I'm very curious about this.
Patrick is a PE professional pulling in 200k+ a year.
I also noticed that he recently implemented Rubicon Project, which, supposedly, helps to generate "mad cash from ads on your website". I've also noticed that the site runs slow and sluggish, with many problems (such as automatic log-out) after the Rubicon Project was implemented. I'm not complaining or anything... it's Patrick's site and he's probably paying a ton for server fees, so he's in complete right to recuperate these costs through ads. Nonetheless, I'm really curious whether one could make $50k+/yr just from ads on a modestly viewed site (according to Alexa, WSO is the 90k'th most popular site).
b2, are you seriously still getting logged out? so damn frustrating. can other registered users confirm that they are getting logged out? I would appreciate if you could clear your cookies & cache in your browser first to make sure it isn't a "session" / cookie issue.
I'm still in the test mode on Rubicon. They seem to be generating slightly more revenue (~10%) than Google Adsense alone. Two of the banner ads on the side are ValueClick and I like them so far (decent payout and high quality ads). If I thought Rubicon was slowing the site down more than other ads (like Adsense) I wouldn't use them. Do other people find the site slow / sluggish? Can you give me details (browser used, what pages were slow and/or functions like search, posting or forums?). For me, most pages load in 1-2 seconds which I think is decent.
Stay tuned for a new chat and video feature in the coming weeks.... and a new compensation database.
b2, yes you can make $50k a year, but you have to be bigger than WSO (prob at least 2x) if you're talking only ad revenue. and my rank is high for now bc of some marketing spend i'm putting in...this Sunday/Monday I'm hoping to jump into the top 50,000.
One other thing: would you guys be opposed if we switched the theme to a fixed width instead of having a "fluid" center column? I think that may be what has been causing some of the problems. It is nice to have with wide monitors when reading the forums, but I feel like it could be the culprit for some page load delays.
Thoughts? Thanks for your feedback.
Yes please, I'd very much prefer a fixed width layout!
b2: Yes it's possible, but it would require the use of private ad sales. Using third party ad networks like valueclick, kontera and adsense will give significantly lower revenues than private ad sales. The problem with private ad sales is that they're kind of a pain to manage.
wso: Still getting random log-outs from time to time, but not as much as before.
Changing the fluid width to fixed width isn't going to change the load times significantly (if at all).
Is there a reason you're stuck on drupal by the way?
Finally, take a look at openX as an ad serving package. I have it running on a site serving a million or so ad views a day and it works ok, that is until it dies with memory issues (but it's a minor thing.. really).
Hey WSO,
I too am still getting logged out occasionally, though much less frequently than before.
I also still do find the site a bit slow as compared to other sites I visit on the internet. Though again, this has gotten better. The slowest parts are the forums.
I did a good bit of web design while I was in college, and I'd be really surprised if the fixed/fluid width did anything to speed up page loads. It wouldn't decrease the amount of data that needs to be transferred at all, it's just a setting that tells the browser how to display content once it has received it.
The best thing to do if you want to speed things up is a.) caching (though we know that hasn't worked out well here) or b.) decreased the number of objects on each page. Having a bunch of external objects (ads, widgets, javascript files, stock quotes, BlogRush, etc) requires a separate request to a different server for each object, which creates additional overhead, rather than just downloading all the content from the WSO server, which is more efficient.
Capt K - thanks for the insight. Ideally I could abandon the ad network completely and sell private ads (charge $ per month) on the site so that the logos / ads would all load remotely. I think that would really help speed up the site / page loads. I know for a fact my server isn't the issue (it is a beast). We have a decent number of caching modules loaded for the side blocks and for anonymous users (site only updates about every 15min for them). I would expect the forums to take the longest bc of their size and the mysql queries by accessing the forums are load heavy bc they are scanning the "access table" to make sure you have permission to view, post, whatever. Also, I'm thinking of getting rid of Kontera Text Links because they are annoying and I think they slow things down occasionally (not worth the ~$100 or so a month it generates).
and consider BlogRush dead until further notice....it sends like 2-5 new visits a day to the site which isn't very compelling.
Thanks Again, Patrick
I guess my original post was just a disguised attempt to complain about the new ad system (even though I do feel as though I have no right to complain).
I assumed that it was Rubicon slowing the site down because the status bar in the bottom would take forever to fill, and it would say "waiting for site... www.rubiconproject.com" for at least a minute - and I'm on a T7 connection. It seems to be a bit better now; don't know if you changed anything.
The log-out problems were solved previously, but recently re-emerged as of recently (past 1-2 days I think).
Not sure if this is easy to sort out, but when viewing the webpage in Safari, the lower half of the menu in the top right-hand corner of the page is covered by the add there.
Not sure if this is just Safari.
Based on what I already know from industry, ads rev can be broken into two categories, unique users or clicks. If the site has 10,000 unique users that visit per month, an ad usually cost anywhere from $15 - 30 per 1,000 unique users; cost per click is higher obviously. Using those numbers you can play with the # as you like to get your estimate on it. You also have to consider cost of getting ads which might be outsourced to person x at a commission or might not be.
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