Web site news

After giving it some thought, I have made several important changes to the ad model. Two primary concerns are leading me to adopt an alternative strategy to the one I was considering. First, my sidebar is too narrow to accomodate a skyscraper ad, so the largest ad size the sidebar will accomodate is a square ad. Second, my plans for a square ad were originally to have four a page – but I’ve recently started wondering if that’s exactly the best approach for a site with basically no visitors.

Those concerns, plus the fact that my attempts to let people know they’re better off bidding on my premier ad have mostly resulted in depressing bidding on the Standard ad without increasing bidding on my Premier ad (which STILL isn’t topping the Standard ad’s rates), have led me to change my ad strategy for Da Blog as well. So on the right side, you will see space for two square ads. Those are NOT in the same ad box. One of them is an ad that also appears on the rest of the Morgan Wick sites, the other is technically the same ad box Da Blog has had since August, only it’s now a square box. If you have previously bid on the standard skyscraper box your bid is now null and void and you must bid again with a square ad. To get the best bang for your buck with your square ad, you should be bidding on the top Morgan Wick box, but if you have a lower budget and can’t afford the top box you can still reach most of the same people with the bottom Da Blog box (although the top Premier box will still be a better investment in most circumstances, and now it’s bigger!). I’ve also put advertisements for Sandsday in both of the Da Blog-specific boxes that will run if there are no bids otherwise.

If that’s a bit confusing, don’t worry. I’ve created an advertising FAQ on the Web site that aims to put the answers to any questions you may have – and links to every one of my ad boxes – in one place. That includes not only the ad that appears across the Web site, but a new ad I’ve created just for Sandsday. I’m still debating what to do with the rest of the site, including possibly committing the forbidden act of using Google Adsense.

While I’m at it, I’ve also added a new item to the Around the Horn Drinking Game, fixed some buggy links on Sandsday, and updated the NFL Lineal Title. I’m starting to think I should study Javascript more too… PHP doesn’t seem to work on Freehostia for files whose extensions aren’t .php, so I can’t use it to create a dynamic sidebar unless I rename all my files, and it seems to require the use of Javascript to obtain the user’s screen resolution, which would be nice for fixing one of Sandsday’s biggest problems, the inability to be viewed properly at 800×600 resolution.