Online Advertising And Supporting This Site

I've never posted anything about online advertising or ways of supporting this site.

This is because the value of CG can only be judged by the performance of the stock picks reported on here -- and it's too early to measure that.

But Monday's "Real Time" column (subscription required) on WSJ.com on the general subject of web ads and this article on Google's Adsense program linked on MaoXian's site yesterday have gotten me thinking a lot about advertising and support for this site.

As you can see, I'm running Google ads. I've had no expectation of them one way or another since this site is so new.

I plan on looking into paid advertising options such as Blogads, but suspect the newness of this site may make it ineligible. My hunch is also that Blogads are intended for blogs with much higher readerships than stock market ones -- political blogs such as Roger L. Simon or Andrew Sullivan. I have seen them on Trader Mike's site but can't remember offhand seeing them on the other investing blogs I frequent. (For those who don't know, Google ads only result in revenue when someone actually clicks on the advertisement. I would get revenue from Blogads by an advertiser paying to have their ad on my site.)

Anyway, I'm having fun writing this site and hope you're finding it worthwhile. I'm gratified that its been getting more and more hits over time. And I'm honored that several industry pros have emailed me with their good words and wishes.

In the meantime, if you want to support CG consider doing the following:

1. Keep visiting -- my hunch is there will be more stocks qualifying as value investments in the near future, so make sure you're around for the action.
2. Tell a friend -- if you're among those profiting from the investment ideas mentioned here, refer this site to 2 or 3 colleagues today.

And thanks again for stopping by.

Comments

[Michael]

Tread carefully about 'suggesting' people click on ads. That's a violation of Google's terms and can get you banned from the program.

[Michael]

Oh yeah, as for BlogAds, I don't know what their criteria for entry is. I literally had to beg them via private emails to the founders to let me in. Yet there are many blogs with way less traffic than I have in their system. You'd think they would want as many sites as possible.

[John Bethel]

Michael,

Thanks for your comments. I didn't realize that about Google ads (shame on me for not reading the terms and conditions more carefully).