Five years ago, I sold some advertising space on my blog [1] and frankly, I think I got the worse end of the deal. For five years (until June 10th of this year) I sold ads on seven posts, all for the huge amount of $105.00.
Hey, at least I negotiated him out of permanent placement for $75.00.
Given the ads, and their placement, I knew that the seller had no intention for anyone ever seeing the ads—he (and it was a “he”) just wanted to leech some Google PageRank [2] to his sites (or his clients' sites), and he wanted it done stealthily because he didn't like my heading of “Paid Advertisement” and instead suggested:
as a header, because
See, we are doing every thing for search engines and thats why we want to place links at the bottom of the pages, where the traffic has to be lower. The search engines dont like words advertisement or Sponsor, so, that will hurt your site as well as our sites.
That's why, we dont need paragraphs with the heading of words “Advertisement” or “Sponsor.”
So, please use anyother word or make it image with out Alt Tag.
I countered with:
We finally settled on “And now some words from <company name>” but I did add a subtle background image of a dollar bill, and labeled the <DIV> with “paid_ad”.
Now, earlier this year, I received the following email from a potential advertiser:
From: helena jones <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
To: sean@conman.org
Subject: Advertising on conman.org
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:43:44 +0800
> Hello,
I'd like to inquire if it's possible to purchase adverting space on your website.
If there is any space available please let me know and we could discuss further details.
Looking forward to your positive reply.
Warm regards, > Helena Jones
I get emails like this from time to time, and usually, I just ignore it and never hear from them again. But a month later …
From: helena jones <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
To: sean@conman.org
Subject: Fwd: Advertising on conman.org
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 09:56:46 +0800
> Hi
I just wanted to check if you got my email about buying advertising space on your site. Looking forward to hear from you.
Best regards, > Helena Jones
[previous email she sent cut]
Hmm … okay, she's persistent. Let's see what the terms are.
From: Sean Conner <sean@conman.org>
To: helena jones <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Advertising on conman.org
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:47:09 -0500
> It depends upon the advertising you want, and the pages you want to place the ads on. I'm not averse to the idea of advertising. What did you have in mind?
-spc
And a few days later I receive:
From: Adam Barney <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
To: sean@conman.org
Subject: Advertising on conman.org
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 17:50:34 +0200
> Hello
my name is Adam Barney and I'm working with Helena Jones She sent you an email about advertising on your site
I represent a few gambling sites and I would like to make a permanent article in your site. I can assure you I have a brilliant writer and the article will fit the content of your site.
If it possible let me know your price for it
–
Best Regards,
Adam Barney > Senior Marketing Manager | XXXX XXXXXX > XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX > Adam@XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX > <http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Ah, the punctuation deficient. [facepalm] And gambling sites. [double facepalm] And a brilliant writer to boot! [is a triple facepalm possible?] Okay, I have really lost interest in this. But at the same time, I'm curious as to what brilliance this author can bring to bear about gambling sites that would enhance the content of my website (and bear in mind, I have no idea if he's talking about www.conman.org [3] or boston.conman.org [4]). So, let's see how serious this Adam is.
From: Sean Conner <sean@conman.org>
To: Adam Barney <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Subject: Re: Advertising on conman.org
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 02:42:37 -0500
> It was thus said that the Great Adam Barney once stated:
> > Hello
>
> my name is Adam Barney and I'm working with Helena Jones She sent you an email about advertising on your site
>
> I represent a few gambling sites and I would like to make a permanent article in your site. I can assure you I have a brilliant writer and the article will fit the content of your site.
>
> If it possible let me know your price for it
>
Without any other knowledge about the article (and not an advertisement), and making it permanent (seeing how I've had the domain since 1998, it could be a long time), at this point in time, with just the information given, I would have to set the price at $100,000.
I am interested in seeing how your article could fit in with the existing content of my site.
-spc
I never did hear back from Adam.
Color me surprised.
And yeah, this is probably a site you don't want to advertise on.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank