Skinny Moose is Running the InfoLinks Program

by Steve Remington

I have been aware of such In-text advertising programs as InfoLinks. How the program works is very simple. After signing up, you are given a code to place in the footer.php file of your website. That is all the work you have to do. Then companies purchase words. If you happen to have those words on your website then it will appear linked with 2 lines under it. If you hover over that link a little window appears providing information about that link. You earn money whenever someone clicks on those links.

Skinny Moose has been experimenting with this program and have been running the ad links across a lot of our blogs and magazines for over a week. The results have been very interesting. Let’s say most people start off trying to monetize their websites with Google Adsense. Skinny Moose used this form of monetization first like most people did. We still run a lot of Adsense on our sites, and it helps pay the bills. InfoLinks in just 8 days has out-performed Adsense by a long shot.

Some of the drawbacks of using this program might be worth mentioning.

Cons:

Not all links that become active are relevant to your content. Maybe we haven’t been running the program long enough, but InfoLinks (much like Adsense) says it can take a while for the program to really narrow in on what your site is about and can take some time to get more relevant ad links. I haven’t seen a lot of relevant links. It’s 50/50 maybe.

The ad links can be annoying at first. Like anything it takes time to get used to changes. At first you may feel your readers are annoyed by them. Most people won’t notice or won’t really care. It’s the nature of the Internet to provide links and information and it isn’t usually a problem. But you will probably find that some will be annoyed, especially if they have been a regular reader of your site for a long time. So be prepared for that.

The ad links don’t always seem to mesh well with your site. The code is customizable so you can actually determine what color you want your links to appear. Unfortunately the ad links have 2 underlined lines under the word. Most sites have one or none. So if you are linking regularly on your own, the combination between your natural links and the ad links can create a bit of inconsistency.

You are sending people away from your website. Although you might be making money per click you are still sending people away from your blog. Now if it were always bad then nobody would ever link to any other source ever. Sometimes it is good if it is relevant information. Your readers will begin to accept you as a good resource and will return often.

But there are good things associated with using InfoLinks.

Pros:

It’s easy. Implementing the code is all you have to do. Once you set it up all you need to do is login and check your sales. There is no maintenance, no fees, or any other time consuming process. This way you can continue to grow and build your website. As it grows, naturally the more money you can make from this program.

There is more money involved. More people are apt to click on links embedded in your posts than advertisements in your template. Therefore whatever you are earning with Adsense, I would double or triple that figure as to what your earning potential is.

Is it good for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? This is still up for debate but we do know that Google not only likes it when you have many links coming to your blog, but they have begun to really like it when you link out, especially to related content. With all of these links going out to other sources it could naturally boost your Google page rank. Now that’s the theory anyway.

Some big sites have used this program before including the large news site Reuters.

So what is Skinny Moose going to do?

Right now we will continue to run the InfoLinks program across many of our blogs and magazines. We will give each of our bloggers the option whether or not they would like it on their blog or not. When we first began this Network, we felt that Skinny Moose had the right to implement whatever we felt necessary in the form of advertisement and appearance across all the blog templates. We also felt the bloggers would have complete control over the written content of their blogs. While these are technically ads driven by a code embedded in the template, the actual results appear in the written content. So we have made it an option for our bloggers whether they would like to let us run this program or not.

If you are interested in trying InfoLinks on your website you can do so right here.