The ReviewMe reviews just keep coming in for me. This time, it’s Text Link Ads (aff) ordering up a review. If you have been reading my blog for a while, then you already know about this company because I have written about them serveral times already. Text Link Ads accounted for $558.50 of the blog’s $2,790.05 income last month – good enough to be the blog’s second biggest moneymaker.
What is Text Link Ads
Text Link Ads (TLA) are those links you see under “Featured Sites” at the top of the right sidebar on this blog. They are simple little text ads that link a keyword or phase to an advertiser’s site.
Why Text Link Ads?
Advertisers like Text Link Ads because they get search engine love as well as traffic. Unlike other ad networks, the links served by Text Link Ads are full static links without a nofollow tag. TLA is as much a SEO tool as advertising tool.
Publishers like Text Link Ads because the links are non-intrusive and doesn’t look like advertising. If I didn’t add a “Get Featured Here” link, most readers would think they’re just like any other links on this blog.
Many publishers also like TLA’s flat rate monthly pricing. Advertisers buy links on a site for one flat monthly rate. The price is based on a site’s Alexa and Technorati ranking as well as Google PageRank and estimated number of RSS subscribers. The better the numbers, the higher the link price.
Flat rate pricing has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is you know how much you make each month and that offers better budgeting. You are also protected if your site experiences a traffic slowdown. The disadvantage would be you make the same amount if your site received a huge flood of traffic because of a Digg or Slashdot. This is why you should have a mix of ads on your site. While Text Link Ads made nothing extra during my Super Sunday, the other non-flat-priced ads help propel the blog to a $400+ day.
Text Link Ads is good for adding a stable element to your site or blog. It is something I can count on. In addition to offering text links, TLA offers advertising on RSS feeds. These ads are also sold on for flat monthly fee. Text Link Ads is also the owner of ReviewMe.
Payment & Acceptance
Text Link Ads offers much faster payments than other ad networks. Income made this month is paid at the start of next month. Payment can be sent by Check or PayPal. Text Link Ads take 50% of the link price as their fee for getting a link sale. A link on my blog cost $200 per month – $100 goes to me and $100 goes to Text Link Ads. I think the 50% is very high percentage and see it as Text Link Ads’ only downside.
Getting accepted into Text Link Ads maybe a problem for new blogs. You have to build up some traffic and get some decent Alexa and Technorati ranking before TLA will accept you. If TLA rejects your blog, you can still sign up for their affiliate program. Text Link Ads pays $25.00 for any referred visitor that results in a sale or is accepted into their publisher program. So if you do decide to sign up, either as a publisher or advertiser, please do so through my link.
Buy a Link on John Chow dot Com
If you are an advertiser and want to buy a link on my blog, you can do so here. A text ad cost $200 a month, but that link will give you a $100 coupon.
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{ 31 comments }
Another great review – thats pretty sweet to get money for reviewing sites you would anyways
Good information once again but as mentioned the new blogs may struggle to join up due to the traffic and “page age” limitations (ie. problem of my new blog).
Does anyone know what kind of traffic is necessary? I only received the “you site does not qualify” generic answer.
Btw what happened to all the partying in Vegas? It seem that there is even more blog entries here per day than normaly:)
My blog doesn’t qualify as a publisher
I would also like to know the blog requirements for Text Link Ads.
Anyone?
FT
http://www.milliondollarjourney.com
Can’t wait to be able to get accepted. Although its probably gonna be a few months.
After I get my blog a bit more established I plan on giving Text Link Ads a go just to test the waters.
John,
Interesting that TextLinkAds are asking you to review them – for a change they are taking up the role of an advertiser, why not ? looks like a sound idea
Getting to be accepted might take quite a bit of time for new bloggers like myself. The affiliate program might also not work simply because folks who visit my site would either be small bloggers themselves or if they are biggies they might already be on the network themselves.
Any options on the same lines as TextLinkAds for smaller blogs ?
The bad thing is that you cannot see the full site..
John, you’ve really got some prestige to get the larger companies asking for your review. Clearly they see what we (the readers) are worth. I wonder how much you’ll walk off with this review+affiliate synergy.
All the best
Stew
Good review John.
How many ReviewMe offers have you received that you have turned down?
TLA does sound like a very nice stable option, but as mentioned the barrier to entry is preventing many of us from taking advantage.
John, maybe with your contacts at TLA you can help us get a better idea of their minimum requirements to be accepted. What do you think?
I’ve signed up for TLA but my pagerank was not high enough for them.
I like the idea behind their service and hoping one day that I will be able to try them out. I will have to increase my traffic of course to make it work while for me but its the journey that I like. Its the challenge I enjoy. Ok now I’m just rambling.
Good review… but how do you find time to write with all the partying going on??
Sure looks like a nice site, but just like Tyler my website wasn’t accepted either, lack of PageRank yet. Too bad, they really seem to be a nice stable income, even if it’s low it’s more than welcome. I’ll try again later, thanks for the article John.
I’m still sitting on a PR of 0 for much of my site and PR 3 for others…
John – how does TLA’s feed ads compare to those of Feedburner network? And can those be placed into an existing feed (meaning to say Feedburner surved feed with TLA ads)?
I enjoy TLA very much.
I do, however, wish they’d put a message on the login page so that the user knows just where they’re at when I refer them to my site’s package. The way it’s setup now a user that’s never been to TLA has no idea what’s going on.
The algorithm they use to pass sites in seems to work pretty well, though. I tried to submit some low traffic sites I’m working on to see the value and it didn’t let ‘em through. I like it, as it keeps the inventory worthwhile for advertisers.
I think it a lot of imformation and a very good review.Thank alot John
I think I’m going to visit this post once a day. Decided I’d share my experience, and the TLA powers that be decided to sell another link for this month!
Good review John. I might try Text Link Ads on some of my high PR sites… But what do you think about the fact that Google doesn’t like when people are manipulating with PageRank, etc. Do you think there is a high probability that Google might penalize sites that are selling/buying text link ads?
From the Webmaster Guidelines: “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank.”
Hannes, if you’re selling then it’s not affecting your site. lol
Yeah, I guess it should be 100% safe to sell links on your site since those links are not meant to increase *your* site’s ranking
I see what you mean, though. I mean, I want advertisers to know they’re not going to be craplisted by Google. I do see a lot of big sites (like newspapers and such) using TLA. Hopefully it’s here to stay. We all know what would happen if the wrath of Google dropped the hammer on them, although it’s not all that easy to know for sure if a link is from TLA or not.
It looks like Text Link Ads are something I’ll have to look into once our site starts producing numbers on Alexa and Technorati…thanks for the info.
Well John, looks like you’ll have an extra referrer soon, this time I was accepted.
I decided to give Text Link Ads a try… So, John, you have yet another referrer
It’s almost impossible to tell what is a paid text link and regular text link. If you site has traffic and PageRank 3 or above, you should be able to find advertisers. I make quite a bit everymonth from the 20 sites I sell links on.
But if you are interested in trying this, I suggest that you find all the main sites and take a close look at what they offer. if they take more than 30% or pay you a percentage of the “wholesale” price, you are being ripped off. The only way you should take less than 30% is if they are also working to selling links on your site for you, but I’m not sure that service is really worth it.
You can also put up some messages on your sites and sell links directly and keep even more of the money, but it can be harder to find advertisers that way.
text link ads are a great way to increase pagerank
Really amazing! I am thinking google adsense is the only way but good to find this
How can TLA ask for your social security number when the sign-up page isn’t even secure?! I’m surprised no one has complained about this and made them change it.
I’ve had great luck with TLA, and it provides a decent income. My site is a PR5 and doing only $25 for advertisers gives me 50% share, that’s $125/month for 10 links (I have no problem getting links,) and that’s just for TLA, not including AdSense. I should really up the cost for links, though. By the way Arrowhead, when I signed up, the page that asked for my SS# was secure.