Webstie Income

[HI-TECH]

I was wondering what would be the average income for a torrent site
like this and how it was calculated. Does the money come in more with
people clicking advertisements or impressions? Also I have read that you get an (X)amount of money from advertisers each time a person clicks on their add, would it still count if the same computer clicked the same add multiple times?

[dashboardy]

This is a torrent site? I've never seen any torrents on it. Anyways, as far as I recall, it is a pay-per-click type thing, at least for PCSX2.net - And I remember hearing something about having to clear your cache if you wanted it to count multiple times from the same computer. I'm assuming it's similar with this site.

[HI-TECH]

My bad, I meant all sites in general. Whats the estimate $$ for a "pay per click"?

[Ramsus K]

I suppose you're planning to make a living off of running cheaply hosted sites with lots of ads and worthless, mostly copied or spoofed, content. And hell, maybe you'll manage to profit off of such a thing for quite a few years, but the end result is you've done nothing more than dirty up the Internet with more worthless crap that search engines have to learn to filter through. And if you try to do it using something like Google Adsense, you'll always be fighting against Google for the ability to cheat their system.

Personally, I'd rather do a real web startup (
http://paulgraham.com/articles.html). I have to finish my military service first, but the Internet will probably still be around by then.

Of course, not everyone is extremely talented, skilled, or even halfway intelligent, so do whatever you have to to survive. Just know that better, much more rewarding opportunities are out there.

[FLaRe85]

Sweet. I think Ramsus K just insulted somebody.

[Ramsus K]

Sweet. I think Ramsus K just insulted somebody.

Maybe, but what can I say? I hate worthless sites that are just excuses to generate ad-revenue in an attempt to cheat the system for an easy living. It's one thing to make something that becomes popular and then profit off of it, but it's another thing to try "herding" traffic using unethical means in order to make easy money.

That, and I have little respect for those whose greatest ambitions end at joining a saturated market doing everything everyone else is doing, only not as well, just to make nothing more than some chump change.

If you're going to quit your day job, at least do something interesting.

[FLaRe85]

I know and I agree. I'm just saying, I don't think I've ever seen you get your point across that way. :p

[HI-TECH]

Maybe, but what can I say? I hate worthless sites that are just excuses to generate ad-revenue in an attempt to cheat the system for an easy living. It's one thing to make something that becomes popular and then profit off of it, but it's another thing to try "herding" traffic using unethical means in order to make easy money.

That, and I have little respect for those whose greatest ambitions end at joining a saturated market doing everything everyone else is doing, only not as well, just to make nothing more than some chump change.

If you're going to quit your day job, at least do something interesting.

Sorry if you took this the wrong way. I was just wondering how sites gain $$. I also see all these stories on how all these dudes go from 26 cents a day from like 40,000 a month off of.........ADS!!!! It seems pretty crazy and needed to investigate further. I just couldn't see soo many different people clicking on annoying adds. I just credit the dudes that do click fraud considering the cheating a multi billion dollar company!:rotflmao:

And if someone could give me a logical explanation behind these "stories" on 26 cent to 26 thousand it would be greatly appreciated :)

[Ramsus K]

It's hard to believe, but people really do click through ads and even buy things. If they didn't, Internet ads wouldn't be around.

What drives ad-revenue is sheer numbers. If enough people come to your site, a high enough number of those people will click-through the ads and earn you money. Good ad-placement and affiliate links can increase things even more, but that's just optimizing things. You need the visitors first.

Think of it this way. 1 out of 100 people, 1%, will click that ad and make you money. 1% of a 1000 visitors a day isn't much, so you make chump change. 1% of 1 million is quite a bit though, so you start raking in the big bucks. So to make money, just get a million hits a day while keeping your costs low.

Now, there's two ways to make a popular site:

1. Make something popular. This means either writing something functional or creating content.

Functional examples include: digg, facebook, the Pirate's Bay, MySpace, Gmail, or anything else that provides a service.

Content examples include: comics (sinfest, Penny-Arcade, CtrlAltDel), in-depth knowledge databases (Wikipedia, WebMD, GameFAQs), and essays/articles (see any blog, Paul Graham's site, or Gizmodo).

Not only can you make money off of selling ad-revenue, but if you're a real sell-out, there's plenty of big corporations like Google and Yahoo! that are more than willing to buy something for its strategic value as opposed to its revenue-generating ability. This means, they'll buy your site because it's popular with the kids or with old people, even if they know they can't make money off of it directly.


2. You throw ethics aside and focus on driving visitors to your ad-infested pages. What you do is you create some kind of site, say, a blog or a Wiki, you copy a bunch of content (blog posts, porn galleries, etc.) and slightly alter it or pay someone chump change to write a bunch of worthless content, and then you plaster ads all over the place. Then you try various schemes to get your PageRank in Google to rise up so you'll be on the first page, or you copy interesting articles (or even post summaries and links to the original) and try to get them on digg or reddit (aka linkjacking), in order to drive in enough traffic to generate ad revenue.


And that's how you make money off of ads.

[Keith]

Yeah my site cost is completely paid for by ad revenue. Right now it can be between $100 - $200 (we have a low click rate though) a month which is nothing to live off of but plenty to pay for the server/site costs.

I agree though you need a site worth visiting to generate revenue on a consistent basis. Good content and some nice ad placement can go a long way if that is your goal. Just be careful not to use copyrighted content because it will result in the suspension of your ad publisher account for most ad services.

[HI-TECH]

Would "Pay-Pal" be an alternative to Ads?

Yeah my site cost is completely paid for by ad revenue. Right now it can be between $100 - $200 (we have a low click rate though) a month which is nothing to live off of but plenty to pay for the server/site costs.

I agree though you need a site worth visiting to generate revenue on a consistent basis. Good content and some nice ad placement can go a long way if that is your goal. Just be careful not to use copyrighted content because it will result in the suspension of your ad publisher account for most ad services.

Would "Pay-Pal" be an alternative to Ads?
Also about the suspension for copyrighted content; how do all of the torrent/rom sites survive on the web with their advertizements?

[Keith]

you mean paypal as in selling something or donations .. sure if you have something to sell or people to donate.

As I said "most" ad services do not allow it (copyright stuff) .. but there is always going to be someone out there that will pay you to have their ads on your site regardless of what is on it.

[Ramsus K]

Would "Pay-Pal" be an alternative to Ads?


If you're selling a service that users subscribe to, such as premium accounts with unlimited access to some content, then it's doable. Asking for donations is a bit risky though.

If you've taken microeconomics, just think of taking only donations and offering everyone the same service as throwing away your consumer surplus with your site's users. If you offer tiered service of some sort (basically, practice price discrimination), those who want to pay more to do more -- and would have wanted to anyway -- will pay more, and you'll make that much more money.


Also about the suspension for copyrighted content; how do all of the torrent/rom sites survive on the web with their advertizements?

Look at who advertises on their sites. Some advertising services don't care if your site is in a legal gray area. There's always someone shady enough to take advantage of your site's traffic, and you can always deal directly with porn sites and what not.

Instead, they have a different set of worries. Best advice here is never do something illegal -- especially where it's illegal. It's better to be unethical than to be in jail.

Besides, torrent sites are a much bigger investment than you might think. Not only should you find a collocation center whose owners will let you run such a shady site and build a good working relationship, but you should do so in a country far away from the US, Canada, Japan, and parts of Europe.

[fusioneko]

I never thought torrents sites where illegal. I just figured, They put something like. "We are not responsible for the materrial uploaded by users etc. etc and if you donot own this movie and or game and such and then place in some terms of service making them not responsible for anything that a user does" type deal.

[Ramsus K]

I never thought torrents sites where illegal. I just figured, They put something like. "We are not responsible for the materrial uploaded by users etc. etc and if you donot own this movie and or game and such and then place in some terms of service making them not responsible for anything that a user does" type deal.

It's iffy enough to find yourself being raided by the FBI in the middle of the night for aiding copyright infringement. Throwing up a few disclaimers doesn't mean you can break laws.

If you were hosting the actual copyrighted material for users, then you'd get some protection under the Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act, where your only obligation is to take down the copyrighted material if the holder files an official complaint (assuming you do it in a timely manner and didn't know it was there to begin with). That's why YouTube is in pretty good shape.

However, if your site hosts torrents that help people commit acts of piracy and focuses on providing "moviez", "warez" and "gamez" torrents, then it's pretty obvious that you're well aware of how your site is being used, and the MPAA or the RIAA will come after you. Maybe you can win in court, but there's nothing protecting your assets from being seized and yourself from getting thrown in jail where you have to wait who knows how long just to see a judge.

So if you want to fight legal battles, a torrent site is a good way to go. If you want to make money, it's probably not too hot an idea...

[fusioneko]

I wonder how all these other torrent sites survive. Espcially all these WAREZ sites that you click on google and wham. Thier they are. raping the internet with fees to download but having all these files.

[Ramsus K]

I wonder how all these other torrent sites survive. Espcially all these WAREZ sites that you click on google and wham. Thier they are. raping the internet with fees to download but having all these files.

It's pretty simple. Just don't become a target for someone with a lot of lawyers. It's mostly organizations like the MPAA and RIAA that you have to be careful of.

However, to really rake in the dough, you gotta get big, and that draws a lot of attention. That's why most of the biggest torrent sites don't last more than a few years.

In that case, it pays to be operating in a country where the law enforcement doesn't care if the MPAA demands they raid your servers, even if you're breaking International law.

And that's why some of the biggest torrent sites will never disappear.

[fusioneko]

I could list them. Some of them I visit every four months or so Looking for something I guess. I dont know what really. Proabbly one of those files that dont exist on the internet anymore and or some site doesnt have it. so you try looking. Welp Torrent sites have alot of people. They rake in more cash at the cost the servers take alot to manage.

[HI-TECH]

So let me get this straight, the majority of "copyrighted infringed sites" mostly survive because they may be in a region of the world that cannot shut them down because they do not have severe laws like the US? As if you were to host a web sever for illegal content in the states you will most likely be shut down and sued.

[fusioneko]

Shutdown most likely,Sued if you can't comply with "You didn't know the content and material was uploaded onto the site."