PJCNET

I have been testing Bidvertiser to display paid Ads on this website after deciding to abolish Google Adsense following a formal warning about invalid clicks which I believed to be completely out of my control, but if I continued to get these invalid clicks, I could have had my Google Adsense account suspended, losing all my earnings to date, please see “ANYONE Can Be Banned From Google Adsense! What can I do?” for more details about the flaws of Google Adsense.

The big question is, is Bidvertiser a good alternative to Google Adsense? Well so far I have to say I’m rather disappointed, but what’s much worse is the Ad system displayed a very inappropriate Adult 18+ Ad on this website which was totally inexcusable and it’s impossible to guarantee that this won’t happen again in future when new Ads are submitted (more about this serious problem later).

Firstly Bidvertiser runs Java script to display Ads on your website, this is good in some ways as when one edits the Ad template characteristics on your account using the Bidvertiser website, the changes become active instantly without any changes to your actual website. The problem is I’ve noticed intermittent slow downs when loading this website where it sticks loading the Bidvertiser Ads, when I reported the problem I only get told there’s nothing actually wrong. I think it’s because their servers are intermittently overloaded as sometimes the Ads work perfectly, but unless this matter is resolved permanently, it’s quite a blow and I will be forced try a different alternative to Google Adsense soon. This website hasn’t been streamlined and optimised so that a couple of lousy Ads can make my entire site take literally 3 times as long to load.

Google Adsense actively displays Ads that attempt to match the subject of the particular web page and website. It’s far from perfect and the system often gets it totally wrong, but at least the Ads are many and varied, plus they do change regularly. Also if one has more than one Ad unit on a single webpage, the Ads are often different from each-other and certainly vary from page to page across the entire website depending on the subject matter of that page. Well I’ve been using Bidvertiser for about a week so far and I’ve seen a grand total of 4 different Ads to date displayed on my website and one was extremely inappropriate. Pages with more than one Ad unit display the same Ad multiple times and in fact the Ads on other pages are also exactly the same. Okay one can potentially improve this problem by setting up more than one Ad template, but having a template for each page on a website such as this wouldn’t be feasible. Having exactly the same Ad repeated throughout the website with hardly any changes will surely bore my readers to death, plus the very few Ads I have seen don’t even appear targeted. With all this in mind, it’s not really surprising that I haven’t had a single Ad click in a week of advertising so far, I didn’t make a fortune with Google Adsense, but I would have at least had a couple of Ad clicks even in a bad week. The only advantage of using Bidvertisers Ads over Google Ads is there’s no fixed maximum limit on the number of Ad units displayed on a particular page, where with Google Adsense the maximum is 3 Ad units, but one wouldn’t normally want to drowned the website with too many Ads anyway, especially when they’re usually exactly the same Ad.

The types of sizes of Ads available are quite standard for most Ad networks and there’s nothing that really stands out with the choice available on Bidvertiser.

The Bidvertiser front end is quite basic, but usable although it appears very simplified compared to Google Adsense with a lot less features. Advertisers are able to bid on the placement of Ads on your website and you can see the top amounts these people have bid throughout Bidavertiser, the big thing I noticed is how few bids there really are, in my opinion there’s simply not enough people wanting to advertise on Bidavertiser at the moment to make the system good to use and properly targeted, the lack of advertisers is also going to directly adversely effect the number of different Ads shown.

OUCH – INAPPROPRIATE ADULT 18+ LINKS – Bidvertiser can suddenly display inappropriate adult 18+ links on innocent websites without notice and this could even be on family orientated websites. This is in my opinion totally out of order from Bidvertiser and I’ve just noticed such a site linked to from this very website against my will at the time of writing. This website has absolutely NO link to any Adult 18+ content what-so-ever and it’s totally wrong that Bidvertiser should suddenly bring down decent websites like this one to this level. I’m NOT impressed at all! It’s usually a very bad sign when any website accepts pornographic oriented material to make money over quality content, in my opinion it’s almost like the website selling it’s soul to the devil and it’s a sign of desperation. At least Google Adsense doesn’t officially allow adult 18+ Ads, I’ve read some complaints of dodgy Ads slipping through the net, although I didn’t see a single inappropriate Ad in almost 2 years of using Adsense, but with Bidvertiser it took just 1 week. Bidvertiser should at least have an option to exclude all 18+ adult material and I will be writing a complaint, also offering them this suggestion.

One can display a current list and exclude particular Ads from appearing on your website through Bidvertiser if you think they’re inappropriate (E.g. 18+ adult Ads) or if they’re rival companies although one would need to constantly check the list of possible Ads available to prevent brand new Ads from appearing, in other words new inappropriate Ads might appear automatically until one actually gets around to checking and excluding them which could be sometime later. This is why Bidvertiser should in my opinion check all newly submitted Ads carefully before they go live, but their quality control is clearly very poor if not totally non-existent. I have removed the offending adult 18+ Ad which wrongfully appeared on this website, but if I see any repeat of this problem, I will be closing down my Bidvertiser account permanently. I refuse to have this website associated to adult 18+ material.

Many people believe that the big advantage of using Bidvertiser over Google Adsense is that their terms and conditions are much more relaxed and if one does get invalid clicks, you’re allegedly more likely to simply have them removed from your account without further action rather than having your account suspended or terminated. Is this really true? Well, one can certainly still end up with your Bidvertiser account suspended or terminated in a similar way to Google Adsense. There’s certainly plenty of complaints where people claim to reach the payment threshold and are then banned before receiving their payment. I’ve even seen some people refer to Bidvertiser as a scam although I’ve also seen plenty of good evidence that they do in fact pay. In conclusion I strongly suspect Bidvertiser has many similar checks to Google Adsense on your account. Similarly you need to read the terms and conditions carefully and stick to them. I also suspect that you can be banned sometimes when it’s not really your fault, also in a similar way to Google Adsense, please click here for my article about Google Adsense to see why. It’s certain however that Bidvertiser accept more websites than Google Adsense and many other paid Ad networks, plus if you are warned about a problem like invalid clicks, Bidvertiser gives out more information to help prevent future problems unlike Google Adsense who are extremely secretive and won’t help other than to say that there are for example “invalid clicks”.

One definite advantage of Bidvertiser is the low minimum payout threshold of just $10 at the time of writing using Paypal ($50 by check) which is much lower than Google Adsense at $100, but it ceases to become an advantage if your earnings are so poor that it takes longer to get to the $10 threshold with Bidvertiser than to the $100 threshold on Google Adsense.

I know that a couple of weeks isn’t really fair to truly test the potential earnings from an Ad system like Bidvertiser as it can often take quite a few months for earnings to take off properly from new Ads, but I won’t compromise the quality of this website to continue testing Bidvertiser for much longer unless I see improvements to the variation of Ads shown, the quality of the Ads (no more 18+ adult Ads) and the Ads stop intermittently slowing down this website’s loading time dramatically. There’s mixed reviews about the amount you’re likely to get paid and it varies so much depending on numerous factors including the amount of Ads displayed, Ad types, Ad positioning, the type and popularity of your website, but generally most people believe the earnings are poor compared to Google Adsense (although there are exceptions) and judging by the small number of Ads available, I would be very surprised if the potential earnings turned out to be decent at the time of writing.

I will probably be forced to abandon Bidvertiser as a poor venture soon but for the time being I will continue to monitor and update,

30/12/09

So far there’s no sign of improvement to Bidvertiser leaving me very disappointed with the system and it appears that multiple banner sized Ads on the same page will always be identical which is poor. I will almost certainly be looking for another alternative soon. It’s a real shame that Google’s Adsense’s terms and conditions are so strict as Bidvertiser makes Google Adsense look excellent in comparison in numerous ways.

04/01/10

Well so far I’ve earned a terrible 5 Cents from Bidvertiser for showing some awful repetitive Ads on this website where I’ve had just 1 click compared to many more in the same time with Google Adsense, also the current Ad on my homepage at the time of writing is annoyingly flickering colours to get people’s attention, making my website look really tacky. I can’t wait to change Ad systems now and I’m still tempted to return to Google Adsense despite their over strict terms and conditions who I’ve just received an actual payment from. In the short term I’m going to disallow this particular very annoying Ad from appearing, but new Ads keep coming and you have to keep disapproving them after they already appear live in a constant monitoring battle. What’s worse still is image Ads don’t appear automatically in the approve / disapprove list, instead one has to click each image Ad specially to view every single one until one eventually finds the offending Ad to block, plus the same Ad can sometimes hide in more than one place and can keep popping up again with new Ads making the system absolutely dire.

15/01/10

I’m now getting fed up of making excuses for the intermittent slow loading of this website entirely because of Bidvertiser. I’m very disappointed and when booking a call to their support, I only get a reply a few days later saying nothing is wrong, yet loading certainly hangs on Bidvertiser Ads only and I never had this problem with Google Adsense. With intermittent slow loading of Ads, poor repetitive Ads, a distinct lack of features, a lack of paid clicks along with poor earnings, I cannot recommend Bidvertiser to my readers as an alternative to Google Adsense, at least at the time of writing.

For the reasons above, especially the intermittent slow loading problem which I cannot ignore, I will be removing Bidvertiser soon to test another alternative to Google Adsense. If Bidvertiser wasn’t causing intermittent slow loading problems throughout, I would have given Bidvertiser a much longer test as it’s perhaps possible the revenue and paid clicks would increase over time.

16/01/10

This website has been loading very slowly for a few days now and also intermittently slow before that entirely because of the Bidvertiser ads. I’ve been forced to remove them permanently and thus the test ends. This website is now loading at least 5 times faster, so using Bidvertiser again in future is out of the question even if this system was otherwise a good alternative to Google Adsense which they’re NOT for various reasons as explained already in this article including the very low earnings and clicks. I am still going to test other Google Adsense alternatives in the near future until I find one that’s suitable,

PLEASE WATCH THIS SPACE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT MY NEXT PAID AD SYSTEM TEST!

Incidentally, Bidvertiser does also have a reasonable affiliate programme and yes, the banner below links to my affiliate link, but as you can see this article remains totally unbiased and I have in fact given Bidvertiser a poor review. Apart from for the purpose of linking to Bidvertiser in this article, unless my opinion towards the system improve, I won’t be actively promoting it as I will only promote something I truly believe in using myself. If you would still like to join BidVertiser or would like to advertise, please click the banner below:

(Update: I’m no longer using Bidvertiser! The link above will remain active if you want to sign up, although I DON’T personally recommend it for the reasons already explained earlier in this article!)

Disclaimer

This article includes my own personal opinions and cannot be declared as certain fact. It is without prejudice to Bidvertiser, Google Adsense or any other organisation. It’s the purpose of this article to do no harm. My full legal disclaimer applies to this article, any comments and all other articles on this website.

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