REPOST Entry 3: Advertising

Most of us know that advertising can be costly, and online advertising is no different. The main difference is, on the web, you have the entire world as your potential audience. Not only that, but you can redirect your audience to local advertisements that actually matter to them. With the advent of cheap broadband internet, the Net has become a hotbed for advertising. In fact, just like reality TV, it has taken off, oozing into every facet of daily existence, and frankly, just as annoying.


Advertisements are what you need to keep a real website going. As any property developer will tell you, it's all about location, location, location. Surf any popular website, and notice where the ads are placed at the top, sides and bottom of the webpage. Then, there are the annoying ads - popups, flying ads, popunders. And the really scary ones - ActiveX installers, virus-(bin-)Laden ads. Needless to say, anything that shoves itself in your face without permission is annoying. Enter... the... Ad Blockers.


Banner ad prices vary according to location and site popularity. For instance, to advertise on google or yahoo, is the equivalent of advertising on primetime TV. There are tons of other sites that provide a better explanation on the importance of google-ranking, keywords and what-not.



The GPT industry has the potential to be so much more. Here, we have over thousands of people, clicking on ads to make some spare change; truly a captive audience, albeit an audience with glazed eyes from viewing too much pr0n advertising.


In recent times, click fraud has been a major issue, and serious counter-measures have been installed to combat this.