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Joined: Jul 2001
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Spotlight Poobah Winner
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Here a topic that I have never seen discussed on UBBDEV, and I have no clue why.

I know just about every spotlight contest I have enter, always the first commit about my site is

Pop-Ups - Very Bad

What wrong with trying to make a little money ? I not talking about hammering your visitors with endless pop-up, but I am talking about making your website profitable.

My visitors only get 1 pop-up within a 24 period and I also run a banner at the top and the bottom. I told my member before starting with the pop-ups, and told them that they would help me cover the cost of keeping GlassRattler running each month, i think I only had 2 members that complained about it.

I not going to get rich from my UBB, but I can easily cover my host charges each month.

The reason I brought this topic up, is because I read through Paulus Magnus post about him spending $210.00 a month for hosting and not making a single penny in return confused

There no reason you shouldn't get paid for all your time and effort you put into your UBB, to make it into a great community.

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No, my website isn't making money.

About your popup thingy - you could make the same amount of money in banners at the top/bottom/side of your forum, I think popups scare away many visitors (you asked members, that like your content, not guests, that the first impression matters the most). Member Spotlight is to check how's the first impression as well, if you want the content to count, join Content Rulez™ contest.

Also, if you GOTTA use popup because your host makes you or something, don't make it 24-hour period, make it atleast 1 month not to annoy your users.

Joined: Jul 2001
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Spotlight Poobah Winner
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I re-read through my post and I don't want it to sound like I am trying to bash UBBDEV, and if it does sorry that was not my point.

I just thought maybe we could share idea, to help everyone at least cover there hosting charges.

"you could make the same amount of money in banners at the top/bottom/side of your forum"

I have not found that to be the case at all, my one pop-up with a 24 hour period, makes about 3 times as much as the top/bottom banner combined.

And no my host does not make me use pop-ups

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Pooh-Bah
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People tend to fall into one of a number of camps:

1) Those who are doing it for fun, run a hobby site and are looking to get back some of the costs outlayed from their pocket. A lot of folks have used adverts, some donations, some other little things (t-shirts, etc).

2) Others have tried the fee based model, where they charge a nominal fee for people to use their site. The problem with this is your site better be worth somebody paying, what they could otherwise get for free. This translates to better content.

3) Others have built their site around some commercial value, where the website is part of their business, or is used to help generate business.

Since you run a Hockey site, if you were wanting to make some money from your site, I would look at either merchandising opportunities...selling licensed team apparel and/or collectables (very competitive to compete with the 1,000's of other merchants), or maybe run a fantasy league, fee based, with cash prizes (with a small % drawn off to cover some of the expenses). You can also try to see if you could capitalize on the brand value of GlassRattler, and perhaps sell some GR merchandise to your members (if they are interested). I would go with a cool looking T-Shirt, and a custom CCM Tacks GlassRattler Team Hat, in this case. Or you could invent a mouse in the shape of a puck...which I'm sure, other than the auckward ergonomics would be a hit with pick fans.

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Kahuna
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in my opinion, if you want pop ups or other ads, then put'em in there. they're your forums to be run how you want them to be run.

will you lose (potential) members because of them? absolutely. its a well-known fact that people hate pop up ads (no need for indepth research on that one! wink ). but, if you're ok with those "risks," and you still wanna do it anyway, go ahead! no real reason why you couldn't or shouldn't.

if you dont mind my asking, how much are you making from the pop ups?

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Junior Member
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i'm lucky in that retrospect, i dont have to pay for hosting as i'm hosted by a large gaming hosting company. I only have to pay for the forums every year laugh

*Is one of the lucky ones*

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I host in one of my computers (not this one), so it's slow like hell, but the hosting is free..

I bought a domain today (hurray!), so I'll have to pay $35/year after the 3 years registration ($70) is over.

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quote:
if you were wanting to make some money from your site, I would look at either merchandising opportunities...selling licensed team apparel and/or collectables
I tried affiliate with 4 of the top hockey merchandice site ( were they pay you a very small % of what the customer you send them buys) after 4 million impression and not a single penny in sales, that didn't work very well for me.

Tacks I love the rest of your idea, a fee based Fantasy league, with cash prizes. thumbsup

One of my members owns a t-shirt print shop, and he is working on a couple of differnet t-shirts.

drkknght, Last month GlassRattler made about $140.00 in advertising, and that in the offseason for hockey site.

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Spotlight Winner
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I think that you do what you feel is right. I do this as a hobby and therapy after giving up drinking. I never meant for it to get to where it is now.

Obviously there are other people that spend a lot to keep their sites running and they have every right to cover costs and actually turn a profit.

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what i have found that worked in the past was this.

i coded a little script that worked with ubb, it would show a banner add to any guest with the words

"register at our forums to remove the banner"

it got more guest to reg and i got a few clicks from it. it was a good trade off to make everyone happy

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Just tell your visitors to get a pop-up killer, problem solved. thumbsup I also think there is a think for banner adds that comes with zone alarm and many other great firewall programs.

Joined: May 2001
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No money from mine, I don't really want any sort of ads on my site.

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Kahuna
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quote:
Originally posted by GlassRattler:
drkknght, Last month GlassRattler made about $140.00 in advertising, and that in the offseason for hockey site.

heck, for 150 bucks a month, id keep the pop up ads, too! smile

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Moderator / Kingpin
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I'm just barely covering my hosting/bandwidth overages and software license expenses. I'm not doing the site to make money. It's purely a hobby for me.

I'm vehemently against pop ups. I'd rather close my site than resort to them.

I'm one of those users that can't stand them and will avoid a sites that use them if I have a choice.

My best ad revenue is from my amazon affiliate buttons/banners/direct links. Earn over $150 on a bad month with them.

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I'm doing it as a hobby, and GamingSphere isn't any big community, so it doesn't me but like $15 a month (and then the annual mebers area access and domain name renewal). So, I'm not going to put up some advertising to cover $15 a month (which I probably wouldn't make anyways). I really wouldn't want to use pop ups, but if it was to keep the site up, I would add a pop up, but I wouldn't LIKE it.

~Jon

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I have one banner at the bottom of my forum which ties to my host. That makes no money for me, only a discount on my hosting costs.

However I have made about $1000 in the last 12 months off my site. This is generated by my members donations to support our hosting costs.

I also started selling T-Shirts to members which has made about $50 profit so far but again that goes to hosting costs.

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Wow your member are generous if they are donating money to you. smile

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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Dexter:
Wow your member are generous if they are donating money to you. smile

Yeah, I'd barely get to steal..I mean get...$100 from my members on a lucky day...

~Jon

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Spotlight Winner
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If I was in a spot that meant getting ad revenue or closing the site I would do what was needed. Netwerkin has a different member base since most of the people that register get the help they need then their off to enjoy their new found knowledge or fix. That isn't a bad thing, we do have a rather good name in some circles. If I hadn't pruned the members there would be a lot more of them and lot more would be inactive.

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quote:
Originally posted by JonNJapan:
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Dexter:
Wow your member are generous if they are donating money to you. smile

Yeah, I'd barely get to steal..I mean get...$100 from my members on a lucky day...

~Jon

All in one day? Thats still generous too.

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Member / CodeFixer
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I like most people out there hate pop-up ads. If you want to put one on your site to generate $$$ then more power to you. But unless they have some great content I won't be back to that site.

As for pop-up killers. I have tried them some of them get the job done but i still see it try to pop-up and it closes real fast yeah but it's still annoying. Not only that but there is another program thats installed on my computer.

I would never have a pop-up on my site as well.

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I don't have a pop-up killer since I hardly go on sites with pop-ups but when I do, help me. tipsy

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IPHQ's not making me any money. It's not like my audience would actually take any notice of the ads, and some use ad-blockers anyway... I don't really mind, cause I never go over any bandwidth limits or anything. ÂŁ60 per annum is just fine. smile

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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Dexter:
All in one day? Thats still generous too.

Nah, not all in one day. Just....If I was taking donations, I *might* get $100 total. But even then, I have strong doubts. But hey, I enjoy running the community, and since it's a hobby, that's an important part.

~Jon


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