Business question...

[Andilinks]

This forum answers more tech oriented questions than business, I know. But this business question is tech related and I think the bright people here may have an answer.

I have a section of my site on 'proxy servers.' This is an old section for me but I just recently reconfigured some things and these pages are now beginning to get some significant traffic.

My problem is that people interested in proxy servers hate Google ads. If any other category on my site were getting this traffic it would be making a lot of money with AdSense ads. My click-through rate on these pages is effectively zero, the ads are barely paying for bandwidth.

>> Does anyone have any ideas on how I might monetize this traffic?

My experience with ad networks other than Google has been abysmal, but I'm open to suggestions if there are any that may appeal to the proxy server folks. Would simply choosing something related be different than Google? They do seem to run well-targeted ads, but I only see a small sliver of them.

My rebellious, anti-authoritarian bent will cause me to continue running these pages even if they lose money, but it would be nice to get paid for the effort I put into them.

[Jarrod]

Could it be the people who are looking for proxy servers are already running adblocking proxies? I'm not sure what this this does to the impression count, but obviously it's unlikely to lead to a click through.

If that is the case monetisation would have to be something completly hosted from your own domains as all the other networks would have the same issue.

[Andilinks]

Could it be the people who are looking for proxy servers are already running adblocking proxies?

Certainly likely for some, but that still doesn't explain a nearly zero click through rate.

About half of the traffic is from places like Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia and I figure that most of the rest are trying to get outside their company or school systems. Maybe they're all too paranoid, <shrug> it just doesn't make sense. Some of my pages have an embarrassingly high CTR and have sustained this for years--I even inquired at AdSense support once about this and got no answer...

I think maybe I'll replace the Google ads with ads for other pages on my site and see how that works.

It could be that these people are just on a single-minded mission and won't be distracted. Oddly though, many of the Google ads are offering free proxies. I'd like to think that my work is so good that it outshines the rest but that's a bit unrealistic.

added in edit: the impressions are about what they should be when comparing to the server logs and accounting for the usual allotment of bots and nuts.

[kitchin]

I think the proxy server sites themselves use robots.txt to erase tracking of incoming links. Yesterday a client of mine emailed me to ask why there is a warning listed on her Adsense "Site Diagnostics" page.

The warning line has these columns (I'll write them as rows, with some data replaced with x's):

Blocked URL: http://mxxxxaxcom/nph-proxy.cgi/xxxx/(real url here)
Reason Blocked: robots.txt
Last Crawl Attempt: Sep 30, 2008

I'm guessing what it means. Robots.txt at the proxy site. And likely it covers any inbound links. Somehow that might affect your clicks as seen by Google?

[Andilinks]

Somehow that might affect your clicks as seen by Google?

"Somehow" is the operative term, I can't figure it. My theory is that it is something about the visitor themselves, I need to get inside their heads in order to monetize the traffic.

It has occurred to me that the worthlessness of the traffic may account for the ease with which I'm getting it. In any case the bandwidth cost is not that high, it is just perplexing to see that many visitors and not being able to do anything with them. I doubt I will be very entusiastic about updating the content but I'll leave the pages in place.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Andilinks

About half of the traffic is from places like Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia and I figure that most of the rest are trying to get outside their company or school systems.

Or working their fraud and phishing, blog and forum spamvertising scams via the open proxies

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Or working their fraud and phishing, blog and forum spamvertising scams via the open proxies

Yes, there's that. But bank robbers use automobiles, does that make the automobile industry complicit in bank robbery?

The scammers don't need me to find their weapons, but I am pleased to help people in oppressed countries. I'm less sypathetic to employees using proxies to surf the web on company time unless they're looking at my pages and clicking on the ads.

It is true that a spammer or phisher probably wouldn't click ads in their quest for open proxies but I can't accept that all my visitors are such people. If I did think that this was the primary use of these pages I would take them down.

Many proxies block ads, so if the visitors are using proxies to view the pages it would explain a low CTR compared to server logs, but not using Google's record of impressions which I am doing. Google's impression figure does discount many impressions from the same IP which would be a single visitor using the back button multiple times.

[Jeff]

Yes, there's that. But bank robbers use automobiles, does that make the automobile industry complicit in bank robbery?

I'm sure there are legitimate uses for open proxies like to get around network glitches, but it seems like an automobile with the VIN number ground off, or providing alternate license plates for use on your car when you don't want your real license plate seen...

And I think my comment is probably off topic... it's probably more ad blocking than scammers on a mission accounting for the low click rates... I'm just so tired of deleting the spam posts from those being paid to spamvertise and who use proxies to get lots of IPs to get around the bans, not to mention all the Nigeria and Batam scam attempts, that open proxies are a thorn in my side. They're probably not going away though. (and a good directory is good for the good guys; the spamvertisers I'm sure already have a huge list they use with a quick browser or script toggle)

[Andilinks]

Well, if I became convinced that my pages are used more for scams than to help those who are blocked as in Iran and China, then I would take them down even if they were profitable.

A week's chart of the hourly usage in the US suggests that these are indeed people using computers at work and constantly needing new proxies to connect to MySpace and other sites commonly blocked by employers. So there I'm not exactly helping the oppressed but it is more benign than helping spammers. Employers and oppressive governments also use these lists to block proxy IPs.

Yes, this is off the topic of monetizing this proxy traffic.

[Jarrod]

Have you tried the Adsense preview tool to see the kind of ads that are being run in China, Iran and Saudi? I'm in the UK and have just visited the proxy server page on the site and I'm not convinced of the match of the ads to the audience you describe.

For example the first 4 ads are for a computer retailer, corporate firewall, enterprise VOIP, and Google Chrome. There are also ads for hiding your ip address, and web server acceleration software. Whilst they are loosely related to the subject page they aren't right on the money for an obvious click through.

You might also try putting crazyegg.com click tracking on the page for a few days to see if that gives you any insight into visitor behaviour. I also notice the ads are in a different position to say men's fashion. Have you tested the layout and this gets you the best result for the proxies page?