Friday 16 August 2013

WebAnswers and Adsense: a warning

I have neglected this blog somewhat and notice that my last post, written eight months ago was about earning at WebAnswers.

At the time, that proved to be quite a useful way of boosting Adsense earnings without too much effort. Today, however, I deleted my Adsense ID from the site and can no longer recommend it.

I have been worried for some time that my Adsense account could possibly become compromised due to some of the content at WA, which at times touches on topics that are forbidden by Adsense.

One of the advantages of the site is that your Adsense ID shows on random pages, not just on your own questions and answers. Therefore,  you can sometimes pick up high-paying keywords from topics that you yourself are not competent to tackle.

The disadvantage is that the site owners are not particularly proactive in monitoring what is put up. Thus you risk having your ID appear on very dubious content.

Not only that, but the illiterate rubbish that makes up a large part of WebAnswers eventually resulted in the site being badly hit by Panda. Earnings over the last weeks have been dismal.

The last straw came today, when I heard that Google stopped placing its advertisements on the site a couple of days ago. As far as I am concerned, that is a huge danger signal. I removed my idea immediately.

Apparently, one of the site owners has now announced the ads will be back in 24 hours. However, I have taken this incident as a warning and am no longer willing to risk having my Adsense ID associated with WebAnswers.

In the meantime, though, I have found a site that is currently paying very well, for even less effort than WebAnswers. Less effort is required, because it is a social site, where you can post your thoughts, rants or anything else you want. If people read and like what you post, you earn. If they do not, at least you have not wasted time. I do not know how long it will last, but I'm posting there while I can. Follow this link to find out more and sign up.