I wrote this line often enough: We all would like to create some income through our websites and blogs, and the majority is struggling to make enough money to pay for the monthly grocery bill. To say it upfront: The Google Adsense Getting-Rich-System is a myth! In order to make money online you need a product and sell it either through your website or as a representative of a manufacturer. See also my post Does The Google Adsense Get-Rich-System Work?
Nevertheless, we all strive to use our resources (i.e. our website or blog) and earn a little bit on the side. The combination that works for me is Google Adsense, Amazon Affiliate Program, and Infolinks. See also my post Blogging – Creating Income Through Affiliate Programs.
So far, I had not been able to evaluate the service provided by Chitika. Chitika works very similar to Google Adsense, but their ads are much closer targeted to users who find your website through search engines. If you write about, for instance, automobiles, and somebody finds you through searching for Toyota, you can bet all your ads refer to Toyota and ONLY Toyota. Very effective targeting, you might think. In addition (and this is a very nice feature!) they allow you to display Google ads when a user did NOT find you through a search engine.
My website (the one you’re looking at) was finally, after an evaluation period of four months(!), approved, and I was excited. I had read a report where somebody said that Chitika produces more income than Google. Well, if they are as picky that it takes four months to be approved, they must be good. Right? WRONG!
After a period of testing them for roughly ten days I made a whooping US$2.31! Be aware that this amount is still “unaudited,” because they will re-evaluate all clicks. They are much better than Google when it comes to prevent charging their customers for random clicks, which is good for the advertiser, but not so much for the publisher.
My website, FrogenYozurt.com, creates good web traffic. This month I will have roughly 17,000 unique visitors. According to Alexa.com that puts me under the top two percent of all registered websites (latest rating: 1.82%). However, for Chitika that’s not quite enough. FrogenYozurt.Com was only good enough for their “Silver” program. Apparently, the “Gold” program will give you access to higher-value ads, but you need to go through yet another evaluation process. In the meantime you’ll lose money!
As of yesterday, I switched back to Google Adsense and made more than US$2.31 in one day. Also, I get what I call high-quality ads. Most of the Google ads on this website are occupied by only one ad in form of a full graphic. Every click on these ads will create more income than on a regular box with a number of links. Apparently, Google is more appreciative of my website than Chitika.
The Chitika”Silver” program ads are of very poor quality, and I don’t blame anybody for not clicking on them. In the last seven days my website produced 10,000+ impressions without a single click, at least according to their online reporting system. Their reporting system is sluggish, and maybe I am making a mistake by removing their ads. I doubt it, though. I can’t afford to wait several weeks for their system to catch up. As a business man I need to know quickly what works and what does not.
Also, as a business man, I am concerned with appearance and quality of my website. The cheap looking Chitika ads (hyperlink texts are cut off, images don’t load) are definitely not helping in either direction.
If you have any experience with Chitika, let me know. It could very well be that I am mistaken…
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