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Comment RSSWordPress Takes On Google
Written by Joe DitzelDecember 1, 2011 # 5:31 am # Industry News, Specials # 20 Comments
WordPress.com recently announced the launch of WordAds, a display ads initiative that will cut bloggers in on a percentage of revenue. The program is similar in many ways to the highly successful Adsense program from Google.
WordPress advertising executive Jon Burke explained that WordAds is specifically designed to offer bloggers an alternative to Adsense, stating, “We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s Adsense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better.”
WordAds is a teaming of WordPress.com and Federated Media, originally announced in October 2011. To participate, bloggers must fill out an application form. Not all candidates will be selected. Applicants must have high quality content and good traffic. Those that make the cut will be fed premium ads from Federated Media. As users click on the ads, the blog publisher will receive a cut.
WordPress started as another of many blogging platforms when it debuted in 2003. Its simplicity and accessibility has allowed it to grow rapidly. Now they estimate almost 50,000 new WordPress sites start online every 24 hours. Alexa.com estimates that almost 15 percent of the top 1 million websites are WordPress configurations. The platform has morphed into the most popular full-fledged content management system on the web.
Mark Baker of theEword stated, “For blog owners, the introduction of WordAds is long-awaited good news. However, it’s brave to shun the Google PPC system, especially when so many professional marketers and site owners are already comfortable with it. Of course, it remains to be seen what makes WordAds “better than Adsense.”
“WordPress.com contributors epitomize the idea of passionate and influential publishers on the independent web,” Deanna Brown, CEO of Federated Media, said when the planned program was originally unveiled to the trade press in October. “They have ardent followings and they present information in a very focused conversational format, which is exactly the type of media offerings found in the rest of our existing portfolio. They really are an excellent fit for us.”
“The addition of Federated Media to this arsenal means more revenue opportunities for WordPress.com, its content creators and brands,” TheNextWeb.com said on their site.
Over on the WordPress.com blog, Burke wrote, “advertising on your blog is not for everyone or every blog, but when done right advertising should not be a distraction from your message or make you seem fake. There is zero incentive for WordAds bloggers to write about the advertisers so there is no conflict.”
Written by Joe Ditzel
Joe Ditzel is CEO of Ditzel and Company, an internet marketing consultancy based in Los Angeles, CA. He helps local and international clients grow their customer base, sales and profit using internet marketing and direct response techniques. He is the author of “Marketing Your Business on the Internet” and regularly gives speeches on the same topic.
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While I have tried many other networks in the past, I am wondering how Federated Media will work for bloggers. I don’t know much about Federated Media, or have even used their service, but my experience with other ad networks hasn’t worked out well.
Because they are smaller than Google’s AdSense, they don’t have the amount of advertisers as AdSense, so they can’t always display relevant ads for visitors.
I’m sure the WordPress team has done it’s due diligence with Federated Media, and the fact that not all WordPress.com users will be accepted will mean that only the quality blogs will show the ads.
Whether it can compete with AdSense – I can’t see it becoming a serious contender anytime soon.
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I REALLY hope they can compete, but I’m not overly optimistic.
I can’t see how they will be able to pay out what Google does right out the gate, but if they can somehow increase click-throughs to be able to make up for the difference then perhaps they will have something. We’ll see…
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Federated already has advertisers, that’s how they will be able to pay more in theory..
I have a locally-focused blog on WordPress. I paid $75 for the template and post every week. WP sent me a note earlier this week about advertising and i jumped at the opportunity.
Their big barrier for current members is that we have to have WP host our domain, which means a nightmare of tech issues for non tech savvy people like myself – my email is also with the domain host.
Go and read the ‘easy’ instructions on how to switch over to WP. OMG. They need to incentivize me to make them money with advertising.
For new bloggers, this will be great. Its the current, middle-grade bloggers that won’t be jumping on this.
So besides having to switch over to Wp hosting which I know NOTHING about, what are some of the other requirements and how long did it take for the switching to Wp hosting as well as pricings…give us some details man?!
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WP says they have to ‘select’ a blog after you complete a questionnaire. One of the first things is having your domain with WP:
“Only publicly visible blogs with custom domains will be considered for this program. If you are interested but don’t have a custom domain, you can quickly sign up for a custom domain for your blog(s) below.”
Regarding the domain:
“•Registering a domain through WordPress.com and mapping that domain to your blog costs $17.00 per domain, per year. For $8.00 more, you can also make the domain registration private.
•Mapping a domain you already own costs $12.00 per domain, per year.”
Its not the price, its the cluster F, in making it happen. Then they list below:
“Important Notes Before Upgrading
Advertising – While a blog must have a mapped domain in order to qualify for WordAds, the Domain Mapping Upgrade does not otherwise permit advertising on your blog.
Same Terms of Service – The Domain Mapping Upgrade does not permit the use of any kind of prohibited code or upload additional themes or plugins. With the upgrade, your blog will still be hosted here at WordPress.com, which means that you will not have FTP access to your files and you will still be required to abide by our Terms of Service.
New URL’s – If you add domain mapping to an existing blog with posts, their URL’s will change. We’ll redirect any visitors looking for the old URL’s over to the new ones, so none of your visitors will get lost out there on the internet, but other services won’t always understand that the old links and the new links point to the “same” place. For example, Tweet counter widgets work based on particular URL’s, so old posts’ counts will be reset to 0. Once you make the change, future posts will not be affected.
Transferring a Domain to WordPress.com
We do not currently accept incoming domain transfers. If you already have a domain and you want to use it with your WordPress.com, follow the instructions for mapping an existing domain to your WordPress.com blog.”
Overall, its a great idea but I am not sophisticated enough to figure out how to do all that, despite loving the ideas of advertising.
ANything else i can answer i am happy to as best i can. Cheers!
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The domain mapping is sort of a “cluster F” plus there may be a 72hr period for the full mapping to take place and in the meanwhile visitors may just get lost in the internet despite what they say
That new URLs part is not cool and I can only imagine that the domain mapping to WordPress is so they can keep a better eye on the accuracy of the ad clicks, but honestly, there’s got to be better way to do this?!
This process alone almost guarantees that they will NEVER be as successful or even close to Google Adwords..
Thanks for the detailed info Rich
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“Same Terms of Service – The Domain Mapping Upgrade does not permit the use of any kind of prohibited code or upload additional themes or plugins. With the upgrade, your blog will still be hosted here at WordPress.com, which means that you will not have FTP access to your files and you will still be required to abide by our Terms of Service.”
You have to be kidding. I’m in my plugins directory constantly. All of this in order to “maybe” be selected to host ads? No thanks.
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It will probably take a while for this to catch on and for them to even come close to Google’s payouts. Still, it’s nice to see another reputable competitor to Adsense enter the fold.
Well it might be something to look into. It seems Google like to play tricks with me. Still waiting on my last check. Also their page views never match up to what my site statistics says. How many clicks do they not admit to?
I’ll be interested once they’ve had it running for a while. I find it very difficult that they could compete with Google right out the gate. Time will tell but there definitely needs to be a rival and they are the ones that could one day compete with big G.
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Well this is good news.Wordpress is a big name and they can easily get many advertisers.It is good to have competition but I doubt if WordPress WordAds can be as perfect as Google Adwords.
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It may not be the smartest move by WordPress but i guess its good to know that a highly reputable company is taking the chance to give users alternatives when it comes to Adsense.
[...] Performance Marketing Insider ran an article earlier this month - about the launch of WordAds by WordPress, wondering whether it could compete with Google’s AdSense. [...]
I think this will take off. Its another way for marketers to gain the exposure they need. Any competition should make payouts better for marketers.
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Well, I am not so familiar with Federated Media but I guess they will get the good opportunity to be known much better because of this.
I too think they will struggle to match Adsenses payout, and the extra hassle incured setting it up will put off a lot of people. Having said that if you want to diversify your risk away from relying on adsense then WordAds is worth considering. It’ll be interesting to watch how this roll’s out.
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Thanks for this very informative post Joe. I wanna also thank @BPlot for the detailed reply and helpful reply.
This is definitely a good news to WordPress die hard users. I’m not really into the competition of WordPress and Blogger but I’m much more interested in how to make money on WordAds.
Thanks again,
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