The Project Wonderful script is collecting wrong info of the ad clicked by blog’s visitors. This is not really a big problem. I just don’t have ideas on what to write.

By the way, Project wonderful is a advertising network where advertisers bid for the ad spot offered by a particular ad publishers.

Here’s what I did before discovered this bug.

I am using the Top Blog (.com.ph) ranking website when hopping from one blog to the others. The first blog that I visited is the Blog of Sir Manuel Villoria. On his “$100 Dollars A Day” post, I found a comment of Jan Alvin asking Sir Villoria a help to increase his own blog. I checked Jan Alvin’s blog by clicking the link posted.

At Jan Alvin’s blog, I found the ad of Bro. Macuha which was served by the Project Wonderful. When I clicked the ad, I found out that I was sent to the address as shown on the screenshot below (boxed with red color):

The address tells the “Project Wonderful redirect script” this number  11385969 which is the ad number of Brother Macuha’s ad and the address http%3A//www.manuelviloria.com/archives/100-dollars-a-day/ which is the referrer’s address.

The ad that I clicked was actually displayed at the Blog Tambayan of Jan Alvin, however, the address collected by the Project Wonderful as the source of the click was the post of Sir Villoria, “$100 Dollars A Day.”

Talking about the Project Wonderful, I already changed the banner displayed at the header part of this blog.

Previously, I was displaying the 436×60 ad of Adbrite. My income to this ad (adbrite) is much better compared to my income when I was still displaying the Bidvertiser’s 468×60 on this spot. The only problem of Adbrite’s 468×60 is that it displayed ads of the Dating and Adult websites. So, got no choice but to stop using Adbrite ad on this blog. I better not to earn money than to promote real adult or dating websites.

Kontera recently launched their new product called, “Kontera Hybrid“. It works the same as their original content-link ads but differs on the content of the ad shown.

To understand what I am saying, just take a look at the screenshot below. That’s the original ad served by Kontera.

What has been shown on that box is purely the ad of the advertiser. Now, take a look at the screenshot below. That’s the ad served by Kontera’s new product, “Kontera Hybrid”.

In the Kontera Hybrid ad, there are actually two ads shown: (1) Your website content - Related Content; (2) The ad of the advertiser - Advertisement.

With the Kontera Hybrid, you are actually giving 2 choices to your visitors: (1) let them stay in your website by offering them the related pages; (2) let them check the advertisers landing page. However, according to the email sent to me by the Kontera Publisher Services Manager, Kontera Hybrid offers not only the related content of your webiste but also offers related content from the web.

Additionally the Hybrid serves related content from the web, thus providing your users with highly relevant information.

But I think, it will be better if it will offer only related content of the website not of the web.

The Kontera Hybrid is really better compared to the old Kontera ad that this blog is currently using. It doesn’t only give us the opportunity to earn money but it will also give us the chance to increase the time spent by our blog’s visitors, and to increase the number of pageviews that our visitors did while staying here in our blog.

We’ll just wait for the time Kontera will open the “Kontera Hybrid” to all Kontera Publishers because currently Kontera are picking websites that will run the Kontera Hybrid.

For more info about it, please visit Kontera Hybrid page.

Kontera Official Blog featured me as the Kontera’s Publishers of the Month (January 2008). I am flattered by this. It might not be my first time to be exposed in other media or blogs, but it’s my first time to be featured by an international company blog. Below is part of the said feature-article:

We are pleased to be visited by Sustines Laplana, owner and writer of Selaplana.com. Sustines has agreed to tell us a few things about his experiences with Kontera ContentLinks

Selaplana.com is a blog that covers a variety of topics ranging from technology to entertainment . Besides being a valuable source of information, Selaplana.com has been a part of Kontera’s network for a year, making money by displaying ContentLink ads, relevant to the topics his readers are interested in reading.

The great advantage of ContentLinks is the fact that it can be customized to accommodate any individual site’s look & feel. Selaplana.com is a good example of ContenLink inegration in terms of ad density and ContentLink color.

Wow! I am very much inspired by this. Last time, I was interviewed by the Ms Sheryl Yao of the GMA7, then I was recognized by the Digital Filipino after squatting the first position of the Ratified Ranking, and now I became the Kontera’s Publishers of the Month. Who knows, after this, another international company’s blog will feature me (wala raw bayad mangarap).

Kontera Video Testimonial Contest

Last time, I announced that Kontera was launching a testimonial video contest and the winner will win $1000 worth of Kontera Advertising.

There is actually a change on the contest. The prize is not already in the form of advertising but is already in real money. Yes. The winning video will receive $500. The second place will receive $250 and the third place will receive $100.

So, how to participate this contest?

Okay. This contest is for Kontera publishers only. If you are not yet member of the Kontera publishers, I think you can join Kontera Publishers first.

Remember that in joining the Kontera Publishers, you are already entitled with free $25 bonus. So, you already win a prize even by just joining the publishers of the Kontera.

Then you can now do the other requirements. Visit the Kontera Official Blog for more details (Click Here).

Are you one of the Kontera ads publishers? Then, you have the chance to win $1000 in Kontera’s Live Testimonial contest.

The prize is actually not in cash but in free Kontera advertising. In other words, if you win this contest, you can now advertise your site at the Kontera Publishers’ websites and blogs.

Here’s how to join:

STEP 1:

What you should include:

* Length of video/animated flash: up to 3 minutes
* Tell of how and when you started using Kontera
* What sort of impact and benefit ContentLink made for your site/blog
* Your name and website/company name
* Whatever other biographical details you want to include

STEP 2:

Upload your video to YouTube
Tag it: kontera, contentlink, In-Text, contextual, advertising, ad
Send the URL to video@kontera.com

Contest Rules

1. To enter the contest you must be a current Kontera publisher or advertiser.
2. By entering this Contest, you explicitly grant Kontera the right to use and publish the biographical information that you provide in the video. This does not include any other information Kontera has (such as email, street address, telephone number).
3. Submitted videos must not include any profanity or indecent images. Kontera does not work with adult content and gaming advertisers or publishers.
4. Submitted videos must comply with Kontera Terms and Conditions and YouTube Terms and Conditions.
5. Contest begins Dec 1, 2007 and ends March 1, 2008.

For more details please visit Kontera blog.

Last month (October 2007) I received an email from my fellow Filipino blogger regarding the use of Bidvertiser as a way of monetizing a blog. I already replied her email but I want to share with you my thoughts about it. Here’s her email:

Selboy,

I noticed that your blog displays bidvertiser’s ads along with the Adsense ads. I am already banned from Adsense because I cheated it and already learned lessons from it. And today, I received the email from bidvertiser that I am accepted from their program. …

My question is, “Is bidvertiser an effective way of monetizing a blog? …

The email was actually written in Bisaya dialect, so I translated it to English so that our non-Bisaya readers will understand it.

Adsense vs Bidvertiser

Well, Adsense and bidvertiser are both effective in monetizing a blog. They are both considered as contextual advertising services. However, you should first understand how the two ad servers work so that you can apply the right thing into your blog.

For example:

Even if your blog’s niche is about technology, if you constantly blog about a wide variety of topic just like this blog of mine, then using the adsense is much better than using the bidvertiser.

Why?

Well, it’s because Adsense has the ability and capability of detecting important keywords from your blog. And these keywords are the ones used by Adsense system to decide what ads should be displayed at your blog.

On the other hand, bidvertiser depends on what category you choose at their system for your blog. What I mean is, the bidvertiser’s ads that will be displayed at your blog are fixed based on the category of your blog. If you entered your blog to the technology-category of the bidvertiser directory, then all the ads under the technology will be displayed on your blog.

What if you use the bidvertiser ads on your blog that contains wide variety of topics? So, what will happen is even if the topic of a particular post is about personality development, still the ads displayed at that particular post will those ads under the Technology. In other words, there will be pages on your blog that will contain non-relevant ads.

So, to maximize your earning when using bidvertiser as your means of monetizing your blog, you need to focus on the topic of your blog. If your blog is entered into the technology category of the bidvertiser directory, then focus on technology.

Now, what about if you want to blog about making money online?

Well, you can blog about making money online and you’ll earn much from it through the bidvertiser. But you need to build a separate blog about it and enter this new blog into the money-category at the bidvertiser directory so that all the ads that will be displayed on this blog will be the ads under the money-category. Then focus all your thoughts on that blog to the making money online topic and other related things.

Join the Adsense again

But did you know that you can still join the Adsense program of Google even if you’re already banned from it?

Try reading my post, “4 Steps in Re-registering to Adsense If You’re Banned From It.“