I have to say that I'm rarely impressed by new ideas in website monetization, but Linkbucks, as a concept, is fairly revolutionary. The idea is that Linkbucks will display ads on the websites and pages you link to - check out their site for more.
They answered a few of my initial questions on the homepage:
Currently we pay you $1 US for every 5000 top banner ad impressions, and $1 US for every 3500 intermission ad impressions.
This tells me there's the option to display a banner on the page you link to, or the option to use interstitial-style pages, which pay out more (but are undoubtedly more annoying for users).
The problems are inherent - your users are suffering through additional advertising for using your site as a reference point. However, some might claim that it's better than showing ads on your own site, and I have little doubt that there are some fairly spammy ways to abuse this network (I note that the site already only counts clicks from certain countries).
If anyone's given this service a shot and has experience, I'd be thrilled to hear your take.
Well it looked like a good idea...but doesn't seem to be getting very good reviews.
Here is a new concept as well, what do you think about it:
Forum Posting = Free Advertising
https://www.conqueryourniche.com
Agree with what just about everyone else has said. I would never use this with my site as it would discourage users from coming back to my site, as it is not a way to build credibility. I would personally be very unlikely to return to a site that showed me ads every time I clicked on an outbound link.
It may pay, but it has the feel of a browser hijack, leaving people to wonder what's going on. Not good for sales, or for convince-ability.
This is a scheme to take advantage of naive webmasters.
The redirect links are added automatically with javascript so the SEs don't see the redirect links.
This is basically the same as usercash but with another name. I'm wondering if they are run by the same people. Probably linkbucks is their 'clean' public image branch. Like adbrite is for avnads.
Interestingly, here is an article via MarketingVox regarding the apparent efficacy of "view throughs" -- ads that you have to view before seeing an article.
I have had experience with Linkbucks, and have received earnings from them on average of $25 dollars per month. Then I realized the major drawback with the Linkbucks system. when you create links, there is no immediate way to promote them on Twitter, Myspace, Facebook etc. If you want to post your links, you have to do it the long hard manual way.
I just found https://www.skyzop.com a month ago, and have been using them instead. As soon as you create links you get the option to automatically post the link on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, or even email the link to people, increasing the chances of higher earnings. Its working for me, and I have since switched all of my links over to Skyzop. If you find this link helpful you can join with my referral link. https://www.skyzop.com
Join https://link.animud.com for a linkbuck autosurfer. Register, input your ad links, and within 24 hours you will start receiving hits from other members.You get 500 credits (hits) to start off with. Not restricted to LB ads, as we will also accept any other PPC network.
Nice link and service description, but the top dollars for lower traffic sites still come from selling text links / content (like reviews) while higher traffic sites can do well with adsense in combination with text links and sponsored graphical advertisements.
I don't really like the feeling of this. your basicly turning your website in to one big add!
From an SEO perspective I wouldn't really want to redirect all my links like this, I would rather have the relevant outbound links & not get paid for it than get such a lousy payout....
Stuart https://www.earnersblog.com
It's not a Pop Up It's not a Pop Under
Shall we call it a Pop Between? :)
Also, I'm sure we've seen this before among big media sites before, difference being that ordinary webmasters can annoy their users with it now. ;)
It's noteworthy that Darren Maloney, on Aaron's blog, pointed out that LinkBucks is likely to become pop-ups 2.0. I think he's hit the nail on the head. Beware, folks - it's a lousy experience (hmmm... just like pop ups, isn't that a coincidence?)
Let me get this straight - you link to a site, the service puts a banner on that site that you get paid for ???? Sounds rude to me. You're sending your visitors to another site (that you presumably like if you're linking to it), making their experience on that site worse, which means they will be less likely to revisit that site (while your site still looks good) and to add insult to injury you keep the profits ???
From checking it out on Aaron's site, it appears that your visitor gets to a page with the ad between your site and the linked-to site. So you are tarnished with the brush as well. I expect that's the intermission page option. I have yet to see how the banner ad plays out, but it sounds like you have it right... anyone see an example of this in action yet?
BTW, it's curious to note that I tried the process a few times on Aaron's site. I only got one ad. The other times, the intermission page showed no ad at all, but it hung around for awhile making me wonder what I was missing.
It may seem to be a bad payout, but the interstitial payout is really good. For an industry average, I have implemented it on my blog to see how people like it. The sites I am responsible for make a lot of money on this type of ad system. It shouldn’t be quickly ignored!
I think it slows down the site too much, but try clicking around. My net connection here in London is pretty bad. I would like to see if its worth adding to a few other sites.
So far from the UK the ads are really slow, it seems to be really hurting the user experince. Which is fairly non-exsistant in the first place ;-).
So for every 5000 people that leave my my site and see a banner I get $1? I would rather send the traffic to Wikipedia.
Another vote to rather send visitors to Wikipedia.
I have example of both intermission ads and top banner ads on my blog posting.
I wouldn't put this on all my outgoing links, but there might be some appropriate places to use it. It's intersting anyway.
Thanks for the examples. Intersting - the "banner ad" is actually an "intermission ad" with a "get me outta here" button. Either way, it smells a lot like spam around here.
It's not a popunder, because there is no new window opened. It's annoying, but not as annoying as a popunder.
I like this idea but I don't think it will fare well with the industry. It seems more like a popunder site is that correct?
The payout is low, but the idea is great.
Thanks for the examples.
The one is nothing more than a framed link. The other is nothing more than an ad page with a continue button.
I could do that myself in 10 minutes, toss some of my own ads on there, and make 1000% more than LinkBucks is paying on a CPC basis.
That's a terrible payout. If I was going to do something like this, I would just add pop-ups instead. They sure pay a lot better.