Here it is today… After working on it for so long, i’m finally launching Rotatee.com today. As i said in my last post, Rotatee is a remotely-hosted banner rotation service. It can also be considered as a simpler and better alternative for my GotBanners plugin. Users can get going in three simple steps:

1. Create a campaign
2. Add the ad codes that you wish to rotate and assign them a weight
3. Just place the one-line code, that Rotatee gives, on your website

For more details, check out the site Rotatee.com. The site is in closed beta. But, as the readers of GotChance, you can get a taste of our service before others do. Just enter “gotchance” as the invite code to Sign up. (This is not like the testing mentioned in my previous post. All data will still be there even after the site opens to the public). Hurry, it is only available for first 100 sign ups.

Looking forward to hearing your comments and suggestions…

Share This

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks.

For sometime, I’ve been telling people that I’m working on a new project. Finally, its nearing launch. The website I’ve been telling of is Rotatee.com. As you can see from the name, it is a Banner Rotation service. You can manage the banners that you wish to rotate, remotely. I’ve made the website really simple to use. I’ve also provided some decent stats along with a pie chart showing Banner performance.

I’ve not yet launched the site publicly. Before public launch, i’d like to give the readers of this blog to try it out. I expect to discover and iron out some bugs during this test. So, if you’re interested in testing it out, just make a comment on this post and I’ll set you up with an account. This is a private beta and I’ll erase all data before launch. But, don’t worry, I’ll let the testers know before doing so.

So, if you’re interested, just leave a comment. Also, feel free to give your comments and suggestions…

Share This

After so many reactions in the blogosphere, if WidgetBucks hadn’t reacted to it, they would have got slapped by the bloggers too. So, they made a pretty good decision today and updated their code. But, it is really funny the way they reacted. They don’t want their publishers to know the truth. I got this mail from them today :

One of the concerns we’ve heard from many of you has been the slow loading times of our widgets. We really appreciate your feedback and comments in helping us improve in this area. So, today we addressed this issue by rolling out new code that ultimately delivers faster loading widgets.

But, in reality if you check the new code, you’ll notice that everything remains the same. But, only the Text Link has been removed. But, still i’m in a dilemma whether to use WidgetBucks because even their new code contains “hidden text”. That is against Google as well. I don’t know what Google’s reaction might be to this move of WidgetBucks. But, i’m definitely going to wait for sometime before continuing to use WidgetBucks.

Share This

Today, i read at Shoemoney’s blog that WidgetBucks have been penalized by Google. I tried it out myself and found it to be true. And furthermore, i used this tool to find out that they rank nowhere in the Top 1000 for both “widgetbucks” and “widgetbucks.com”. Try it out yourself. This is really not a good sign from Google. Contrary to what Shoemoney has mentioned, my opinion is that WidgetBucks have been removed (banned) from Google Index and not just penalized.

I did a little research on this and Widget Bucks are indeed disobeying Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If you view the code that they provide you, you will notice that there is a very prominent text link present in it.
<a href="http://www.widgetbucks.com" target="_blank">WidgetBucks - Trend Watch - WidgetBucks.com</a>
After looking at it, i understood that it is the Flash animation that rolls over this text-link and hides/covers it. The Flash is generated using the Javascript code. So, i used my Web Developer toolbar to disable javascript. Then, i viewed my site (that used WidgetBucks). As expected, i found the Text Link alone. Check it out :

This is a straightforward disobedience of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. It clearly states as follows :

If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that’s not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors?

I’m not a SEO expert. But, my opinion (and most probably Google’s too) is that a Flash Animation rolling over a Text link is a form of Hidden Text link. And i don’t see any Positive motive behind such an act from WidgetBucks. So, its really better to stay away from them. I’m removing WidgetBucks from all the sites that i used them on. ShoppingAds seems a better alternative.

Whats your opinion about this ? Feel free to share your comments.

Share This

Today, i received an email from Text-Link-Ads telling me about their new CPC Ad network called Shopping Ads. They linked me to shoppingads.com/tla and provided me with a Beta code too. I entered it eagerly and filled out the registration form. But it told me that the email address was already in use and that if i had an account at Auction Ads, i can login directly. So i logged in using those details and found that Shopping Ads is just another version (or perhaps another form of) of Auction Ads. The difference is that Auction Ads is just for eBay auctions, but Shopping Ads is for all general shops. It looks pretty nice and i might give it a try. Check out a demo ad here (RSS Readers might need to click-through to view the ad) :

I’ll try them out here on GotChance soon.
PS : I’m happy that i over took John Chow, Darren Rowse and Shoemoney in posting about Shopping Ads.

Share This

Disclaimer : I’m not making this post because MyBlogContest.com is a direct competitor to my other blog MyBlogContests.com. This post is made just to discuss about placing too many ads.

First of all, we all know that there is a limit for everything and ad placements on a site has limits too (though it is the personal opinion of the owner). Check out MyBlogContest.com. Recently i visited the blog and was shocked by the number of ads just on their frontpage. Besides these, they also have a “Links” page and page full of “Coupons” and a “Make Money Online” page full referral links. So, monetizing the site has begun just on the first line of the site. Next on the header there is an Adsense Link Unit. And a Google Search box. Everyone know that Wordpress’s internal search facility is a lot better than Google’s site search. So the only motive for having this Search box is to make money.

Then, a set of 6 affiliate links. After that a 468 x 60 banner and a Google Text ads on the right (not seen on frontpage too). Now, lets see the sidebar. I’m not going to complain about the Featured Contests section. But, look at the other below it. Text-Link-Ads and then another bunch of Affiliate links under the title “Free Stuff” and a WidgetBucks ad box. I remember seeing a 250×250 Google Ad, which i think has been removed now.

Coming to the worser part, 50% of the central content area is full of ads. I’m not going to list them all here (a tedious job). But they include WidgetBucks, Google Adsense, Deal Dot Com etc… What is even worse is the Paid posts (or paid reviews). Being a Blog about “Blog Contests”, he should be writing about Blog Contests. But, his every alternate post is a review post to promote a product from Commision Junction. Also, i don’t know what “Finding a new home is UK (http://myblogcontest.com/finding-your-new-home-in-uk/)” and “Free Dating (http://myblogcontest.com/make-new-friends-at-friendsation/) has to do with Blog Contests.

To my knowledge, the number of Monetization Spots on their homepage were about 26 or 27 when i counted, excluding the top “Links”, “Coupons” and “Make Money Online” tabs. That exceeds the 21 ads on the No.1 Blog Engadget as pointed out by John Chow. So, what do you think about this ? If you are visitor, will you stay on the site after seeing so many ads ? If you ask me, i would, but only if there was quality content. On his blog, even Content is adulterated with Review posts. So, i’d just stay away.

Share This

I have always wanted to run a contest here on GotChance. But, i am not money maker as John Chow is. So, i don’t have hundreds of $$ or 24 inch LCD monitors to give away. But, i do have good traffic and some Adspace left to giveaway. I’m giving away 125 x 125 ad banners on the right sidebar to three people. There will be a total of 5 banners that will be rotated using Got Banners plugin. Three will be the banner from the winners and one Kontactr and one “Advertise here” banner.

I’ll keep the rules simple here :

• Comment on this post and receive one entry.
• Write a post on your blog a link back to this post for two more entries.
• Add to del.icio.us, Stumble or Digg this post for one more entry each.

After doing these, email me, letting me know about your entries.

I would run this contest until next Saturday, 15th September. I will randomly pick names and announce the winners on Sunday.

Share This