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Ask HN: Do purely ad-based web sites still make sense?

8 points by onlyrealcuzzo ↗ HN
It looks like even with 1M monthly page views, it would be tough to generate $10k. It seems like it'd be pretty tough to market a website to that level.

I have a service I was building just for myself to fix some problems with online movie, tv, book, etc reviews -- sort of like FakeSpot -- but after doing the math, I'm wondering how much energy I should put into marketing it. The upside seems pretty low, and the costs can be quite high...

Does anyone have any success stories with an ad-based website?

3 comments

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Havoc
Affiliate links are probably a better way to go than pure ads. e.g. Amazon

You can have a gander over at old.reddit.com/r/juststart - there are lots of case study type posts that give you a sense of how these things scale (or don't).

gesman
Second that. Or something similar. Link people to products they actually like and came to site for.
goatherders
You can still make really good money with ads, you just can't rely on Google AdWords. If your site has a very specific bit of content that isn't drivel (like pop culture gossip) then you can work with brands or ad networks to find good advertisers that will pay more because of the audience you bring. I agree that affiliate is a great way to monetize but that doesn't mean ads are bad; you can do both.