Ads suck

[mdshunk]

Have a nice day.

[suemarkp]

At least they're not pop-ups. I don't know how much money the site gets for ads, but if the donation level isn't enough to run the site then I'm for it. Maybe the ads just need to run long enough for Don's credit card to get unmaxxed.

[dkerr]

First off, I won't code in any popups, don't like them myself.

2nd. The fact is - we are not making enough off of the donations to cover all the expenses in keeping the homewiringandmore and selfhelpforums sites running. Last fall we were making a few more dollars on donations than we are now, but I really don't want to continue if at all possible to come up with the difference either whole or in part for the hosting costs every month. I would like to see the site at least producing enough revenue that it supports itself without taking anything out our pockets. Warren and I donate our time to the maintanence and upkeep of the sites, and we ask nothing in return, but at the same token I would like to change the fact that the fixed costs are often coming out of our pockets.

I am not sure what we may make from the ads, but every little bit helps and when combined with any donations received, I hope it may result in enough to meet the fixed costs, and it would also be nice to have some for promotion and additional search engine indexing. We also have the 'support renewal' coming up soon for the forum software, I own a permanent licence for the forum software but need to pay a fee every year it order to continue having access to support and software updates.

Most of the ads we don't get anything from displaying them, but get a cut is a purchase is made, some we get a little bit if someone just clicks on the ads, depends on the ad.

It is rare to have any decent site these days that don't have any ads, but as with any site on the internet, having knowledge available for all to view for free comes with a cost to someone.

As mentioned I will not be using popups, and for the forum site, it will likely be just the one ad (rotating thru several ads but only one ad displayed at any one time), and some on the homewiringandmore site. I will be monitoring everything closely, and I can check which ads are clicked on and which ones are not clicked, adn can adjust what is used.

We are getting from 350 to 800 or more vistis to the forum siet each day, and from 3400 to 4000 or more on the homewiringandmore site each day and growing, and with the proper investments in promotion / search engine indexing I think we could double that.

Don

[Wgoodrich]

I agree ads suck !! However as Don said donations are not being enough to pay the upkeep cost to maintain the web sites. These web sites and those taking their time to answer forum questions are not only promoting much needed knowledge in the industry but making many much more safe and saving many a great deal of money where they are able to help themselves rather than paying large sums to hire it done. Both web sites per the stats are very popular and people entering these sites daily would boggle your mind in numbers. Maybe Don can hit us with the number of people hitting these two web sites per month and per day. You would be shocked in those numbers. However less than 1% of the people who are benefitting in safety and knowledge as well as saving a great deal of money by the use of the info on our main web site as well as the answers they are getting from answers on the forum actually are donating money to help maintain the cost.

If the ads are not wanted then those benefitting and saving so much of their own money by that knowledge they are gaining from these web sites are going to need to chip in and donate much more money. The costs are rising as the number of people learning from the web sites and those taking time to answer their questions. Seems like asking for donations enough to support the out of pocket costs would not be too much for those benefitting from the sites.

Hope more donate so the ads are no longer needed. We are not after making money but after promoting knowledge and safety for those entering our web sites. Covering cost should be an expected income for such large benefit of those in need. Donating not required for those that can not afford but let you conscience be your guide. Only you know if you have enough to chip in to help support a great thing you and your family benefitted from in knowlege and safety.

In great hope of those being fair for what they have received, and great thanks for those replying on the forum in helping others you are appreciated by so many.

Wg

[Unregistered]

I have saved a ton of money by using this site, any suggestions on reasonable amounts to keep the site going. thanks

[dkerr]

The costs are...(all in US funds)

1. $ 19.95 a month for hosting

2. $ 30 a year to maintain support and access to updates for the forum software.

3. $ 8.95 a year for each domain name.

And then the costs of purchasing electronic copies of the latest american and canadian official releases of electrical codes.

We have had anywhere from $ 5. to $ 100 donations. The $ 100 one only occured once and I believe that is when I purchased a permanent licence fro the forum software we now use (vbulletin - $ 160 which I covered the difference in cost), but as mentioned above a $ 30 per year fee is needed to maintain support from vbulletin and access to updates to the forum software.

No donation is too small, if you think about it, if every person that was given advice (that was benificial), or benifited from the info provided on the sites - donation $ 5, it would result in not only meeting current expenses, but allow us to invest in more search engine indexing that could easily double or triple our current number of visitors per day. Some search engine indexing costs $$ 29 to $ 39 per url submitted /per year. We also would get a 10% discount on hosting if we can pay a year as a single payment rather than monthly.

We have never had a user fee and will never have that. We want the info on these sites to remain free. We are only asking that for those who can afford it and have felt that the help obtained on these sites have benifited them that they consider giving a donation in whatever amount they feel they can afford.

In recent months we have been lucky if we get even $ 5 to $ 10 in donations, some months we have gotten nothing.

I have tried affiated marketing (ads) but in the last month I have earned 58 cents from the pay by click ones (yes that is cents) from it, hardly worth the effort so far of puting them on the site, and I have removed the one on the forums.

We ask nothing for the hours and hours that we spend maintaining the site, we would however like to get enough to cover expenses and have hopefully have soem left over to expand and get more indexing and better positioning on the search engines. We are getting on average at least according to the hosting stats from 3500 to 4500 visitors a day on the main site, and 300 to 800 a day on the forum site.

I am currently working a major new design that I believe everyone will like (with no ads in the new design) this will take a lot of time to complete and may not be live until the end of the year or early next, it is a lot of work. But neither warren or I have asked anything for our time. We are just hoping to get enough to cover costs and have room for expansion.

Don

[Unregistered]

as soon as I figure out how to do it with my credit card , or should I do it with pay pal which I know very little about. I will figure it out, but it should be coming your way. I guess I should become a registered user and quite asking questions as an unregistered member. Thanks again. sam in kansas city

[Ohm1]

In recent months we have been lucky if we get even $ 5 to $ 10 in donations, some months we have gotten nothing.

This site is worth maintaining, and I would gladly donate to the site. I think people are hesitant, because for the most part, it's hard to trust giving out personal information online.

If you ask me, It is well worth donating to this site, and I will start doing so! (I will begin Novem.)

Thanks goes to WG and DKerr for providing this site! It helps us electricians, and our DIYS! For those who have been apart of this site for more than 2 years, I'm sure this site is apart of your daily life,as is mine!

THANK YOU!

[suemarkp]

Even worse than site implemented ads are spammers who put nothing useful in a posting and include ads. Who is this unregistered person who has placed the lipitor ads in various forums? Do you have the source IP address of this unregistered person? Perhaps those that know how can retaliate against the IP address or contact the ISP serving that IP address. The lipitor URL goes to russia, which seems strange, unless its just a reflector.

I'd hate to see a requirement that all posters must register, but most forums seems to work that way probably for this reason.

[dkerr]

The internet which spands the globe, can be summed up in just a couple of sentences...


"It has every thing you ever dreamed of, and everything you ever wanted, but at the same time it also has everything you ever hated / dispised and your worst nightmare"

Hopefully your experience is more positive than negative. I have been getting 300 or more junk / spam mail on the homewiriingandmore email address for quite some time now. Now address are not removed and am in the process of using / creating selfhelpandmore email addresses, and I have removed our email addreses from the main site and am usuing contact forms so our email addresses are not quite as in the open. The pure garbage emails sem to be overwelming that are mostly concerned over the size of your *&^%$ than anything else, and any legit email are likely getting lost in the maze.

I would be a little hestitant in buying any subscription drugs on the internet, I suspose some are quite legit, but I would rather deal with the pharmacy down the street. T

I can ban specific IP's but lets wait to see if it becomes a problem on an ongoing basis, ip's with some providers rotate, and are assigned at random, and banning one ip may not solve the problem, as another person may be ultilizing that IP later the same day that had no part in the posts in question.

Don

[Jacksnap]

Don, just a thought, usually your web site email service has an option to have any emails that end in the your site's dot com web name be accepted even though it is not a valid email address against your domain name. As an example, there is no email of yearjackie@homewiriingandmore but the spam still gets delivered because the option to turn away this type of spam is turned off. You may already be aware of this, but in case you're not.
Jack

[dkerr]

I just started seting up emails on selfhelpandmore.com, and have set the catch all email to - delete, so I don't get any email that doesn't match a created / designated email address. I have also created a special email for search engine submission replies to keep those separate as some submissions can generate a lot of email.

Don