TLA is officially bust!
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Google is known to be very aggressively cracking down on link selling. Link sellers (bloggers/webmasters) are affected, but nobody looks at the other half. Link brokers like Text Link Ads, TNX and Text Link Brokers are losing out. As more advertisers know about the PR nightmare, they tend to draw away from these link brokers and either close out direct deals which are inconspicous, or use CPC/CPA ads.
TLA was affected quite some time back, though few know it. They were removed from search results by Google quite some time back. That went relatively unnoticed.
Now, in a bid to ramp up their fledging online business, Text Link Ads have launched a new CPC advertising service called ShoppingAds. TLA publishers received private invite to try it out. ShoppingAds is fueled by major shopping sites, much like WidgetBucks.
Now, what are the chances of TLA surviving on ShoppingAds’ bread and butter? My guess - not much. The market for product referral ads is already saturated, with TTZ Media Inc, WidgetBucks and Chitika. This means that ShoppingAds has to compete with two heavyweights(TTZ, Chitika) and an (compared to ShoppingAds) experienced WidgetBucks, all of whom are being massively adopted by bloggers around the world.
I’ve signed up for ShoppingAds, and will experiment with them on my other blog. And of course, I will write a review of their service, and the widgets. Maybe we can compare our reviews?
Beth said on November 5th, 2007
Sumesh I’m not sure if this was posted to try to get attention from people, but TLA is far from bust. It’s ridiculous. Google can’t shut them down. I think of all brokers, they’ll take the biggest hit because they have high PR sites, but sites like linkworth and others who have never been on the high PR kick, their publishers have no reason to worry and will keep on keeping on.
Google just changed toolbar PR, nothing else. No penalty.
Oh and TLA is still in the results. +50 penalty.
Keith Dsouza said on November 5th, 2007
Nice thoughts, but what make you think TLA is bust, they are downright bad with people who drop them but publishers are still earning $500+ with them.
Why would someone who is earning $500+ drop TLA, also shopping ads is a CPA program not a CPA. And they also have a CPA program called Auction Ads and WidgetBucks and Chitika are both CPA not CPC. So the probability that Shopping Ads survive is much more because it is a CPC not a CPA.
Post authorSumesh said on November 5th, 2007
@Beth: Not really to get the attention, though I did anticipate some reactions, since it bothers all link sellers. By saying TLA is bust, I did not mean that they’d just disappear, but that they will be affected, and will try stuff that are legal as per Google, like SAds. Its just a way of branching their business.
I do agree about PR kick - people make too much hush about it, and I wish they took RSS subscribers, comscore and hitwise scores instead of PR and alexa.
No penalty? Do you mean they’re still on page 1? If they’re anything beyond page 2/3, there’s no use - no one cares to go beyond that.
@Keith: Yes, they are bad, as in the case of John TP. Publishers are earning $500+ because they’re like John Chow or thereabouts - no need of search traffic, and enough fame to get direct sponsors and links. Normal publishers can’t afford drop in SERPs (which is next step by Google after PR), and would rather drop TLA. Think about all the sites that have dropped TLA - simply because, though you might get some money initially, it hurts more in terms of traffic.
As for the business model, I did not mean whether they were CPC or CPA - just that they operate in similar niche. CPC is better for publisher, but what about the advertiser? Advertisers wouldn’t want to bust $ on people who don’t convert to sales. Bah, I guess its TLA’s problem
Karla Escolas said on November 5th, 2007
“Chitika are both CPA not CPC.”
Hey guys just wanted to jump in here and let everyone know that Chitika is not CPA its CPC- a common misconception since we deal with mainly products.
All our ad services: http://chitika.com/products.php are CPC including our customized online shopping store: ShopLinc, which is just like Amazon’s aStore but it pays you CPC and has thousands store deals -not just deals from 1.
Hope that helps!
-Karla Escolas
Chitika, Inc.
Post authorSumesh said on November 6th, 2007
@Karla: Thanks for dropping by, and clearing the confusion.
Is Google’s penalizing of sites fair? said on November 21st, 2007
[...] has been on a witch-hunt for paid links. They have already cracked the whip on TLA, and TLA responded meekly with the launch of ShoppingAds. Many popular sites, from mainstream media [...]
David Parkinson said on March 11th, 2008
If you’re already a ShoppingAds user, or considering becoming one, you should check out emptyspaceads - turn your website’s empty space into cash (a product I left my full-time job at Microsoft to build), which allows you to put ShoppingAds units in your website’s empty space. After all, when was the last time you made any money from your site’s empty space? Better yet, you don’t have to give up any existing ad units to run emptyspaceads. Keep what works!
We hope to add more ad networks soon! You can also create your own TextAds, ImageAds, and even HTMLAds that can promote your content, your products, or your services. I invite you to try it out and send your honestly brutal feedback. Thanks!
-David Parkinson, emptyspaceads founder
Post authorSumesh said on March 11th, 2008
@David: Will check out Emptyspaceads - looks promising. Though I don’t like TLA