Published Jan 26. 2014 - 10 years ago
Updated or edited Oct 8. 2020

GFF made a nickel in a day!

The Global FlyFisher has just gone through one of the largest changes ever, and the money is rolling in... sort of

As I announced a week ago, I had been toying with the idea of covering some of the expenses I have running GFF by hosting banner ads. I asked you to comment and mailed around to the GFF partners and the reply was positive with no one saying "no way". So I went ahead and signed up for Google's ad program and did some code to integrate banner into the site.
It wasn't easy, because I wanted to give everybody an opportunity to opt out, and not see banners, and it turned out to be a bit more tricky than I thought. You can't just hide the banners, but have to do all kinds of tricks to enable user to disable them. I made it work without breaking Google's Terms of Service and started rolling out the banners.
And we started making money! Woot!

We made 5 cent the first day!

The amount is slowly rising now after a couple of days with banners, but I'm still not sure where it leads. It might cover the expenses and then some, so for now the ads will stay until the amount stabilizes and I can estimate the potential income.
Unfortunately I can't control what Google shows, and here on my version of GFF I get both fishing ads, traveling ads and ads for bank loans and mortgages. I have also seen a surprising number of contact ads offering me Thai girlfriends, Russian girlfriends and even Muslim girlfriends! I have no idea wherever Google got the impression that I need a girlfriend. I've been happily married for decades and I'm definitely beyond the girlfriend phase. Google says it uses the content of the page half of the time, and the user's profile the other half. And my browsing and search history obviously left the impression of being desperate for a new woman in my life. Beats me!

I hope to be able to exchange to Google ads with some more relevant ones, and have implemented our own ad server, which can serve custom ads if the interest should be there. Soon I'll finish a page with some facts about ad sizes, placements and prices, and we'll see if anybody is interested in advertizing on GFF.

If nothing happens and the income stays in the cent range per day, ads will have a short life on GFF.

Comments

Martin Joergensen's picture

DPeterson, I have...

DPeterson,

I have fiddled with the donation option and set up a test page, and it's still on the tab. But the ads do give more money now and will cover most expenses, so right now they will stay. But it's not like the money are rolling in and weekly revenue is already declining, so depending on the development, they might disappear again.

Martin

Hello Martin - Yo...

Hello Martin -

Your blog post, "GFF made a nickel in a day!" reminded me of a plea I made more than a year ago for GFF to consider using a "Donation" button at your website to assist in meeting the expenses of one of fly fishing's most informative blogs (Worldwide). I personally visit GFF a number of times a week to view recent posted fly fishing videos and watch tips from the masters of tying flies. More importantly, GFF provides participation in the your website allowing GFF viewers to attach videos, pictures, stories etc. My point is, all GFF viewers appreciate this unique (non-commercial) fly-fishing website, your time and commitment to GFF and would welcome the opportunity to help you keep GFF the great site that it is.

One last thought...If you venture over to the Trout Unlimited website, you will see that TU "depends upon the generous financial support of its 140,000 members and donors ... people just like you who want to keep America's rivers and streams clean, healthy and fishable." GFF is an important part of the fly-fishing experience world-wide and I would suggest you take a tip from TU and offer a donation button at GFF as well.

Martin, I'm just won...

Martin, I'm just wondering how you explained all those offers for girlfriends to your wife?
It must have been an interesting conversation. Good luck with that.

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Since you got this far …


The GFF money box

… I have a small favor to ask.

Long story short

Support the Global FlyFisher through several different channels, including PayPal.

Long story longer

The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this.

See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.