After ignoring Text Link Ads for quite some time I finally decided to give them a try a few months ago. One of the reasons I hadn’t tried them before was because of the controversy about buying/selling links on websites. For example, Google doesn’t particularly like when people buy links on high PageRank webpages to increase the PageRank of their own websites. But why did I change my mind? Well, I was reading John Chow dot Com and he was pushing Text Link Ads pretty hard and I just thought “hey, it can’t hurt to try it out” ;) You can just look at it as a way to sell advertisement on your websites – because that’s essentially what it is, the added PageRank boost for advertisers is just a bonus ;)
Is it safe to join?
Another reason why I decided to jump on it was that they had testimonials from several notable SEO professionals like Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Brad Fallon, etc. Those guys should have a pretty good idea of what is good practice in web development. Google can’t penalize websites for having advertisements, right?
So I joined Text Link Ads and added my first website – that has a PageRank 5 front page. Actually, while reading their sign-up agreement I noticed something funny:
MEMBERSHIP RESTRICTIONS.
Individuals that are in anyway affiliated with, agents of, working for, or employed by any internet search engine organization may not register to use this site.
I guess they don’t want Matt Cutts looking around and seeing what websites are buying/selling links ;) But I’m an AdWords advertiser and an AdSense publisher, does that mean I’m affiliated with Google? They’re probably OK with that.
Adding your blog
When you’re adding a new site that you want to publish ads there is this option:
“Publish Ads On Your RSS Feed? (Feedvertising)” and a note: “WordPress 2.0+ is required for this feature.”. Yet another reason for using WordPress for your blog. I submitted this blog but at the time it hadn’t gotten any public PageRank so it was just put in the “waiting queue” – they say that it isn’t necessary to resubmit websites because they recheck all websites regularly. But this blog hasn’t been accepted even though the PageRank update was more than a month ago. I’m not sure if I’m going to resubmit this blog or just try to see if I can sell some links through direct advertising – I might be able to get more profit that way.
Make money on autopilot
Well, I joined TLA in the middle of January 2007 and in the beginning of February I sold my first text link. So it only took a little over 2 weeks to get my first link. Not bad – I didn’t have to do anything but sign up and add a small code to my site. The Text Link Ads system took care of the rest. Next month I got 4 more links which meant that half of my link inventory was already sold :) I then submitted some of my other high PageRank websites and sure enough I sold some links (even though those webpages were only PR4 and PR3). Now I just wished I had joined Text Link Ads sooner – this is a great way to monetize any website. You don’t have to work on looking for advertiser and those text links don’t take up much space on your pages. If you have a webpage that has at least PageRank 4 I highly recommend that you join Text Link Ads and give it a shot – it’s a nice way to make some extra money from your websites. Also, they pay on the 1st of every month through PayPal and they use mass payment which means you don’t have to pay any fees. You can also select the option of getting paid by check but I haven’t tried that yet.
Good support
On a side note; Patrick Gavin (the President of Text-Link-Ads) is a pretty cool guy – I had some questions after signing up and he personally answered the support tickets fairly quickly. One of the things I asked about was regarding the price advertisers paid and what would happen if my page increased in PageRank and/or Alexa rank? The answer is that the price for current advertisers is “grandfathered” – that is, an advertiser pays the same every month as long as he remains active (doesn’t cancel). That makes sense, reward loyal advertisers.
How to get Text Link Ads to work on static pages
Because the TLA links are loaded dynamically you cannot have TLA on normal (static) HTML pages. But there is a solution for that. From their FAQ:
If your website uses the Apache web server (as most Linux/UNIX hosting packages do), you can instruct the web server to treat .html (or .htm) files as PHP. To accomplish this, create a file named “.htaccess” in your root directory and add the following to it (or append it to the bottom of the file, if it already exists):
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html(Note: if you use “.htm” files, replace the “.html” above with “.htm”)
I did this where I had static pages and it worked great.
There you have it, another great way to make money online. Your websites don’t even have to get a huge amount of traffic, as long as you have decent PageRank you will most likely be able to sell some links (totally “hands free”). Just click here to join Text Link Ads and you’ll be earning money in no time :)
Have you tried Text Link Ads? What was your experience, were you able to sell links quickly, are you satisfied with the money you’re making through TLA?
Keywords: google, pagerank, text link ads, text-link-ads, SEO, Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Brad Fallon, monetization, Matt Cutts, Patrick Gavin
20 responses so far ↓
B. M // Jun 8, 2007 at 2:05 pm
i have read, n read, n read….. no avail… hw do u guys do it. if i could get at least 100USD in my first week, i’d be glad… tell me what am i doing wrong??? and pliz help me try to solve this problem that i have.
note:
still a newbie in blogging, n specially a NOOB in advertising(making money off blogs)
note2:
i’m always broke, thats y i need this extra cash.
Hannes Johnson // Jun 8, 2007 at 6:11 pm
B. M – If you’re interested in making money with Text Link Ads I would recommend creating a blog and posting quality content to it regularly. – I can see that your current blog is at blogspot, I’m not sure how TLA feels about those kind of blogs but you could try using that although you’re probably better off having a blog on your own domain.
Well, like I said – add quality content and you should soon get some incoming links that will add to your PageRank – once you have PR4 you should submit your site to Text Link Ads. Then you’ll hopefully sell some links soon. Sites in the money/finance niche are pretty popular on TLA so you might want to think about creating a site for that market.
But this all takes time and hard work – the next PageRank update will probably happen in 2-3 months so if you work really hard on writing content and getting links in the next 2 months you might have a PageRank 4 blog when the next PR update will occur.
Good luck.
karenlim // Jun 9, 2007 at 12:41 am
Hi BM , understand how you feel. Don’t give up.
I am also new in internet marketing. But I think I did something correct by learning from a qualified teacher – Stephen Pierce and market his pdt.
Stephen just told me to do 10 steps to get free traffic. It works. Within 36 hrs, I got my first affiliate sales. I am about 2 months in affiliate marketing, my affiliate income cross the first threshold of US$1000 . I am targeting my next level of income
I feel that as a newbiz, I will appreciate that I have help from the creator of the pdt. In this case, I have got a rebrand right to a free eBOOK from Stephen that I can give to my subscribers for them to opt in and take a look at the pdt later. So I am building my own list in personal development while I am trying to do affiliate marketing. You can subscribe to this rebrand rights and find out about his pdt here:
http://www.secretofunlimitedprosperity.com/rights/
Ok back to this text link thing. Hmm… I do not do it because I am not taught about it. It looks interesting but I think the crucial point is quality content. Without quality content, reader do not stay at your site long enough to be converted as buyer. So I consistently blog about personal development and share how Stephen visualization pdt helps me ( which is true story)
http://www.secretofunlimitedprosperity.com
I am working now to get my PR up
So cool. WIsh me the best. Cheers!
azwanhadzree // Jun 9, 2007 at 3:23 pm
hello, i got thru here from my google alert on some keywords.
thanks for the detailed explanation. i may join but maybe after PR4 :)
Ryan J. Parker // Jun 12, 2007 at 1:22 pm
TLA has performed very well for me.
Natron // Jun 12, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I have been turned off by only getting 25% of the placement cost. Is that standard for all niches? I have only been testing it of fansites.
Hannes Johnson // Jun 12, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Natron – I thought all TLA publishers got at least 50% of the link revenue. I’ve been getting that in my niches and I’m OK with that because I would never have sold those links if it wasn’t for the TLA network.
WebStuffScan // Jun 18, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Google may not penalizing text link ads now, but soon it may. The problem is simple, since there are no “rel=nofollow” this will affect search engine result quality. Google will not find it amusing!
But yeah, the fixed revenue from TLA is too tempting to let go!
Jordan Lapp // Jun 21, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I’m interested in what your stats were like when you first signed up, dollar-wise. A trickle?
Do you get a bonus from your advertisers if a particular page gets Dugg?
Hannes Johnson // Jun 22, 2007 at 12:30 am
The first payment I got from Text Link Ads was for $12.89 – That was for 1 link. The next payment was $57.37, next month after that was even higher…
No, you don’t get a bonus if your site suddenly gets a burst of traffic – but it might help you increase your Alexa ranking, which might lead to TLA upgrading your paygrade.
Angie // Jun 25, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I signed up a long time and have been apprehensive. Maybe I should give it a trial run.
Benjamin Cass // Jun 27, 2007 at 6:08 am
TLA didn’t approve my blog when I submitted it a day after I made the entire blog… suprise suprise.
I’ll probably try again after the next PageRank comes out. Good post.
Felista // Jul 15, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I just signed up but my site was rejected guess because it is not on wordpress . I shall consider wordpress soon
Hannes Johnson // Jul 15, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Felista – Your site (http://www.royaltoursafrica.com/) was probably rejected because it only has PageRank 1.
You usually need at least PageRank 3-4 and/or a decent amount of traffic to be accepted.
ladyinfluence // Jul 27, 2007 at 2:50 am
two of my blogs (with PR-4)were accepted by TLA but i only used my “make money online” blog to sell TLA ads. Since i am hosting my blog with blogger i don’t get that much offers. I was able to sell two links in my blog but not making that much money though.
EveryDayFiction.com // Aug 1, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I just signed up for text-link-ads
I have to say I am pretty impressed with there service and set up.
I have not sold my any links yet but i am hopeful.
Can I ask what you are making off your TLA ads or does that break some terms of service thing?
- Steven Smethurst
Hannes Johnson // Aug 2, 2007 at 1:41 am
Steven – If you have at least PageRank 4 in a hot niche you should be getting a couple of links in a few weeks. I believe technology and business are one of the most popular categories on TLA.
You can see my comment above regarding my TLA income. Last month I made over $100 – so, although this isn’t a full-time income it is a nice extra revenue.
John Bennett // Aug 28, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I just recently signed up for TLA and haven’t seen any activity yet. Most likely because I’m still waiting for the PR update to get that ranking on there. My other rankings are good, so hopefully I’ll see some results. I’m encouraged by all the results I see from other bloggers though. Great post.
Ricardo // Dec 27, 2007 at 2:05 am
Very Insiteful information, Im definately going to share with this with my internet buddy. He has been trying to get me to do text link ads since last year. Maybe I should have listened to him. :>
Gratefully Rich // Dec 31, 2007 at 10:54 am
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