Having a helluva time getting my website to be profitable, can anyone help me?

I have had my site for about six years now and I started out monetizing it with Google which worked out well, but wasn't generating very much because the site was new and wasn't getting very many visitors. Unfortunately, I was absent minded (ie. stupid) and had text above an ad saying something like "buy us a beer, click and ad". Hence, my account got disabled and I have not been able to get it reinstated no matter how hard I try.

I have tried multiple other ad solutions and found one that paid decently but unfortunately, earlier this year they decided that they no longer to wanted to serve ads to my site. I think it was a traffic issue, since my site is heavily dependent on the strength of the box office. And some months are slower than others.

So since then I've been trying to find a decent alternative, but haven't been able to. The "best" so far is with Criteo, but it's not very much at all.

I'm getting a good amount of visitors and am #1 with Google searches. Just recently with the Star Wars movie, I got about 40k visitors in one weekend due to the huge movie weekend.

I am starting to have major hosting issues due to the traffic volume, but cannot afford anything better. The next best hosting that I can find is about $60/month. Yet, I only get about $10-15/month from advertising. I wish I could just pay for the hosting out of pocket, but I lost my job recently and also have a kid on the way as well as a teenage daughter to support. There is no way I can pay that.

I'm not trying to make money with the site actually, of course I would love that. But I would at least for it to be able to pay for itself. But no matter how hard I try, I just can't do that. I don't want the site to be covered in ads, but I need it to generate income somehow.

If I can't figure something out soon, I may have to close the doors and I really, really don't want to do that.

yes adsense would ban you for that, try amazon to monetize your site. Walmart is becoming more popular now they have increased their commissions to 10%, both are free to join. Also look at Ebay

Seems like you're learning the steps to success.Nice!

blogzandstuff said:

yes adsense would ban you for that, try amazon to monetize your site. Walmart is becoming more popular now they have increased their commissions to 10%, both are free to join. Also look at Ebay

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I do show Amazon ads, but don't get much from it. I've never had much luck with affiliate type links.

theone22 said:

Seems like you're learning the steps to success.Nice!

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By losing money on a regular basis???

AfterCredits said:

I do show Amazon ads, but don't get much from it. I've never had much luck with affiliate type links.


By losing money on a regular basis???

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Have you tried writing reviews of products in your niche with a link to Amazon or whatever, better than blatant ads.

Yep, already doing that. Like I said, it still doesn't generate much income though. Not enough to pay for the site costs by far.

This must be video content, is it not?

macdonjo3 said:

This must be video content, is it not?

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I do have some video content, such as trailers for upcoming films, but for the most part it's text and images.

you done all this wrong, i no what you wanted to do, and it works, and makes thousands daily.


ppd, pay per download was your friend

You setup a website and on that website you add images of a new film release, and in the image you add a play button type thumb
when the user press the thumb you get a popup telling you to install the automatic download to watch there chosen film for security reasons.

every time they install you get a commission from a affiliate of ppd .

To get the traffic for the above, you make video that are blank and look like YouTube has ban you but you add the new video name to the description on YouTube and on the comments
under the film you tell them go to the website to the above.

does work but you need to be careful and use a hidden domain and use a private ip at all times.

most ppl use a automotive way to blast all the videos to youtube at once ...... thousand of downloads= big cash

redarrow said:

do you own the content of the video's

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No, they are trailers for films. I don't create my own video content.

so i take it you are embedding Youtube videos and writing film reviews? Should be easy to monetize i would have thought, not my niche though

blogzandstuff said:

so i take it you are embedding Youtube videos and writing film reviews? Should be easy to monetize i would have thought, not my niche though

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Some youtube, others self-hosted. But since it's not my content (trailers come from the studio), I cannot legally show video ads. Plus, since my Google A.S. account is disabled, I can't even try to monetize my own YouTube content!

Just thinking, you may want look into getting an email newsletter opt in or affiliate links to recent DVD releases?

Stansy said:

Just thinking, you may want look into getting an email newsletter opt in or affiliate links to recent DVD releases?

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That's been suggested elsewhere, and I'm going to give some thought to it. I've debated on it before, but I'm just not sure if I'll have the time for putting a regular newsletter together.

How long ago were you banned from Adsense? I ask as a long while ago I setup a couple of websites, one of which was a forum for my friends and I. One of which decided it would be a great idea to keep clicking the adverts to "help a friend out" needless to say I had around $300 worth of commission absorbed by Google. Though recently I have been re-approved to use Google Adsense and now have it installed on a site.
Worth a try getting in touch with one of their team and pop the question to ask whether you could reapply.

tg01 said:

How long ago were you banned from Adsense? I ask as a long while ago I setup a couple of websites, one of which was a forum for my friends and I. One of which decided it would be a great idea to keep clicking the adverts to "help a friend out" needless to say I had around $300 worth of commission absorbed by Google. Though recently I have been re-approved to use Google Adsense and now have it installed on a site.
Worth a try getting in touch with one of their team and pop the question to ask whether you could reapply.

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That sounds familiar. I found that my brother was trying to help me out also, but I'm not 100% if that's what got my account disabled or not. They aren't very clear with their responses. It's either that or the bonehead move of putting "buy us a beer, click and ad" on the page.

I've contacted them to try and get it re-approved, but they continue to deny me. Recently a friend of a friend wanted to purchase the site from me and take it off my hands. I reluctantly agreed since I could use the money and I also have a kid on the way. However, when we set him up with his own AdSense so that he could profit from the site, it was denied after a day! Needless to say, he backed out and is no longer interested. I wish there was a way to get a second chance from Google, but it's not looking like it.

In that case it could be dependant on content and whether or not the site complies with Google's terms + conditions.

Thinking outside of the box could you possibly content lock, ask users for donations towards maintaining / running the site, if its a forum offer a VIP Membership and premium forums. Or could you place CPA offers on the site to generate an income?

AfterCredits said:

That sounds familiar. I found that my brother was trying to help me out also, but I'm not 100% if that's what got my account disabled or not. They aren't very clear with their responses. It's either that or the bonehead move of putting "buy us a beer, click and ad" on the page.

I've contacted them to try and get it re-approved, but they continue to deny me. Recently a friend of a friend wanted to purchase the site from me and take it off my hands. I reluctantly agreed since I could use the money and I also have a kid on the way. However, when we set him up with his own AdSense so that he could profit from the site, it was denied after a day! Needless to say, he backed out and is no longer interested. I wish there was a way to get a second chance from Google, but it's not looking like it.

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Fuck adsense. Use CPA offers for movie streaming. Or link to illegal movie streaming site, but use link locker from adworkmedia (apply for one if you don't have an account there). If you're not sure what I'm talking about, PM me, I'll explain to you in details.

tg01 said:

In that case it could be dependant on content and whether or not the site complies with Google's terms + conditions.

Thinking outside of the box could you possibly content lock, ask users for donations towards maintaining / running the site, if its a forum offer a VIP Membership and premium forums. Or could you place CPA offers on the site to generate an income?

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It should comply. There is a competitor site out there that has very similar content to mine and is running Google ads.

I could content block, but don't want to be a complete jerk. I hate to have the few ads that I already have up. But somethings got to change. My site is (I can't post the link due to me being new so if your curious, just search google for after credits and I'll be the first result. Also matches my name here.) by the way, so I'm not sure how I'd even implement a membership profile for it.

shtrudla said:

F adsense. Use CPA offers for movie streaming. Or link to illegal movie streaming site, but use link locker from adworkmedia (apply for one if you don't have an account there). If you're not sure what I'm talking about, PM me, I'll explain to you in details.

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I'm trying to keep this all legit and legal here. Especially as someone who used to work for a major movie related company and lost his job due to the rise in pirating and the decrease of DVD/Blu-ray sales.