Fun With Advertising, A Modest Proposal
Internet advertising is experiencing a boom, and many of my blogging friends are making substantial incomes from Adsense ads on their sites. As a reader, however, there is plenty of fun that one can have with such ads. This is divided into two kinds of fun. Let's have some fun with advertising.First, you must understand how Google Adsense works. Advertisers bid on key words in an open auction, and pay for each click that results. Some key words pay several dollars per click. The blog or site owner gets about half of this money. Google tries to place ads where they are congruent with the site content. The site owner can not advise readers to click on the ads, or even mention the existence of the ads themselves. The fun that is possible comes in two flavors. they are:
1) If you like the site, or its content, you can click to reward the owner. At dollars per click, a bit of clickage can reward your favorite writer a bunch. Do not overdo it, however, or Google will pull the ads, and retroactively rescind any monies due.
2) But the real fun that is possible, comes when you hate the advertiser. This is especially fun when political ads you hate come up on a site that you like. In this case, click away to your heart's content. Then you can kill two birds with a single stone - reward your favorite blogger, and at the same time destroy your enemy. Remember that the advertiser is paying from pennies to dollars per click. In a few minutes, you can cost your enemies many hundreds of dollars. Especially when you tell your friends to do the same.
You must be careful, though. Google, and I am sure that the other providers do the same thing, watch their results carefully, so if you overdo it they will obviate your intentions. Yet, by a bit of daily, judicious clicking, you can have a major positive impact on blogs that you like, and moreso, cost your enemies major amounts of money. Let's say that the democrap party advertises one of their anti-American sites. Merely click on the Adsense link once or twice each day, for a month. If a few hundred of us does the same, they will have to pay plenty of dollars per month, for absolutely nothing. Recently I had the chance to do this in favor af one of my favorite libertarian blogs, when a democrap ad came up over and over. My buddy the libertarian received the dollars, while George Soros paid about double that, and received nothing.
Now, I am well aware that such activity, if it become popular, would have a chilling effect on blog advertising. Such advertising, and the boom in internet advertising in general, which is just now making some of the more popular blogs profitable, is a great boon to the blogosphere. And, believe me, I welcome that trend. I may decide to avail myself of that advantage any day now. But, I have never done this for money. In fact, I have never compromised to garner readership either. But, in the spirit of honest information exchange that this blog has always been about, I cannot hold back this information. Indeed, for some, this info may be a revelation. That being said, carpe clickum.
Disclaimer: The above essay is posted completely in jest. No one should attempt to click adsense ads, or any ads, unless you are serious in your interest in the advertiser's product, service, or web site. Causing trouble for an organization you do not like, or causing the unfair enrichment of those you do, is unethical, immoral, and quite likely illegal. I have posted this information for the sheer fun of it, and with the understanding that it is entirely true.