Why no AdSense on wordpress.com is a good thing
I’ve given this quite some thought after I moved my academic and scholarly blog from TypePad to WordPress. I do miss not seeing my AdSense on my blog, but on the other hand, it looks much cleaner now. If I compare my visitor stats before and after the move, the number of page views has actually increased dramatically; does this mean my visitors are stopping by and reading more of my pages, because it looks more professional without ads? Or is it just that WordPress SEO works better with Google?
To make money or to make no money
Anyway…I’m not blogging to make money. I want people to go to my site for their research, to learn and be inspired; I’m not selling anything. So AdSense or no AdSense doesn’t really matter. However, it was nice to get that $100 check every 10 months so, for the last 5 years. On the other hand, now without having to pay for TypePad, I really don’t need that money. Less worries.
A strict no commercial content policy
WordPress has a strict policy on no commercial content that is rigorously enforced. No AdSense, no Pay-Per-Post, no clickbanks, no affilate marketing, no traffic drivers for make money online sites, zero, nothing, nada. I like that. What that means is that when I search for something on wordpress.com I am more than likely to really find what I am looking for, not some spam site. And even if I don’t find it, I will find other quality content that will make me stay and read…maybe that’s why my visitor stats have increased too; people know I’m not after their clicks = money.
WordPress – splog-free?
Is it really true? I commented on Hailin’s blog the other day, who had a short post on wordpress.com and typepad.com, where I mentioned that wordpress.com wasn’t exactly spam free. Despite the no-spam-policy there are still plenty of splogs to be found. You just need to know where and what to look for. This prompted a response from Matt Mullenweg from WordPress who pointed towards an article promoting why WordPress is virtually spam free. But is it?
Spam reported = Spam deleted
The article is right on one thing, though. There is indeed a very low tolerance on spam. For the past couple of weeks I have been actively splog hunting on wordpress.com and have I report every single one I have caome across, even when in doubt, assuming that WordPress’ staff is better than me in judging what is spam or not. Every day I find 5, 10, 15 splogs that I report. It’s so easy: When logged in to WordPress, and when you are on a spammy site, simply click the “admin bar” that is always at the top of your screen to “report spam” or to “report mature content”. Usually there is an immediate response from WordPress and within a few hours at the most I get a confirmation e-mail saying that the site has been suspended or deleted or whatever they do to it. Matt is right, WordPress does take spam seriously. Getting an answer on my spam reports is even faster than getting an answer from WordPress Support, which is also one of WordPress strengths, and which now is even 24/7.
Non-commercial is good for you
I haven’t found any evidence for this anywhere (evidence as in a reliable article on the Internet), but I think that one reason why WordPress blogs usually rank high in Google search results is that they in fact are virtually spam-free. Google knows that, I think, and I’d love to hear Matt’s comments on that proposition.
Bye-Bye AdSense
So here I am, then, living my new blogging life, on wordpress.com, without AdSense. Am I enjoying it? Yes. Am I sad? No.
Or is it welcome back Adsense?
Added 2008-08-06:
Is there really no AdSense on wordpress.com?
Related posts
Hailin’s weblog: wordpres.com and typepad.com
Plagiarism Today: Why wordpres.com is virtually spam-free
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TypePad versus WordPress 
I’m sure you must know that Adsense is already being run on our blogs by WordPress.com.
I am fully aware of that. But I have yet to see it on my own blog. I try every so often to look at it not being logged in, but to this day I haven’t seen any ads.
Here, have a screenshot:
To reproduce, wipe your cookies in Internet Explorer and do a Google search on a likely term such as ‘wordpress vs typepad’.
You seem to have got off pretty lightly; you only have one ad block and it’s text. I’ve seen wordpress.com blogs with Flash ads above and below the post. The ads themselves are tacky ‘earn money at home’ type links, but that’s only to be expected.
Wait! If bloggers being unable to put AdSense on a WP.com blog is a good thing, but WordPress putting the ads up id OK, isn’t that like saying that it’s better for WordPress to get ad revenue that for bloggers — or both — to get it?
I hope you don’t take this comment as a confrontation. I enjoy your blog, and may be a bit biased in favor of TypePad. ;)
@thatgirlagain
Iiiik! That’s more scary than I imagined. Thanks for letting me know. I’m furious to say the least and I’m not sure what to post for tomorrow. I doubt that there will be more praise for some time now…I can live with ads, related ads, “quality” ads, if there is such a thing. This is almost making WordPress look cheaper and lower than the splogs they so vehemently fight. Say no more…
@sam
I think WordPress is walking on a thin line here now. Double-talk at best… makes me want to go back for TypePad, if it weren’t for the extra functionality I have here. Ok, it’s a free service, so they need to finance it with ads, but then they should do like other free services and offer an ad-free upgrade. I’d be more than happy to pay for that, if my ads turn out to look like in the example above. That’s not even remotely related to my content. At least on TypePad I never had such unrelated ads. Tomorrows post will be no praise for sure.
Splogs that are reported don’t always get removed from wp.com. I’ve reported hundreds of them since day 1 and many times you have to report them over and over again to get someone to deal with them.
You are also allowed to run commercial content here at wp.com. You’re just not allowed to make money off of it unless you pay Automattic a large sum every month.
You get used to the double talk. Matt’s known for it.
@wpvstp
Aren’t you glad that I carsh coursed everyone on the realities of wordpress.com on the Blog Catalog forum? lol :P
The screen shots show that wordpress.com blogs are just as heavily laden with adsense as blogs on other blogging platforms can be. You can’t see them when you are logged in.
The promise of the future upgrade to get them off rings hollow. It’s been on the features page for ages and no action has been taken. There are over 3 million wp.com blogs that Automattic is collecting addsense revenue on so I won’t be holding my breath because I don’t really expect such an upgrade will be offered any time soon.
@timethief
I must have missed your crash course on BC :-)
Anyway, I agree with you in that I don’t think WP will offer neither an upgrade to allow AdSense, nor will they offer an upgrade to an ad-free version, although the latter is probably more likely than the former.
@Dr Mike Wendell
You’re right. I do run “commercial” content on my other blogs, “discreet” links and no money involved.
It is all back to the reason why people have a blog. If they have it for money, wow… But if they have it for education or information, it is better. The best is combining them both
Know what! I can always link my blogger blog for making money and selling my product. put at present, what I really need is perfect fun with blogging. I want new friends to be with me and my blog. No other place is as good as wordpress in doing that. WordPress is a total power to me.