I didn’t pay much attention to it earlier. I should have… it’s Text Link Ads (TLA). The ads are in the form of paid text links embedded within a site.

To date, I’ve gotten a little over $320 in total from Text Link Ads within the last few months of this year. This is from a software development-related site of mine.

I know TLA has made thousands’ of dollars a month for some publishers but consider this: That “small” amount I’ve earned so far from TLA is still worth 3-4 years of my web hosting fees for that site. Not bad!

One of the advertisers is a web hosting company. I’m considering hosting with them. Maybe it’s just my way of paying them back but seriously, they have a good package.

Caveat

I’d like to share this with everyone: Beware of advertisers who use TLA to increase a site’s Page Rank (PR) rather than to gain genuine exposure for a product. Google doesn’t like this form of paid text links and the consequences to both advertiser/publisher could be disastrous.

Jump Aboard

That aside, TLA also has a good affiliate program and if you’re not on TLA, it’s certainly worth a look!

Related posts:

1. How Much is a Text Link Worth?
2. Redirect Affiliate Links to Increase Click-Through Rate
3. Amazon Context Links: Yet Another Way of Monetizing a Site

Now you can advertise on AdWords even if you don’t have a website. The landing page for the AdWords ads will be hosted by Google.

At the moment, the service is only available in the US. I suppose it’s only a matter time before the service is made available to the rest of the world. The new service is known as the hosted business pages for the AdWords Starter Edition.

So what exactly is this new service?

Hosted business pages are now available for new US advertisers using AdWords Starter Edition. It’s important to note that a hosted business page is not a full-featured website with its own domain name, but rather a single landing page for your AdWords ads. Hosted business pages are free with a new AdWords account, and can be set up with no knowledge of HTML.

I’m wondering if the hosted business pages receive a different landing page quality score treatment. Something to ponder about…

Related posts:

1. AdWords Advertiser? You Better Have a “Quality” Landing Page!
2. Can Google Toolbar Cause Pages to Be Indexed?
3. Offline Website Promotion Using Namecards

Early this month, Amazon.com’s subsidiary A9.com, launched Clickriver – a new pay-per-click sponsored links program. Clickriver is currently in beta.

The text ads will appear alongside Amazon.com’s product pages and search results.

Well, who can advertise? Here’s what A9.com says:

We welcome services of all types — in travel, finance and investment, training and education, entertainment, insurance, news, healthcare and physical fitness centers, IT assistance and consulting, photo printing and more. We also welcome product retailers whose offerings complement the many products on Amazon.com.

Everyone can apply, although unfortunately we will not be able to accept all the applications. If you’re interested, we encourage you to apply to join the Clickriver beta.

It has been noted that the advertised products must be complementary, sold from an external site and not in competition with the products sold on Amazon. So if you’re thinking of advertising your Amazon affiliate link, then forget the idea.

If you happen to have been accepted in the beta, do share your experience here.

Related posts:

1. Make Money with Amazon Associates for Blogger
2. Amazon Context Links: Yet Another Way of Monetizing a Site
3. Amazon FPS / Payments – Another PayPal?

If you’re an AdWords advertiser, there’s an important update that you need to know: 

Google will begin incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for your contextually-targeted ads. 

AdWords advertisers providing low quality landing page will see:
1) increase in minimum bids for Google.com and the search network and/or
2) decrease in traffic traffic across content network

Why the update?

This AdWords update is to ensure that advertisers provide the best user experience to users who click on the ads. 

To know what constitutes a good user experience for a landing page, Google recommends referring to the Google AdWords Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines.

Takeaway point?

If you’re an AdWords advertiser and you’re guilty of not providing the best user experience in your landing page, or if you’re in the business of arbitraging, it’s time to do something about it as it may eventually affect your ad visibility factor and possibly your bottom line.

I’m an AdSense publisher, so what?

From the AdSense publisher’s perspective, this update will lead to more ads offering more relevant and substantial content showing up on your site.  There’s even this fascinating suggestion by Darren McLaughlin that there may be a slight pay raise for AdSense publishers.  How true this will turn out, we’ll see…

Related posts:

1. Hosted Business Pages: Advertise Even If You Don’t Have a Website
2. New Pricing Structure for AdSense and AdWords Referrals
3. The Potential in Text Link Ads