Profitability of forums?

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great nosferatu

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Mar 4, 2011
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I have a n00b question:

Highly successful forums get tons of page views, but many of them do not display ads if you are logged in and do not have paid memberships.

How do they pay the rent, through banners displayed only to unregistered users? Or am I missing some other profit stream?
 


How do you think this forum makes money?

They charge thousands of dollars for advertisements.

The advertising link is down right now... but this is how most reputable forums make money.

1 Create a niche forum. (That has willing advertisers).
2 Fill that forum with people/posts.
3 Profit!
 
OP - check out Internet Brands. Forums account for a large portion of their business.
 
Wickedfire is a non-profit organization that exists for the Gay Rights of closet gay webmasters. They also charge a fee from Premium Members who are allowed to use the dating features.. This is also a Gay dating site.

Also.. Go to front page: Check "What's Going On?"

Currently Active Users: 1,248 (166 members and 1,082 guests)

Those 1082 members are NOT members. Go figure!
 
Really??

Tell me, where can I purchase a signature ad on a reputable site, without dealing with the actual poster?

In my experience, signature ads are sold by (and profited by) the OP of each post.

tx2okc said:
Many charge for ads in signatures as well.
Click to expand...

LOL blogspotter :P
 
blogspotter said:
Wickedfire is a non-profit organization that exists for the Gay Rights of closet gay webmasters. They also charge a fee from Premium Members who are allowed to use the dating features.. This is also a Gay dating site.

Also.. Go to front page: Check "What's Going On?"

Currently Active Users: 1,248 (166 members and 1,082 guests)

Those 1082 members are NOT members. Go figure!
Click to expand...



So if I swear and put tittie pics in my posts, will I get better answers?

Wait, not titties. Giant Cocks. I forgot where I was for a second.
 
Umm, it really depends on what you are aiming for, I know that Pay Per Impression is extremely profitable for forums. Pay Per Click may not be for small forums, however, I am not extremely sure on that fact.

It really depends on your niche, really need to see if you have people willing to advertise, but it also has to be something you are interested.
 
great nosferatu said:
I have a n00b question:

Highly successful forums get tons of page views, but many of them do not display ads if you are logged in and do not have paid memberships.

How do they pay the rent, through banners displayed only to unregistered users? Or am I missing some other profit stream?
Click to expand...


The rent?

Hosting is cheap.

More bandwidth with a VPS for $25 to $50/mo.

If a forum gets popular and the founder wants to keep it ad free,
he just pays for the hosting himself.
 
I guess I was wondering about the ones that don't display ads to logged in users.

It seems that the answer is that logged in users make the content, and visitors click the ads?
 
great nosferatu said:
I have a n00b question:

Highly successful forums get tons of page views, but many of them do not display ads if you are logged in and do not have paid memberships.

How do they pay the rent, through banners displayed only to unregistered users? Or am I missing some other profit stream?
Click to expand...

Forums generate thousands of hit. Traffic. Should be pretty easy to sell advertising space, or sell a affiliate program for profit. The problem with forums is there hight maintenance. Going to require lots of work to keep things interesting and spam free.
 
I once ran a successful forum and it was almost impossible to monetize through Adsense (which is all i knew about at the time). The forum has died since then or I'd be trying more. But your regular users, who generate all the content and page views, become very blind to the ads very quickly. CTR is very very low.
 
great nosferatu said:
I guess I was wondering about the ones that don't display ads to logged in users.

It seems that the answer is that logged in users make the content, and visitors click the ads?
Click to expand...

Could be courtesy? But as was previously stated, most forms will have 5 - 10 times more "guests" browsing the forum than "members," in which case the ads would be getting plenty of impressions.

Of course, those 1000 "guests" may not all be guests, as many could be members who have been logged out and are still browsing, or just not logged in yet.
 
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