing act. You may need to balance the needs of yourself, your visitors, search engines, those who link to you, social bookmarking sites, advertisers, affiliate programs, and others. Seemingly minor decisions like what to title a web page are significant. In coming up with the title of this article, I have to take all of these potential viewers into consideration. I want a title that is attractive to human visitors, drives reasonable search engine traffic, yields relevant contextual ads, fits the theme of the site, and encourages linking and social bookmarking. And most importantly I want each article to provide genuine value to my visitors. I do my best to create titles for my articles that balance these various needs. Often that means abandoning cutesy or clever titles in favor of direct and comprehensible ones. It’s little skills like these that help drive sustainable traffic growth month after month. Missing out on just this one skill is enough to cripple your traffic. And there are dozens of these types of skills that require web savvy to understand, respect, and apply.
This sort of knowledge is what separates the 1% from the 99%. Both groups may work just as hard, but the 1% is getting much better results for their efforts. It normally doesn’t take me more than 60 seconds to title an article, but a lot of experience goes into those 60 seconds. You really just have to learn these ideas once; after that you can apply them routinely.
Whenever you come across a significant web technology you don’t understand, look it up on Google or Wikipedia, and dive into it long enough to acquire a basic understanding of it. To make money from blogging it’s important to be something of a jack of all trades. Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” That may be true, but you don’t need to master any of these technologies — you just have to be good enough to use them. It’s the difference between being able to drive a car vs. becoming an auto mechanic. Strive to achieve functional knowledge, and then move on to something else. Even though I’m an experienced programmer, I don’t know how many web technologies actually work. I don’t really care. I can still use them to generate results. In the time it would take me to fully understand one new technology, I can achieve sufficient functional knowledge to apply several of them.
Thriving on change
Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities. You need an entrepreneurial mindset, not an employee mindset. Don’t be too concerned with the risk of loss — be more concerned with the risk of missed gains. It’s what you don’t know and what you don’t do that will hurt you the worst. Blogging is cheap. Your expenses and financial risk should be minimal. Your real concern should be missing opportunities that would have made you money very easily. You need to develop antennae that can listen out for new opportunities. I highly recommend subscribing to Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog — Darren is great at uncovering new income-generating opportunities for bloggers.
The blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity. It takes some brains to decipher these opportunities and to take advantage of them before they disappear. If you hesitate to capitalize on something new and exciting, you may simply miss out. Many opportunities are temporary. And every day you don’t implement them, you’re losing money you could have earned. And you’re also missing opportunities to build traffic, grow your audience, and benefit more people.
I used to get annoyed by the rapid rate of change of web technologies. It’s even more rapid than what I saw when I worked in the computer gaming industry. And the rate of change is accelerating. Almost every week now I learn about some fascinating new web service or idea that could potentially lead to big changes down the road. Making sense of them is a full-time job in itself. But I learned to love this insane pace. If I’m confused then everyone else is probably confused too. And people who only do this part-time will be very confused. If they aren’t confused, then they aren’t keeping up. So if I can be just a little bit faster and understand these technologies just a little bit sooner, then I can capitalize on some serious opportunities before the barriers to entry become too high. Even though confusion is uncomfortable, it’s really a good thing for a web entrepreneur. This is what creates the space for a college student to earn $1,000,000 online in just a few months with a clever idea. Remember this isn’t a zero-sum game. Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous. Let it inspire you instead.
What’s your overall income-generation strategy?
I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are utterly clueless when it comes to generating income from their blogs. They slap things together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason and hope to generate lots of money. While I’m a strong advocate of the ready-fire-aim approach, that strategy does require that you eventually aim. Ready-fire-fire-fire-fire will just create a mess.
Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site. If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income. You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is. An initial target goal I used when I first started this site was $3000 per month. It’s a somewhat arbitrary figure, but I knew if I could reach $3000 per month, I could certainly push it higher, and $3000 is enough income that it’s going to make a meaningful difference in my finances. I reached that level 15 months after launching the site (in December 2005). And since then it’s continued to increase nicely. Blogging income is actually quite easy to maintain. It’s a lot more secure than a regular job. No one can fire me, and if one source of income dries up, I can always add new ones. We’ll address multiple streams of income soon…
Are you going to generate income from advertising, affiliate commissions, product sales, donations, or something else? Maybe you want a combination of these things. However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing. I took 15 minutes to create a half-page summary of my monetization strategy. I only update it about once a year and review it once a month. This isn’t difficult, but it helps me stay focused on where I’m headed. It also allows me to say no to opportunities that are inconsistent with my plan.
Refer to your monetization strategy (or philosophy) when you need to make design decisions for your web site. Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that. Do you need to funnel people towards an order form, or will you place ads all over the site? Different monetization strategies suggest different design approaches. Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will generate income for you, and design your site accordingly.
When devising your income strategy, feel free to cheat. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Copy someone else’s strategy that you’re convinced would work for you too. Do NOT copy anyone’s content or site layout (that’s copyright infringement), but take note of how they’re making money. I decided to monetize this site with advertising and affiliate income after researching how various successful bloggers generated income. Later I added donations as well. This is an effective combo.
Traffic, traffic, traffic
Assuming you feel qualified to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging (and I haven’t scared you away yet), the three most important things you need to monetize your blog are traffic, traffic, and traffic.
Just to throw out some figures, last month (April 2006), this site received over 1.1 million visitors and over 2.4 million page views. That’s almost triple what it was just six months ago.
Why is traffic so important? Because for most methods of online income generation, your income is a function of traffic. If you double your traffic, you’ll probably double your income (assuming your visitor demographics remain fairly consistent). You can screw almost everything else up, but if you can generate serious traffic, it’s really hard to fail. With sufficient traffic the realistic worst case is that you’ll eventually be able to monetize your web site via trial and error (as long as you keep those visitors coming).
When I first launched this blog, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge. All of my plans hinged on my ability to build traffic. If I couldn’t build traffic, it was going to be very difficult to succeed. So I didn’t even try to monetize my site for the first several months. I just focused on traffic building. Even after 19 months, traffic building is still the most important part of my monetization plan. For my current traffic levels, I know I’m undermonetizing my site, but that’s OK. Right now it’s more important to me to keep growing the site, and I’m optimizing the income generation as I go along.
Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation. More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you. And it also means you’re helping more and more people.
With respect to traffic, you should know that in many respects, the rich do get richer. High traffic leads to even more traffic-building opportunities that just aren’t accessible for low-traffic sites. On average at least 20 bloggers add new links to my site every day, my articles can easily surge to the top of social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and I’m getting more frequent requests for radio interviews. Earlier this year I was featured in USA Today and in Self Magazine, which collectively have millions of readers. Journalists are finding me by doing Google searches on topics I’ve written about. These opportunities were not available to me when I was first starting out. Popular sites have a serious advantage. The more traffic you have, the more you can attract.
If you’re intelligent and web savvy, you should also be able to eventually build a high-traffic web site. And you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to build even more traffic.
How to build traffic
Now if traffic is so crucial, how do you build it up to significant levels if you’re starting from rock bottom?
I’ve already written a lengthy article on this topic, so I’ll refer you there: How to Build a High Traffic Web Site (or Blog). If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later. That article covers my general philosophy of traffic-building, which centers on creating content that provides genuine value to your visitors. No games or gimmicks.
There is one other important traffic-building tip I’ll provide here though.
Blog Carnivals. Take full advantage of blog carnivals when you’re just starting out (click the previous link and read the FAQ there to learn what carnivals are if you don’t already know). Periodically submit your best blog posts to the appropriate carnivals for your niche. Carnivals are easy ways to get links and traffic, and best of all, they’re free. Submitting only takes minutes if you use a multi-carnvival submission form. Do NOT spam the carnivals with irrelevant material — only submit to the carnivals that are a match for your content.
In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month. You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog. Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss. Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff. I still submit to certain carnivals every once in a while, but now my traffic is so high that relatively speaking, they don’t make much difference anymore. Just to increase my traffic by 1% in a month, I need 11,000 new visitors, and even the best carnivals don’t push that much traffic. But you can pick up dozens or even hundreds of new subscribers from each round of carnival submissions, so it’s a great place to start. Plus it’s very easy.
If your traffic isn’t growing month after month, does it mean you’re doing something wrong? Most likely you aren’t doing enough things right. Again, making mistakes is not the issue. Missing opportunities is.
Will putting ads on your site hurt your traffic?
Here’s a common fear I hear from people who are considering monetizing their web sites:
Putting ads on my site will cripple my traffic. The ads will drive people away, and they’ll never come back.
Well, in my experience this is absolutely, positively, and otherwise completely and totally… FALSE. It’s just not true. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put ads on my site. Nothing. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put up more ads and donation links. Nothing. I could detect no net effect on my traffic whatsoever. Traffic continued increasing at the same rate it did before there were ads on my site. In fact, it might have even helped me a little, since some bloggers actually linked to my site just to point out that they didn’t like my ad layout. I’ll leave it up to you to form your own theories about this. It’s probably because there’s so much advertising online already that even though some people will complain when a free site puts up ads, if they value the content, they’ll still come back, regardless of what they say publicly.
Most mature people understand it’s reasonable for a blogger to earn income from his/her work. I think I’m lucky in that my audience tends to be very mature — immature people generally aren’t interested in personal development. To create an article like this takes serious effort, not to mention the hard-earned experience that’s required to write it. This article alone took me over 15 hours of writing and editing. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to earn an income from such work. If you get no value from it, you don’t pay anything. What could be more fair than that? The more income this blog generates, the more I can put into it. For example, I used some of the income to buy podcasting equipment and added a podcast to the site. I’ve recorded 13 episodes so far. The podcasts are all ad-free. I’m also planning to add some additional services to this site in the years ahead. More income = better service.
At the time of this writing, my site is very ad-heavy. Some people point this out to me as if I’m not aware of it: “You know, Steve. Your web site seems to contain an awful lot of ads.” Of course I’m aware of it. I’m the one who put the ads there. There’s a reason I have this configuration of ads. They’re effective! People keep clicking on them. If they weren’t effective, I’d remove them right away and try something else.
I do avoid putting up ads that I personally find annoying when I see them on other sites, including pop-ups and interstitials (stuff that flies across your screen). Even though they’d make me more money, in my opinion they degrade the visitor experience too much.
I also provide two ad-free outlets, so if you really don’t like ads, you can actually read my content without ads. First, I provide a full-text RSS feed, and at least for now it’s ad-free. I do, however, include a donation request in the bottom of my feeds.
If you want to see some actual traffic data, take a look at the 2005 traffic growth chart. I first put ads on the site in February 2005, and although the chart doesn’t cover pre-February traffic growth, the growth rate was very similar before then. For an independent source, you can also look at my traffic chart on Alexa. You can select different Range options to go further back in time.
Multiple streams of income
You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket. Think multiple streams of income. On this site I actually have six different streams of income. Can you count them all? Here’s a list:
- Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
- Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
- Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
- Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
- Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare
(commission on products sold, mostly books)
- Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)
Note: If you’re reading this article a while after its original publication date, then this list is likely to change. I frequently experiment with different streams.
Adsense is my biggest single source of income, but some of the others do pretty well too. Every stream generates more than $100/month.
My second biggest income stream is actually donations. My average donation is about $10, and I’ve received a number of $100 donations too. It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal. So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish. It’s win-win. I’m very grateful for the visitor support. It’s a nice form of feedback too, since I notice that certain articles produced a surge in donations — this tells me I’m hitting the mark and giving people genuine value.
These aren’t my only streams of income though. I’ve been earning income online since 1995. With my computer games business, I have direct sales, royalty income, some advertising income, affiliate income, and donations (from the free articles). And if you throw in my wife’s streams of income, it gets really ridiculous: advertising, direct book sales, book sales through distributors, web consulting, affiliate income, more Adsense income, and probably a few sources I forgot. Suffice it to say we receive a lot of paychecks. Some of them are small, but they add up. It’s also extremely low risk — if one source of income dries up, we just expand existing sources or create new ones. I encourage you to think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income too.
Automated income
With the exception of #6, all of these income sources are fully automated. I don’t have to do anything to maintain them except deposit checks, and in most cases I don’t even have to do that because the money is automatically deposited to my bank account.
I love automated income. With this blog I currently have no sales, no employees, no products, no inventory, no credit card processing, no fraud, and no customers. And yet I’m still able to generate a reasonable (and growing) income.
Why get a regular job and trade your time for money when you can let technology do all that work for you? Imagine how it would feel to wake up each morning, go to your computer, and check how much money you made while you were sleeping. It’s a really nice situation to be in.
Blogging software and hardware
I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it. Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface. And you can’t beat its price — free.
The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. I’m a programmer, so I coded it all myself. I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site. Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the Million Dollar Experiment.
I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog. You don’t get enough control. If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset. You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s. Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes. If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk. It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run.
Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from. I recommend Pair.com for a starter hosting account. They aren’t the cheapest, but they’re very reliable and have decent support. I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.
As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS). This web site is hosted by ServInt. I’ve hosted this site with them since day one, and they’ve been a truly awesome host. What I like most about them is that they have a smooth upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing. I’ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless. The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle. I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn’t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.
Comments or no comments
When I began this blog, I started out with comments enabled. As traffic grew, so did the level of commenting. Some days there were more than 100 comments. I noticed I was spending more and more time managing comments, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort. It became clear that with continued traffic growth, I was going to have to change my approach or die in comment hell. The personal development topics I write about can easily generate lots of questions and discussion. Just imagine how many follow-up questions an article like this could generate. With tens of thousands of readers, it would be insane. Also, nuking comment spam was chewing up more and more of my time as well.
But after looking through my stats, I soon realized that only a tiny fraction of visitors ever look at comments at all, and an even smaller fraction ever post a comment (well below 1% of total visitors). That made my decision a lot easier, and in October 2005, I turned blog comments off. In retrospect that was one of my best decisions. I wish I had done it sooner.
If you’d like to read the full details of how I came to this decision, I’ve written about it previously: Blog Comments and More on Blog Comments.
Do you need comments to build traffic? Obviously not. Just like when I put up ads, I saw no decline in traffic when I turned off comments. In fact, I think it actually helped me. Although I turned off comments, I kept trackbacks enabled, so I started getting more trackbacks. If people wanted to publicly comment on something I’d written, they had to do so on their own blogs and post a link. So turning off comments didn’t kill the discussion — it just took it off site. The volume of trackbacks is far more reasonable, and I can easily keep up with it. I even pop onto other people’s sites and post comments now and then, but I don’t feel obligated to participate because the discussion isn’t on my own site.
I realize people have very strong feelings about blog comments and community building. Many people hold the opinion that a blog without comments just isn’t a blog. Personally I think that’s utter nonsense — the data just doesn’t support it. The vast majority of blog readers neither read nor post comments. Only a very tiny and very vocal group even care about comments. Some bloggers say that having comments helps build traffic, but I saw no evidence of that. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. Managing comments detracts from writing new posts, and it’s far better to get a trackback and a link from someone else’s blog vs. a comment on your own blog. As long-term readers of my blog know, when faced with ambiguity, my preference is to try both alternatives and compare real results with real results. After doing that my conclusion is this: No comment. 
Now if you want to support comments for non-traffic-building reasons like socializing or making new contacts, I say go for it. Just don’t assume that comments are necessary or even helpful in building traffic unless you directly test this assumption yourself.
Build a complete web site, not just a blog
Don’t limit your web site to just a blog. Feel free to build it out. Although most of my traffic goes straight to this blog, there’s a whole site built around it. For example, the home page of this site presents an overview of all the sections of the site, including the blog, article section, audio content, etc. A lot of people still don’t know what a blog is, so if your whole site is your blog, those people may be a little confused.
Testing and optimization
In the beginning you won’t know which potential streams of income will work best for you. So try everything that’s reasonable for you. If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself. Feel free to cut streams that just aren’t working for you, and put more effort into optimizing those streams that show real promise.
A few months ago, I signed up for an account with Text Link Ads. It took about 20 minutes. They sell small text ads on my site, split the revenue with me 50-50, and deposit my earnings directly into my PayPal account. This month I’ll make around $600 from them, possibly more if they sell some new ads during the month. And it’s totally passive. If I never tried this, I’d miss out on this easy extra income.
For many months I’ve been tweaking the Adsense ads on this site. I tried different colors, sizes, layouts, etc. I continue to experiment now and then, but I have a hard time beating the current layout. It works very well for me. Adsense doesn’t allow publishers to reveal specific CPM and CTR data, but mine are definitely above par. They started out in the gutter though. You can easily double or triple your Adsense revenue by converting a poor layout into a better one. This is the main reason why during my first year of income, my traffic grew at 20% per month, but my income grew at 50% per month. Frequent testing and optimization had a major positive impact. Many of my tests failed, and some even made my income go down, but I’m glad I did all that testing. If I didn’t then my Adsense income would only be a fraction of what it is now.
It’s cheap to experiment. Every new advertising or affiliate service I’ve tried so far has been free to sign up. Often I can add a new income stream in less than an hour and then wait a month to see how it does. If it flops then at least I learned something. If it does well, wonderful. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. If you haven’t tried anything new in six months, you’re almost certainly missing some golden opportunities. Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you. Failure is impossible here — you either succeed, or you learn something.
Pick your niche, but make sure it isn’t too small
Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic. My wife runs a popular vegan web site. She does pretty well within her niche, but it’s just not a very big niche. On the other hand, my topic of personal development has much broader appeal. Potentially anyone can be interested in improving themselves, and I have the flexibility to write about topics like productivity, self-discipline, relationships, spirituality, health, and more. It’s all relevant to personal development.
Pick a niche that you’re passionate about. I’ve written 400+ articles so far, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. I’m not feeling burnt out at all. I chose to build a personal development site because I’m very knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate about this subject. I couldn’t imagine a better topic for me to write about.
Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money. I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a recipe for failure. Think about what you love most, and then find a way to make your topic appealing to a massive global audience. Consider what will provide genuine value to your visitors. It’s all about what you can give.
A broad enough topic creates more potential advertising partners. If I keep writing on the same subtopic over and over, I may exhaust the supply of advertisers and hit an income ceiling. But by writing on many different topics under the same umbrella, I widen the field of potential advertisers. And I expand the appeal of my site at the same time.
Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about. Often I visit a blog with a clever title and tagline that reveals nothing about the site’s contents. In that case I generally assume it’s just a personal journal and move on. I love to be clever too, but I’ve found that clarity yields better results than cleverness.
Posting frequency and length
Bloggers have different opinions about the right posting length and frequency. Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more. I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite. I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now). That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles. I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic. It’s true that fewer people will take the time to read them, but those that do will enjoy some serious take-away value. I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions. If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.
Expenses
Blogging is dirt cheap.
I don’t spend money on advertising or promotion, so my marketing expenses are nil. Essentially my content is my marketing. If you like this article, you’ll probably find many more gems in the archives.
My only real expenses for this site are the hosting (I currently pay $149/month for the web server and bandwidth) and the domain name renewal ($9/year). Nearly all of the income this site generates is profit. This trickles down to my personal income, so of course it’s subject to income tax. But the actual business expenses are minimal.
The reason I pay so much for hosting is simply due to my traffic. If my traffic were much lower, I could run this site on a cheap shared hosting account. A database-driven blog can be a real resource hog at high traffic levels. The same goes for online forums. As traffic continues to increase, my hosting bill will go up too, but it will still be a tiny fraction of total income.
Perks
Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to enjoy some nice perks as your traffic grows. Almost every week I get free personal development books in the mail (for potential review on this site). Sometimes the author will send it directly; other times the publisher will ship me a batch of books. I also receive CDs, DVDs, and other personal development products. It’s hard to keep up sometimes (I have a queue of about two dozen books right now), but I am a voracious consumer of such products, so I do plow through them as fast as I can. When something strikes me as worthy of mention, I do indeed write up a review to share it with my visitors. I have very high standards though, so I review less than 10% of what I receive. I’ve read over 700 books in this field and listened to dozens of audio programs, so I’m pretty good at filtering out the fluff. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s a great deal of self-help fluff out there.
My criteria for reviewing a product on this site is that it has to be original, compelling, and profound. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, I don’t review it, even if there’s a generous affiliate program. I’m not going to risk abusing my relationship with my visitors just to make a quick buck. Making money is not my main motivation for running this site. My main motivation is to grow and to help others grow, so that always comes first.
Your blog can also gain you access to certain events. A high-traffic blog becomes a potential media outlet, so you can actually think of yourself as a member of the press, which indeed you are. In a few days, my wife and I will be attending a three-day seminar via a free press pass. The regular price for these tickets is $500 per person. I’ll be posting a full review of the seminar next week. I’ve been to this particular seminar in 2004, so I already have high expectations for it. Dr. Wayne Dyer will be the keynote speaker.
I’m also using the popularity of this blog to set up interviews with people I’ve always wanted to learn more about. This is beautifully win-win because it creates value for me, my audience, and the person being interviewed. Recently I posted an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen as well as a review of his latest book, and I’m lining up other interviews as well. It isn’t hard to convince someone to do an interview in exchange for so much free exposure.
Motivation
I don’t think you’ll get very far if money is your #1 motivation for blogging. You have to be driven by something much deeper. Money is just frosting. It’s the cake underneath that matters. My cake is that I absolutely love personal development – not the phony “fast and easy” junk you see on infomercials, but real growth that makes us better human beings. That’s my passion. Pouring money on top of it just adds more fuel to the fire, but the fire is still there with or without the money.
What’s your passion? What would you blog about if you were already set for life?
Blogging lifestyle
Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings. I work from home and set my own hours. I write whenever I’m inspired to write (which for me is quite often). Plus I get to spend my time doing what I love most — working on personal growth and helping others do the same. There’s nothing I’d rather do than this.
Perhaps it’s true that 99 out of 100 people can’t make a decent living from blogging yet. But maybe you’re among the 1 in 100 who can.
On the other hand, I can offer you a good alternative to recommend if you don’t have the technical skills to build a high-traffic, income-generating blog. Check out Build Your Own Successful Online Business for details.
The top 500 sites on the web - Alexa.com
Top Sites
- Google
Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology.
- YouTube
YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!
- Facebook
A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
- Google India
Indian version of this popular search engine. Search the whole web or only webpages from India. Interfaces offered in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil.
- RapidShare
Users can upload up to 100 meg files for sharing. Provides downloads of 100 megs per hour on the free service. Premium service also available.
- WordPress.com
Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated statistics, automatic spam protection and other features.
- Google UK
The local version of this pre-eminent search engine, offering UK-specific pages as well as world results.
- Почта@Mail.ru
Полнофункциональная почтовая система. Адресная книга, антивирус. Web-интерфейс, POP3 и WAP. Выбор из 4-х доменов.
- Amazon.com
Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Site has numerous personalization features and services including one-click buying, extensive customer and editorial product reviews, gift registries, gift certificates, wish lists, restaurant and movie listings, travel, and photo processing.
- Double Click
Coordinates targeted Internet advertising campaigns for advertisers, and provides ad management services, software, and sales for publishers.
- Google España
Buscador que enfoca sus resultados para este país y a nivel internacional tanto en castellano, catalán, gallego, euskara e inglés.
- Photobucket image hosting and photo sharing
Provides image hosting for auctions, live journals, blogs, message boards, personal websites and online photo albums. Reliable, fast and very simple to use.
- Twitter
Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.
- BBC Newsline Ticker
Headline ticker will automatically update throughout the day with the latest news, sport, travel, finance and weather from the BBC. Available for multiple OS platforms.
- Youporn
Users can watch streamed clips and upload their own videos. Premium accounts are also available.
- CNN - Cable News Network
Includes US and international stories and analysis, weather, video clips, and program schedule.
- ImageShack
ImageShack® is a free image hosting solution. It can be used to share pictures with friends, as well as post images on message boards and blogs. It can also be used to direct link images from your personal website or online auction. And best of all, it's completely free.
- Friendster
Friendster is a leading global social network emphasizing genuine friendships and the discovery of new people through friends. Search for old friends and classmates, stay in better touch with friends, share photos and videos, and so much more.
- Megavideo
Piattaforma che consente di pubblicare i propri video. Vengono illustrate le modalità di adesione e utilizzo.
- MediaFire
MediaFire is the simplest way for businesses, professionals, and individuals to host files and share them with others.
- Megaupload
Megaupload is a "leading website of the world" for transferring files easily, with complete security and free of charge.
- LiveJournal
A service for journals and blogs, that also offers privacy controls, photo storage, publishing tools, style templates, and online communities for many interests.
- 4shared
A simple and easy-to-use service offering free online files storage and sharing accessible worldwide.
- Google Polska
Wyszukiwarka stron WWW, grafiki, grup dyskusyjnych, katalog tworzony na bazie ODP i wzbogacany przy użyciu własnej technologii Google.
- LinkedIn
A networking tool to find connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. Allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business.
- Google Nederland
Nederlandse versie van de populaire zoekmachine uit de VS filtert Nederlandse sites uit de eigen database. Bevat gegevens uit DMOZ-directory.
- Weather.com
Offers forecasts for cities worldwide as well as radar and satellite maps. Also includes news stories and allergy information.
- 搜狗(SOGOU.com)
全 球首个中文网页收录量达到100亿的搜索引擎。同时提供新闻搜索、音乐搜索、购物搜索，地图搜索等专项搜索服务，为网民提供方便快捷的信息获取方式。 The first search engine in the world that has gathered up to 10 billion web pages, suppling most convenience services for searching news, music, shopping infomation, maps, etc.
- Amazon.co.jp
Amazon in Japan. Article descriptions are in Japanese, but account setup, shopping, and checkout available in English.
- GameSpot
News, reviews, previews, screen shots, movies, message boards, FAQs, game guides, and downloads for computer and console video games.
- Amazon.de GmbH
Breites Sortiment mit Schwerpunkt Bücher und Musik. Programm für Partner und etliche Features.
- CNET Download.com
Download shareware, freeware and Demo software for PC, Mac, Linux, and Handhelds categorized into categories, plus software reviews.
- www.bebo.com
Bebo, the next generation high school and college social network (like MySpace and Facebook), makes it easy for high school and college students to stay in touch with their friends, find long lost friends, and meet new people. Helpful and fun applications make it easy to remember birthdays, share photos, write blogs, read a friend’s blog, discover new interests, and just hang out. Bebo connects your brand with influencers and their circle of friends--you’ll reach a highly engaged audience w
- Fastclick
An online advertising agent that provides products, such as Ad Network and AdServer, to ensure optimal output and performance for its clients.
- Maktoob.com Inc.
Largest Arab Online Community with the most famous email service as well as bilingual Arabic and English online community services.
- Geocities
15 Mb with 3Gb monthly bandwidth limit. Banner or Pop-up ads on each page. Browser or FTP uploads. On-line editor. CGI scripts: counter and guestbook. URL: 'http://www.geocities.com/yoursite/'.
- Scribd
A library of digital documents which allows users to publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents in various languages.
- Answers.com
An ad-supported reference search service, which displays concise answers drawn from over 100 encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries and atlases.
- PartyPoker.com
Play poker online at PartyPoker.com, the world s largest poker room. You ll find Texas Hold em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud & 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo. They have an excellent Poker School, as well as lots of huge tournaments.
- XNXX Galleries
Categorized in multiple languages, this site features links to pics, movies and stories in various niches such as public nude, upskirt and shemales.
- Spiegel Online
Mit Nachrichten und Berichten der eigenständigen Internet-Redaktion. Wird alle 30 Minuten aktualisiert.
- Easy Share
Share files up to 100Mb each. Web or FTP upload. Webmasters can earn money with their shared files.
- Google Venezuela
Buscador que enfoca sus resultados para este país y a nivel internacional tanto en español como en inglés.
- Multiply
Users can create, share and discuss blogs, photos, videos and music with others as well as post reviews of movies and books, or share a calendar of events.
- Alibaba.com
Alibaba.com operates online business-to-business marketplaces for global trade, with a leading community of businesses from over 200 countries.
- Google Colombia
Buscador que enfoca sus resultados para este país y a nivel internacional tanto en español como en inglés.
- Studiverzeichnis
studiVZ.net ist eine Plattform, über die Studenten unterschiedlicher Hochschulen miteinander vernetzt werden.
- 中关村在线
中关村在线是大中华区最具商业价值的IT专业网站，始终致力于销售促进型IT专业媒体的建设。ZOL成立于1999年3月，其客户群主要来自中小企业用户、个人购买者和大量IT行业及相关行业的厂商、经销商。
- Cricinfo
International cricket news, live scores, photos, columns and player profiles. Provides archive scorecards, statistics database, ratings and email newsletter. Part of ESPN International. UK.
- One Manga
Offers a selection of manga for online reading. Hosts titles scanlated by various groups as well as unique projects of lesser known titles.
- SourceForge
Thousands of open source projects hosted. offering access to CVS, mailing lists, bug tracking and message boards/forums.
- Hewlett-Packard Industrial Ethernet
Provides embedded ethernet controllers, embedded internet, IEEE 1451.2, thin web servers, and time synchronization for smart sensors in distributed measurement and control system architectures.
- EzineArticles.com
EzineArticles is a matching service between tens of thousands of expert authors and millions of readers & publishers looking for expert solutions to millions of problems.
- Indiatimes
Portal site; includes news stories under subject headings, and links to other information sources.
- VnExpress
Thông tin hàng ngày ở Việt Nam và thế giới. Các chuyên mục khoa học, sức khoẻ, đời sống và giải trí.
- Google Perú
Buscador que enfoca sus resultados para este país y a nivel internacional tanto en español como en inglés.
- MapQuest
Find directions for and explore towns and cities worldwide. Display addresses on a map, view nearby businesses, get driving directions and maps, and plan a trip with city information. Also includes aerial photographs of selected areas.
- MiniClip.com
Colorful games in a variety of genres. Games include Present Panic, Big Bird Hunting, Quick Pic, and Lickety Splat.
- Wirtualna Polska
Serwisy informacyjne, finansowe i rozrywkowe, katalog stron internetowych, poczta e-mail i strony WWW, czat, komunikator, serwisy społecznościowe, gry online, platforma e-commerce.
- Google Chile
Buscador que enfoca sus resultados para este país y a nivel internacional tanto en español como en inglés.
- AWeber Systems
AWeber Follow Up Autoresponder allows you to keep in contact with potential leads and cuts your data-entry time to a minimum.
- Amazon.co.uk
Online retailer of books, movies, music and games along with electronics, toys, apparel, sports, tools, groceries and general home and garden items. Region 2 DVDs and prices in pounds sterling.
- SweetIM
Home of SweetIM, a fun upgrade for MSN and Yahoo Messenger, that allows you to add animations (winks), emoticons (smileys) and other cool content for FREE! that you can enjoy and send your friends. SweetIM seamlessly integrates into your instant messenger environment but does not interfere with it.
- Official Major League Baseball
Coverage includes audio and video clips, interviews, statistics, schedules and exclusive stories.
- كووورة
الموقع العربي الأول لكرة القدم يضم بطولات عربية عالمية مع متابعة و تحليل لكافة احداث كرة القدم
- Tuenti
Propone a sus miembros ponerse en relación, compartir datos y comunicarse entre amigos. Eventos, ultimas entradas seleccionadas y perfil.
- Fox News Channel
Offers worldwide news coverage, analysis, show profiles, broadcast schedules, team biographies, and email news alerts.
- LEO - Link Everything Online
Softwarearchiv, Informationsdienste und -sammlungen, Einstiegspunkte ins Internet: Ein Online-Service der Informatik der Technischen Universität München.
- Softonic
Reviews and over 40,000 free software downloads for Windows, Mac, Palm, Pocket PC, and Mobile Phones. The best programs and games. Buy software directly online.
- Travian
Build a successful town with competition from neighbors. Contains instructions, FAQ, chat, and forums.
- AVG Technologies
Offers anti-virus and internet security software. Site include product information, support facilities, and trial version downloads.
- Reuters
Breaking news, business, financial and investing articles from around the globe. Also provides technology solutions.
- Walmart
Provides a wide array of electronics, apparel, baby, sports, toys and fitness. Includes a store finder and blog.
- 新华网
中 国主要重点新闻网站,依托新华社遍布全球的采编网络,记者遍布世界100多个国家和地区 地方频道分布全国31个省市自治区 每天24小时同时使用6种语言滚动发稿 权威、准确、及时播发国内外重要新闻和重大突发事件 受众覆盖200多个国家和地区 发展论坛是全球知名的中文论坛。
- eBay France
Achat et vente entre particuliers ou professionnels d'objets neufs ou d'occasion selon le format prix fixe ou enchères.
- Softpedia.com
A library of over 300,000 free and free-to-try software programs for Windows, Mac and Unix/Linux, webscripts, games and drivers, also reviews.
- leboncoin.fr
site de petites annonces gratuit et sans commission (produits d’occasion, annonces immobilières, voitures d’occasion, offres d’emploi, services de proximité, locations de vacances, animaux, …).
- The Free Dictionary
English, Medical, Legal, and Computer Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one!
- Sonico
The fastest growing social network in Latin America. Focusing on security and privacy, its users can connect with real life friends, relatives and colleagues.
- Bank of America
Nationwide bank. Includes product and service information, online banking and bank location finder.
- Comment Ca Marche
CommentCaMarche.net est le site de contenu, d'échange et d'entraide high-tech. Il offre aux internautes une des bases d'informations les plus riches, sur plus de 70 000 sujets liés aux nouvelles technologies, du plus simple au plus complexe..
- Hurriyet
Türkiye'nin açılış sayfası, Haber,Spor,Magazin,Sinema,Tvrehberi,Serilanlar, Sendeyolla ve daha fazlası...
- The Guardian
Home of the Guardian, Observer and Guardian Weekly newspapers plus special-interest web sites. Each includes news, comment and features plus breaking news, multimedia, ongoing special reports and free archives.
- GameFAQs
Includes FAQs, walkthroughs, message boards, user submitted reviews, and codes for all console and computer platforms.
- www.ZEDO.com
Major ad serving player with solid technology. ZEDO is one of the 3 high quality ad serving companies that focuses on solid technology, great service and its customers. It does not compete by running an ad network and is well respected in the industry. ZEDO is especially good at Rich Media for Publishers and at Optimization for ad Publishers and Direct Marketers.
- Heise Online
Aktuelle Neuigkeiten aus dem Bereich IT und Telekommunikation, sowie Links zu den Heise-Publikationen c't, iX und Telepolis. Vertreibt die Computermagazine iX und c't.
- FileFactory.com
FileFactory lets you host files up to 300MB for free. You don't have to register and there is nothing to download. Your files can be downloaded an unlimited number of times! Fast download speeds, unlimited downloads, completely free!
- Truveo
Provides a search engine for finding video on the internet. Truveo specializes in timely, legal, and high quality video.
- PayPal
Online payment service for individuals and merchants. Allows users to send money and bills to anyone with e-mail.
- La Repubblica
Oltre alle notizie destinate all'edicola, contiene anche articoli realizzati appositamente per l'edizione digitale. Aggiornamento 24 ore su 24.
- World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
Official site with wrestler information, corporate details, news, merchandise, and a directory of affiliated sites. [Formerly the World Wrestling Federation.]
- CareerBuilder.com
Search for jobs or careers using 13 different criteria, or post resumes and let employers with job openings find you. Also has a section of advice and career-related information resources.
- Live Score
Real time football (soccer) match scores across International and over 100 leagues in 34 countries on a permanent basis.
- Google
A Google kereső magyar nyelvű felülete. Képek, csoportok, címtár keresése, egyéni beállítások mellett is.
- United States Postal Service (USPS)
USPS home page providing access to services, products, employment opportunities, and general agency information.
- Best Buy
International retailer of consumer electronics and entertainment software under the names Best Buy, Magnolia, and Future Shop. Also offers online shopping. Store locator, investor information, career opportunities.
- www.t-online.de
T-Online Portal-Startseite: Aktuelle Nachrichten und Informationen, E-Mail, Web- und Portalsuche, Zugang zu den Serviceseiten von T-Online, DSL und Schmalband Internetzugang, Tarifinformationen, Kommunikationsforen sowie Einkaufen und Shoppen.
- ALWIL Software
avast! complete anti virus protection for all computers with a fast incremental update. Several versions available Home, Professional, Network, Enterprise, Groupware, and Firewall edition.
- musica.com
Letras de canciones, vídeos musicales, wallpapers de música, foros de música, fotos de cantantes y grupos musicales, trivial de música
- Open DNS
Free openly distributed DNS servers that provide greater reliability and security for business and home users surfing the web. These DNS servers attempt to detect phishing scams that are often times linked to from within unsolicitated emails.
- Internet Archive
A digital library of internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Includes a text archive of digitised books from Canadian libraries, Carnegie Mellon University, and Project Gutenberg.
- WordReference,com
Dictionary containing English to/from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, and a language forum.
- Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
Offers online rail ticket booking, and checking of ticket reservation status. Includes train schedules, availability of tickets, and a travel planner.
- eBay.com.au
Auction sales with a focus on Australian buyers and sellers. Includes policies, search by product type, and links into the international site for additional listings.
- Mynet.com
Mynet 6 milyonu aşan kayıtlı üyesi ve aylık 14 milyon tekil ziyaretçi sayısı ile Türkiye'nin lider internet portalıdır. 47 farklı servis ve kanalı Türk tüketicisine sunan Mynet, Türkçe içerik arayan kullanıcıların internet üzerindeki tüm ihtiyaçlarını karşılıyor. Mynet is the most popular and widely used internet destination in Turkey with over 6 million registered members and 14 million monthly unique visitors. Mynet offers more than 47 different products and services fulfilling all the needs of Turkish online community.
- Google українською
Видатна пошукова система українською мовою. Пошук сторінок зі світу чи з України.
- Globe7
Globe7 Soft phone can be installed on a personal computer and functions as an IP phone. Globe7 requires appropriate audio hardware to be present on the personal computer you run. You can make calls from pc to pc, pc to mobile, pc to landline, landline to pc and mobile to pc.
- Cartoon Network
Check out cartoons from the past, popular new cartoons, plus games for different age levels.
- Babylon
This interactive tool provides you with a dictionary and additional information on words found within any Windows application. Forum, support pages, professional and adware versions.
- Blog Catalog
Blog Catalog is the premiere social blog directory on the internet. Whether you re looking to promote your own blog or find blogs on various topics, this site is for you
- MarketGid
Целью нашего проекта является предоставление потенциальным покупателям актуальной информации о всех товарах и услугах, их ценах, поставщиках и магазинах в сети интернет
- TripAdvisor
Information on hotels, resorts and packages with reviews from travellers with star ratings.
- Washington Post
Daily. Offers news, opinion, sports, arts and living and entertainment. Includes archives since 1977 and subscription information.
- Mobile.de & eBay Motors GmbH
Auf der Site können Fahrzeuge, Ersatzteile und Versicherungen angeboten oder gesucht werden.
- Sapo - Portugal Online!
SAPO, Servidor de Apontadores Portugueses is the largest Web Portal and ISP in Portugal, featuring a directory of Portuguese sites.
- Il Corriere della Sera
Notizie e approfondimenti di cronaca, politica, economia e sport con foto, immagini e video di Corriere TV. Meteo, salute, guide viaggi, Musica e giochi online. Annunci di lavoro, immobiliari e auto.
- Interia.pl
Serwisy informacyjne, m.in. pogoda, wiadomości, motoryzacja, kobieta; konta pocztowe i WWW, wyszukiwarka i tematyczny katalog stron internetowych, czateria, wirtualne kartki, pasaż handlowy.
- StumbleUpon
A web browser plugin that allows users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles.
- Los Angeles Times
Online version of local daily paper. Contains links to world, nation, and local news as well as weather, entertainment, business, and other links.
- RuneScape
A massive multi-player adventure, with monsters to kill, quests to complete, and treasure to win. You control your own character who will improve and become more powerful the more you play.
- StatCounter.com
Detailed visitor statistics and a choice of graphical counters. An invisible counter is also available.
- Ninemsn
A joint venture between the Microsoft Corporation and PBL. Includes news and reviews, chat, shopping, finance, plus an Internet directory and site hosting service.
- Kaskus - Komunitas Indonesia
Forum komunitas online dengan anggota dari berbagai negara dan memiliki beragam topik diskusi dalam Bahasa Indonesia dan Inggris.
- Bloomberg.com
Breaking financial, business and economic news worldwide from major provider of information services.
- News.com.au
News from Australia and the world, featuring national, world, business, sport, entertainment and technology news from News Limited's resources and newspapers.
- FanFiction.Net
Automated story archive arranged by genre and searchable by author, title, and keyword.
- El Mundo
Incluye todas las secciones y suplementos de este diario. Además apartados especiales sobre libros, viajes, salud, economía, motor, o internet.
- RealPlayer
Multi-format audio/video player/organizer for Windows that tags, rips, and burns files and integrates with the RealRhapsody music store. Free and paid versions available.
- Univision
Spanish-language media company serving the US. Includes investor relations information, media groups, and company background. Site in English and Spanish.
- Sun Microsystems
Provides news and webcasts from the company, downloadable software, and resources for developers, service providers, system administrators, CIOs, and investors.
- Internal Revenue Service
The IRS is the U.S. government agency responsible for tax collection and tax law enforcement. Contains downloadable forms, instructions, and agency publications. It also includes "The Digital Daily," an almost-humorous online newspaper.
- Payserve
Promotes several niche sites including teens, ethnic women and transsexuals. Offers free content and a referral incentive and pays monthly.
- DomainTools.com
Domain name search tool allows wildcard search of current and deleted/expired whois domains.
- Monster.com
A one-stop career management resource. Job search, resume management, 1200 pages of advice from career experts, plus chats and message boards on dozens of topics.
- Forbes Magazine
Information about companies and the people who run them. Forbes success lists including the Platinum 400 best-performing U.S. big companies, the Private 500 largest U.S. private firms, and the world's richest people.
- 起点中文网
优秀的中国原创文学门户网站，数万名网络作家在线写作博客，中国最大的在线电子图书出版平台，数百万文学爱好者的网上阅读交友社区，拥有奇幻、武侠、都市、言情、科幻等数十亿字原创文学作品，向作家提供原创文学作品网络和实体出版机会
- myYearbook
Offers quizzes and a weblog section, as well as videos and free content from CliffsNotes.
- Радикал-Фото
Неограниченный срок хранения. До 10 мегабайт на загружаемую фотографию. Возможность загрузки изображений с помощью программы-клиента.
- TradeDoubler
European network providing services for merchants to promote their products and services.
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