Imagine my surprise when I did a refresh on one of PropertyPin’s pages to find the following disgusting ad on the banner at the top:
“Altinkum - Bodrum - Ferhiye” - Apartments from £25,000 etc.
And let’s be honest, some of the other ads are dubious at best when considered with the content on the Pin’s postings.
Obviously it did cross my mind that this could be a p**s take! But then I realised that it was more likely to do with the Google ads.
Now PropertyPin is a forum so in one sense Google Ads does take away from its purity. But having said that I’m as commercial as the next man so I understand the need to make some dough!
However, I’m sure that there is a better way of targetting the ads so that they match the content of PropertyPin. And might actually make some more money. Although you probably get some money from click thrus since Pinsters will always want to have a look at some of these sites for the laugh.
I’ve used google ads before and there is not much you can do to direct them, that is what google is meant to do. Unfortunately it can’t tell the difference between a web site that thinks the housing market is in great nick and one that thinks it is in deep trouble. It just sees it is discussing property so flings up some property ads.
Thanks nemonoid, that’s actually constructive and I’m sure OW will have a gander…
There was supposed to be an announcement that adverts were on the way, to avoid just such a topic but that got lost in the ether of a Paddy’s day weekend…
No worries, have come across the same problem before on some other forums. They just setup a sub-forum for users to report any ads that were not suitable for the site.
It’s always a running battle though and if I remember correctly you can only list 200 domains max in the filter so you probably won’t get them all!
The Ads will hopefully allow OW to cover the server costs which were necessitated last year…
At the moment, the pin’ survives through his continued charity though we acknowledge the many offers of welcome support by kind pinsters, we feel this solution is preferable to the begging bowl and hopefully, tasteful enough…
It certainly doesn’t damage the 'pin’s credibility from my perspective, there are commercial interests such as certain online real estate companies that have used the 'pin for their own machinations and thus, it makes as much sense to feed off their backs as much as possible…
Plus. With the amount of pinsters eyeing a dip back into the water, some of these ads have very much found their audience perhaps?!?!
The PIN v1.0 was completely voluntary & to be honest cheap and easy to maintain until the PIN v2.0 was borne out of the surge in use so from
the chaos the question of financing became a more pressing & real issue.
Enjoy the PIN as it should, with a sense of irony as it sucks blood on the back of the great ass.
AS for reputation I didn’t know the pin even had one
Surely you’re only going to make money here if people actually click on these ads?
Much better to have a donations button. I’d gladly contribute. I’ll be using firefox to block these ads. No loss to you guys in that respect, I won’t be clicking on them either way.
Taking 2 and 3 seriatim, well we had a private trial and it garnered excess funds in pretty short order, this is a not for profit venture until the wolf is firmly at Open Window’s door, so adverts seem like worth the spin in terms of meeting expenses versus revenues effectively (the murrayo mugs didn’t really work out). It might be just a trial thing and the 'pin may go to donations in the future, it’s certainly not ruled out and like I said earlier, it’s cool that people have told us that they want to help out…
No bother. One or two other forums I post on have set up small paypal subscriptions of say a quid or two per month that people can click on. It works out pretty well, much better than having one-off donations where you constantly have to remind people to donate. I’d say it would be a runner on a forum like this where most people could easily afford it. Just an idea if the ad thing doesn’t work out, you’ve probably already considered it.
The only problems I’ve seen with it are that you sometimes get posters who suspect that the cash is getting skimmed, so full disclosure of costs and revenue are needed to keep the suspicious ones happy.
Thepropertypin.com is essentially privately run but for public access, voluntarily by a bunch of random inter-nerds ')
I personally don’t want to take peoples money in the form of donaitons. So its as much a personal decision as anything else.
Advertising is the neutral option in my eyes.
My fear was also that people would take doanitons way more personally (plus we would be fopisted with all manner of percieved obligaitons), so its funny that people might take the little ads top and bottom personally too but with the increased use of this site by commercial interests for good or ill made the case for adverts only in my book.
To be honest I really dont think the ads get in the way.
I was showing it to someone the other day and I had told them previously I had just put the ads up, afterwards I asked,“so what do you think of the ads,”… “what ads?,” they replied.
They don’t have to do anything, but in my experience it keeps things ticking along nice and smoothly, and mods don’t have to put up with angry posts accusing them of doing X,Y and Z with their money which is ‘ostensibly’ collected solely to pay for server costs.
Agreed. Now if people like this site and want to show some support I suggest you get ad clicking! Don’t have to read them just open in a new tab and forget about it till you close your browser (or is the payment system more sophisticated than that??). I consider that action my subscription fee
Alternatively OW could get rid of the ads and ask the CIF for donations
(I’ve been using this for years, to the point where when I use somebody else’s computer I’m always surprised by how much junk most sites put on the screen.)
