WordAds has been announced by Jon Burke from Automattic as a new revenue source for WordPress.com bloggers. The network has been brought to us from the partnership between Automattic and Federated Media and it is promised to bring more revenue to WordPress.com publishers.
Jon stated on WordPress blog that although WordPress.com allows publishers to earn money though many kinds of advertising networks, most of them are not really tasteful. With the time and money we invest in our blogs, WordAds could bring us more money than Google Adsense, the most popular advertising network at the moment.
WordAds or Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is open to most publishers and this is the reason why most advertisers are joining in the network. This helps Adsense become the most active and popular advertising network on the Internet. However, that also leads to a significant drawback, there are a lot of low quality ads from unknown brands here.
The issue has been solved on WordAds as they will allow bloggers to earn money by showing just high quality ads from brand advertisers. Federated Media is well-knows as this is the advertising partner of some popular websites such as AppleInsider, Bakerella or BoingBoing. I’ve checked out the ads on these sites and it appears that they are not contextual based like Adsense’s ads. They seems to show ads by only the category of each website. I’ve seen the ad placements be rotated a few times and most of them are flash ads, here are some examples:
The percentage of ad revenue split between publishers and WordPress hasn’t been revealed yet. However, there is no doubt that WordAds will be the more lucrative ad network than Google Adsense. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said that WordAds is created to reward WordPress bloggers for their hard work and the quality of work, not optimize around a particular revenue share.
How to Apply for WordAds
There are over 50,000 WordPress blogs created every day and not all of them qualify for the WordAds account. If you are interested in earning more money with the network, you can go to this page and fill in the application form. Here are some criteria for the selection process:
- A custom domain for your WordPress.com blog.
- Amount of Traffic
- Level of Engagement
- Type of Content
- Language used on your blog, WordAds is only available on English language blogs at first.
I haven’t known how strict those criteria are as I don’t own a good WordPress.com blog to apply for the program. So that’s great if you could share with us your blog here when it gets approved.
Matt Mullenweg also stated that there is no plan to support WordAds on self-hosted WordPress now, however, a WordAds plugin will probably be created soon. That’s what we are expecting for.
maniyarasu says
Is, wordpress ads open for all blogs or only blogs that is under wordpress, i mean any wordpress blogs like xxxyyy.wordpress.com
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says
If I don’t understand it correctly, it’s only for those who blog under wordpress.com but they have their own custom domain
So you have your own domain but you have to login to your WordPress.com and blog there (not self-hosted WordPress)
Tuan Do says
Yes that’s right, Michael.
A top level domain name on WordPress.com is required to get approved. Btw, the WordAds plugin is said to be on Matt’s priority and I hope it will be available soon. WordAds could really become the better advertising network for self-hosted WordPress blogs. I am just worried that the network could give the chance to top blogs only.
harry says
well, i still have my old wordpress.com blog
andol says
it is still too early to judge wordads or adsense which is better for bloggers. wordads is just launched without too many users proving how effective it is.
Tuan Do says
Yeah, WordAds is quite new but Federated Media has been very popular because it offers advertising on a CPM basis. I heard that they pay up to $30 per thousand impressions which is about 20 times higher than Adsense.
Daniel says
WordAds will be never able to catch up Google Adsense. However, I hope it will bring us more opportunity to earn more passive income proving that they offer to self-hosted WordPress blog.
BTW, your new theme is really clear and easier to read.
Tuan Do says
Thanks Daniel,
I changed to this theme as it resembles to Theme junkie’s designs and more importantly, the framework of WooThemes is much better than Theme junkie.
With regard to WordAds, I have a different opinion to yours. Anyways, we will know when the new network is available for self-hosted blogs.
24/7 in France says
I have a wordpress.com blog (24/7 in France) and also have WordAds, so I am hoping that it will prove to be successful !
Nishita says
I just signed up for a custom domain and Wordads. I got approved within 2 hours (which was a surprise and they had said it would take weeks).
My blog has a page rank of 5, and a decent amount of page views per day (500 average). I don’t know how much that will translate into when it comes to revenue though.
Tuan Do says
Hi Nishita,
That’s very impressive. I recommend you to move to self-hosted WordPress if you can because you will get more choices to monetize your site then.
Btw, I haven’t got a chance to try Wordads yet, could you let me know how it is working on your site?
Nishita says
I should I know, just really hesitant to make the leap. It seems like a lot of time spent on blog upkeep, now I just concentrate on the content.
Plus, I’ve heard everywhere that Internet advertising really doesn’t pay much. So, I’m worried that i”ll spend a lot of time & money without enough returns
Tuan Do says
It is not that difficult to maintain a self-hosted blog. You just need to spend some time to set it up and let it be. Content is not the only thing to worry about if you want to earn money on the Internet. The self-hosted blog could bring your site a lot of benefits like SEO, ad options and customizations that you can’t with WordPress.com. If you are new to this, you can try our service that I will help you set up your site for free. There is only 1 condition that you purchase hosting and theme via my affiliate link, I receive commission from those companies.
I am doing this as a part-time job and it could bring very good earnings.
Agus Nizami says
I have blog. It has around 4000 pageview/day.
I have wordads invitation. But my blog is written in Indonesian language.
Is it OK?
Raghav Gakhar says
well, i came to this article just to know which was better wordads or google ads ,although your article is in favor of wordads > google ad sense . i have wordpress blog and my last month’s traffic(october’s traffic was 1,28,000 views) ,still i end up at 32$ , ad impressions for the month of october was 32,000 impressions .. i just wanted to ask you what is the criteria to earn money apart from decent traffic on the website, because i am sure i do have decent traffic ,which is weekly 40,000 views .and all my traffic is through my facebook pages . please reply,thanks
Prannay Jha says
I am very disappointed with wordads. 19k views and still peanuts…
arafat says
i am using wordads on my blog and it works flawlessly
adsense has so many problem such as penalty and all
you wont even get reason for years when your a/c is blocked for no reason
Sohel Rana says
Very Glad to see about wordads. Hello arafat , can you please share your experience. How can we approved for wordads ?
Timothy Ozovehe says
wordads is still cool but the payout fluctuates. My first month was 205 dollars and since then I have been earning 150-50 dollars per month. Same traffic range.
Halileo says
Can i use wordads and googleads for the same blog at the same time?