Pay WordPress to remove Google adwords?
Yesterday, WordPress.com announced that it will deliver Google AdWord adverts into the posts and tags of its users blogs - unless they pay WordPress.com $30 a year NOT TO!
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A weird approach to revenue generating
Various people have referred to this $30 demand as a threat and even ‘tribute’ (or extortion money.) WordPress surely need to monetize their business - but the ‘usual’ approach is to charge users for what you give them - not to charge them to have something horrible removed - which they never asked for in the first place!
Steve Crudden said “It’s like downloading a FREE software program, which deliberately screws up your computer, and then being charged $30 by the company who ‘gave’ you the FREE software, to have it removed!”
The current approach means people who are opposed to having their work used by Google to generate advertising revenue - but who are too young to pay or too poor to pay, will either have to pay up or leave!
Many WordPress bloggers are based in poor countries and just don’t have the $30 needed to have these adverts removed from their blogs. Remember, they also have no say in what adverts WordPress decide to plaster onto their post and they get no payment.
WordPress also stated today that they will not be revenue sharing with their bloggers or even allowing their bloggers to run their own adverts. Apparently, it’s too difficult to set up?
I shall be following this with interest!
Filed under: blogging, blogs, google, wordpress.com | Tagged: adsense, google adwords wordpress, wordpress.com
As someone who hasn’t used wordpress.com, this doesn’t affect me. But I do understand how it would make some people feel.
I also understand that since they provide a free service, they need some revenue. Sure, this is an ugly way to go about it. They could have just said that they would start charging $30/yr. But this allows those people who don’t care about the ads and/or can’t afford to pay $30/yr. to continue running a free blog.
Personally, if I didn’t like it, I would just move to another free service that doesn’t do that, or run WordPress on my own webhost, which I do!
This doesn’t seem much different than any other free service. You get a wonderful service that they provide to you free of charge. In exchange, small ads that (as they explained) seldom show up to the readers.
They have to make money somehow in order to pay for the FREE service that they provide to millions of people. How nice of them.
Apparently, there are too many stingy people out there who don’t appreciate what they are doing. The least a user can do is help them pay for this service with a small fee of $30 (a year) if they wish to not have their ads on their website which they are providing to people for free.
@ Ali
Hi - you are right - there’s no problem with them charging - it’s the ugly way they are doing it.
The “pay up or else” approach is just NOT like what I expect from WordPress. They usually have a great community focus.
@Jeremy
I was one of the first people to pay WordPress the $30!! I paid it for my business blog jimsmarketingblog.com (take a look - no ads)
I actually pay WordPress more each year than 99% of their users - as I have three blogs and all of them have upgrades (look that the url of this one for example)
For people like me, it’s easy to pay. I think the outcry (and there is an outcry - look in their own blog post) is because of how they have done it. Charging people to remove something they know their users never wanted or asked for is not good PR.
I am also curious about how this impacts people who are too young or too poor to pay - but who don’t want their work ruined by google adverts.
You are right, $30 IS a good deal and even with domain mapping, CSS and some extra space - it’s well under $100 per year for each of my 3 blogs.
Thanks for the comments!
Jim
Bye Bye wordpress.
After hearing about this yesterday, I moved my blog from WordPress and am gonna host it privately. There nothing wrong with making money, but by forcing people to pay NOT to have those tacky adwords all over their work is stupid and short sighted.
I bet the either change their mind about this or lose a lot more bloggers.
Bye bye wordpress.
Pete Martin
People seem to think we’re adding more ads - we’re not doing anything new we haven’t been doing for over 2 years already.
For those that don’t have Paypal or a credit card, users can also gift each other credits, so maybe they can do a fundraiser of some sort.
Hello Matt
(For those who don’t know - Matt is The Founder of WordPress)
Thanks for stopping by the blog - as you can see below, I am a vocal supporter of WordPress.com
http://theideasblog.com/2008/08/21/wordpresscom-simply-the-best/
I think you may have over estimated how many of your bloggers knew you were already posting adverts over their blogs?
The news yesterday; that you would continue posting Google ads over people’s posts, unless they pay you the $30 - is the first many users knew!
I only found out myself quite recently, after getting an email following my post (see above) about how great WordPress is. In my opinion Matt, the fact that the blog owner, who’s name and information is usually all over their blog, has no idea what items you are associating with them and their blog is frankly shocking!
Much has been said today, about how it shouldn’t bother WordPress bloggers, because adverts are only put into their work ‘now and then’. I actually find this even more unnerving - as there’s no pattern as to what or when a post is going to be hit with advertising. It’s like waiting for something bad to happen - all the time.
I am not convinced that people will are likely to do fund-raisers as you suggested; to help out poor people with moral, religious or other objections to the items being sold, in their name on their blog.
After all, there are many, well documented cases of Google Adwords getting it REALLY wrong - and placing a totally inappropriate advert in the wrong place!
Thanks for stopping by Matt - I love WordPress but I am really unconvinced that this is a popular move.
Jim Connolly
what wordpress have done here is to threaten their bloggers. Its disgusting. They are using these ads as a tool, to extort money from their users.
How come wordpress never knew how deeply this would anger users?
I ditched my wordpress blog over this and hope others do the same.
Automattic can’t have it both ways. If they choose to keep the advertising program on the down-low by not showing ads to logged-in users or regular readers, and failing to inform people when they sign up, they can’t then pretend to be surprised when people are unaware of the ads. They know perfectly well that not everyone hangs out in the forums or scrolls alllll the way to the bottom of the ‘features’ page in order to find out this stuff.
At least more people now know about the ads and have the option to get rid of them. The previous policy, where ads were inflicted upon people without their knowledge or consent, was substantially sneakier than this one so I’m not sure why people are outraged by the change.
@ Coach John,
There seem to be a lot of people like you, saying they will now leave wordpress because of this issue. I wonder how many actually will?
@ That Girl again.
I think you make an excellent point; that WordPress / Automattic can’t have it both ways. They have been sneaking these ads in and I believe the majority of their bloggers never knew.
Making these adverts invisible to the owner of the blog, in my opinion, is impossible to defend.
I hope WordPress reconsider this approach. It’s awful that people in developing countries or on a low income now have to either accept Google advertising whatever junk they want to all over their posts - or lose their blog.
Please remember, there are bloggers using WordPress in countries where $30 is a huge amount!
A person in Asia, for example, with religious objections to advertising certain products - might not have $30 and will thus be forced to kill their blog and all the work they have put into it.
The $30 deal is only an option, if you can afford it!
Thanks for the comments!
Jim Connolly
[...] So, wordpress.com told millions of users that unless they are paid $30 - they will post adverts into their posts and their tags. No news coverage though! The story is here [...]
[...] You can read more here. [...]
ok people, Matt or anyone else in wordpress is not going to your houses and putting a gun to your heads and TELLING you to give WP the $30.
How many of you have a @yahoo/hotmail/lycos/other free web based e-mail account?
I can also upgrade my hotmail accounts but I choose the free one.
Running wordpress.com, just like my own site, this site, or any other site…costs money.
Are any of you whining about yahoo/hotmail/lycos/etc…? no, no one does as they know it is a free e-mail service.
Also, no one is putting a gun to your heads to stay @ wordpress. I will tell you the biggest secret on earth (even more secret than the rosswell alien crash).
THERE ARE OTHER SITES THAT OFFER YOU THE SAME AS WORDPRESS.
How do you expect for the bandwidth, servers maintenance to be paid for?
@Miroslav
I’m amazied people are still unable to understand this - this is the last time I make the same point.
No one (NO ONE) is disagreeing with you!
Please read the post again - the problem is NOT (NOT) about paying wordpress for a service. I pay wordpress for each of my three blogs and they are worth every penny!
That’s 100% fine - WordPress are great and deserve every penny!!!
The problem is about having adverts DELIBERATELY HIDDEN from blog owners and their regular readers, so they don’t know what’s being advertised in their name
AND
Then demanding $30 to remove these ’secret’ hidden ads.
WordPress IS THE BEST BLOG PLATFORM ON EARTH. However, for those bloggers with moral or religious objections to what can often be VERY ‘inappropriate’ adverts secretly inserted into their posts - they now have to leave or find $30.
Great if you are in a wealthy country like me - not so great if $30 is equal to a months income!
Surely you can understand its NOT about paying for the service - its about what WordPress are now demanding.
They are basically asking for money, to remove something BAD - which people NEVER ASKED THEM FOR in the first place!
PS: I paid the $30!
Jim
Jim,
I can understand where you are coming from on the issue of not being able to know what ads are being placed on your own blog. I would agree that since they are already putting ads on your blog, at least let the owner see what they are and be able to determine whether or not they would like to continue with or without the ads. WordPress should definitely create a workaround for this.
That being said, I also understand that many free services do not let you have control over the ads they display. I honestly don’t think that WordPress is trying to be the big bad wolf here and scam everyone into paying them $30 “or else”. Remember, that at one time, they didn’t even offer the ability to do so. You either dealt with the ads or eat a freakin cookie. At least now they are giving people the option.
I just don’t understand people actually deleting their accounts over this. It’s really no big deal. I mean, for two years WordPress has put ads on your blogs and you were happy, and now that they decide to give you the option to not have them on there, you delete your accounts. It doesn’t make sense. I’m just sayin.
Jim,
the way google ads is supposed to work…it posts ads based on the content that is on the post/page. I do get what you are saying. look at Jeremy’s post from 4:26am 21 september 2008.
Jeremy, nice post.
@Jeremy,
What a great comment - thank you!
Two things. Firstly, it seems many, many people had no idea adverts were being posted into the blogs. Even Lorell, one of the best-known bloggers on WordPress said she only found out when an offensive advert was recently posted to HER blog, and she was emailed with complaints!
The ads are hidden from the blog owners by wordpress - you only hide something if you believe it is wrong to show it.
Secondly, the reason people are deleting their blogs is because it is extremely offensive to a lot of people - to be asked to pay to have something removed, which they never asked for in the first place.
I would like to restate my high opinion of WordPress
http://theideasblog.com/2008/08/21/wordpresscom-simply-the-best/
I was also one of the very first people to actually pay to have the ads removed.
Thanks for such a well thought out comment Jeremy - comment here again any time!
Jim
@Miroslav
Thanks for popping by again!
I know how Google Ads is ’supposed to work’
The problem is that Google Ads very often gets it very wrong! If you do a search you will find some of the most well-known examples.
‘Adult’ adverts have been served to sites that used words, which Google Ads totally misunderstood. A child recently posted a comment on a kids blog, where he mentioned he liked the new album by The Bare Naked Ladies - and then found adult adverts had been inserted into his blog.
In an ideal world, stuff like this wouldn’t happen. Sadly, this is not what we are living in!
Thanks Miroslav.
Jim
i have now joined blogger so i get paid for the ads on my blog. Ive had a wordpress blog for over a year and like many others had no idea ads were being sneaked into my posts.
Why hide the ads from us?
Bye from me too wordpress.
@Charlton fan
I am not sure leaving is the right thing to do - unless you are totally opposed to the ads and cannot afford to remove them.
I think it’s better to stay with WordPress and let them know what you think, as I have done, from within the WordPress community.
I know WordPress will find a resolution to this. They are very user-focused and I genuinely believe, they did this with no idea of how much it would upset their users.
Jim
[...] http://theideasblog.com/2008/09/19/wordpress-ransom/ [...]
Thanks to Molly Wood and the gang over at Cnet for covering this subject and linking to my post!
Jim Connolly
$30 is not a huge amount for many of us. Only if fortunately we live in Australia, America or Europe.
In several Asian countries $30 is sometimes 50% of the average wage.
That is to say depending of where we live & work those $30 are a small investment or a too high fee to continue blogging on WordPress.
To Your Success!
AO.
Stop Wasting Money with Adwords, I agree with you. Several asian country where $30 is huge but in US - it’s not a big fact.
Thanks Jim to point out some good points.