• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Pop-up ads!

Effective today (06-25-2021) my programmer has installed code to eliminated the Google Adsense and the InfoLinks ads from all Contributor level members and above.

FYI, this is a trial period. If the only effect is that revenue from those two streams is significantly reduced, and there is not even a slight increase in paid memberships, it will obviously be foolish for me to continue with that exclusion.
 
WebSlave said:
Effective today (06-25-2021) my programmer has installed code to eliminated the Google Adsense and the InfoLinks ads from all Contributor level members and above.

FYI, this is a trial period. If the only effect is that revenue from those two streams is significantly reduced, and there is not even a slight increase in paid memberships, it will obviously be foolish for me to continue with that exclusion.
Click to expand...

Excellent. On at least two forums I frequent, paying members don't get inundated with ads.
 
Hi Rich (et al.), I'd like to offer some feedback on the pop-up ads and site membership issues, as I like using this site and want it to stay online permanently... if for no other reason so that all of the valuable info contained in the many, many threads is always available. So, like everyone in the universe, I am annoyed by pop-up ads and so after reading in the posts above that "contributing members" don't have to deal with them under the new scheme for this site, decided to look in to costs for "contributing membership". My search led me to want to pass along the 2 following observations... these are of course, just my opinion.

1) I found it more difficult to locate the info on what it would cost to become a "contributing member" than I expected. Perhaps this is just my disorganized way of searching but I can't be the only one. I'd strongly suggest that the words "Member" and "Membership" be made links (throughout the site) directly to the membership sign-up page. I would also suggest that a VERY VISIBLE AND SOMEWHAT LARGE box be added at the top level of the site so that everyone who visits your site is encouraged to become a contributing member (i.e., a hard to miss ad for membership).

2) It seems like it would be beneficial (and might help push for more paying members) to make a distinction (site-wide) between "Contributing Members" and "Registered Users". Currently, the language used on the site frequently refers to registered users who do not have perks, as "Members", which is a bit confusing.

Hope this is helpful. That is how it is meant :)
 
SnakeSmithS said:
Hi Rich (et al.), I'd like to offer some feedback on the pop-up ads and site membership issues, as I like using this site and want it to stay online permanently... if for no other reason so that all of the valuable info contained in the many, many threads is always available. So, like everyone in the universe, I am annoyed by pop-up ads and so after reading in the posts above that "contributing members" don't have to deal with them under the new scheme for this site, decided to look in to costs for "contributing membership". My search led me to want to pass along the 2 following observations... these are of course, just my opinion.

1) I found it more difficult to locate the info on what it would cost to become a "contributing member" than I expected. Perhaps this is just my disorganized way of searching but I can't be the only one. I'd strongly suggest that the words "Member" and "Membership" be made links (throughout the site) directly to the membership sign-up page. I would also suggest that a VERY VISIBLE AND SOMEWHAT LARGE box be added at the top level of the site so that everyone who visits your site is encouraged to become a contributing member (i.e., a hard to miss ad for membership).

2) It seems like it would be beneficial (and might help push for more paying members) to make a distinction (site-wide) between "Contributing Members" and "Registered Users". Currently, the language used on the site frequently refers to registered users who do not have perks, as "Members", which is a bit confusing.

Hope this is helpful. That is how it is meant :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions. But honestly, I feel that I could completely cover the site with banners, suggestions, and links about such things and most people here would still find a way to ignore them all. I believe most people coming here will just zero in on the classifieds forum(s) they are interested in, and have a bad case of tunnel vision concerning anything else not directly within their targeted interest zone. Google Adsense has a type of ad that they call "Vignette ads" that is pretty much a smack you in the face ad that takes over the entire screen. If I could duplicate the same effect with my own chosen ads, that would probably be the only effective way I could get my message across. Matter of fact, I may re-enable that type of ad here, since it may take a smack in the face to get non-paying members to look around for some way to disable it.

But my guess is that if it comes to a choice between paying $25 to eliminate those ads, or firing off a nasty gram to me about it, I am pretty sure I know what most will choose. :rolleyes:
 
Well, so far results seem to be OK with this plan of excluding paying members from having to view the Google Adsense and the InfoLinks ads. Not as many members signing up to become paying members as one could hope, but better than nothing I guess. Impact on the ad revenues seems to be tolerable, so I guess it is a wash.

Interestingly enough just today I had a member complaining about the speed of accessing this site and surmised that those ads might be slowing down the site quite a bit. I suggested that this was certainly a possibility, because any external calls to remote servers has to impact the throughput of pages here getting displayed on their browser. So he decided to become a Contributing member to see if it helps, and afterwards felt that the site was running at WARP SPEED now, comparatively. So I guess that could be considered as yet another perk to paying memberships.

I guess this will be much more noticeable to paying members when their subscription runs out than people who have never paid for a membership here recently and experienced the difference. Of course, many members will likely be comparing the days before those ads to what they see now, and likely just walk away from the site in disgust at the fact that I would have the audacity to try to make some money myself off of my own website.

Ah well, things could have been different if they hadn't gone the way they did over the past few years. :shrug01:

I am just doing what needs to be done to keep this site worth wrestling with.
 
Just a fyi for anyone interested enough to read this thread.

I completely disabled the InfoLinks ad campaign. The amount of money it was bringing in dropped so low that it was no longer worth the hassle readers would have to put up with in order to read the actual content here. The point of diminishing returns had been reached.

Of course, Google Adsense isn't really doing all that hot, neither, but I do need to keep some sort of revenue stream open to pay the bills around here. As I have mentioned many, many times in the past, if this site goes into the red, it goes bye-bye. My life is in enough of a turmoil now without adding a financial albatross to it.
 
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