Help:Monetizing MyWikiBiz/Google AdSense
Google advertising is the leading way for advertisers and ad hosts to quickly and conveniently make money on the Internet. Until internal growth may permit other options, Centiare's preferred ad serving agent shall be Google.
In Directory & User space
In Directory and User space, users who actually own the topic of their space are allowed to place as many Google ads within that space as their heart desires.
On the other hand, users who have merely "grabbed" a Directory entity that they don't own, are advised to build out such Directory space with legitimate, useful content -- otherwise, nobody's going to visit that Directory page or spend any time on it. This would only retard the Google advertising opportunity. In light of fostering quality on Centiare, management will cap any single user's ability to "grab" undeveloped Directory pages at 100. For example, after claiming 100 Directory pages, a user must demonstrate that they have adequately built out at least 50% of them with meaningful, useful content before claiming another 100. Otherwise, the user will be blocked and all of their Directory space returned to the open market.
The incentive of the Google ad revenue is intended to be a very simple and catchy "hook" to bring in good MediaWiki editors who want to make money doing the thing they love to do. Google advertising is not intended to be an "end game" for users, but rather a reward for building good content within Centiare. Of course, all users who have grabbed Directory space and are "squatting" on it need to remember -- they "own" those Directory pages only until the day the actual owner contacts Centiare's management. At that moment, a sysop will transfer access privileges to the rightful owner, which will lock out the previous user's access rights.
In Main space
Centiare management may elect to place Google AdSense ads on some Main space articles, to help us pay for server space and bandwidth. To keep Main space looking clean and neat, Centiare policy is to never display more than two (2) Google ads on any one page. Also note that Centiare will exercize prudence in the percentage of Main space articles that are ever monetized with Google advertising -- 75% of all Main space articles shall remain free of Google advertising.
General users are not allowed to embed or alter Google advertising on Main space articles, except under Centiare's "Buy a topic" program.
"Buy a topic" program
With this program, Centiare management will occasionally choose some popular Main space articles and make them available to any registered user interested in bidding for the advertising space within the article. For now, this space will be used for the usual two (2) Google ads being served automatically; but in the future, Centiare may also allow a custom advertisement designed by the auction winner.
How will this work? As an example, Centiare management might auction off the advertising rights for the article about "Heating oil". On that article's Discussion page, an auction frame would be installed. Any interested Centiare user who wants the perpetual rights to place Google ads on the Heating oil article will publically bid a dollar amount on the Discussion page. The auction would run for exactly one week, and the highest bid at the end of the auction would win the rights to place advertising. Minimum bid threshold and minimum incremental bids may be set for each article. Payments to Centiare will be made through PayPal or by mailed check.
Does Centiare keep all the money? No. Centiare management is conscious of the many philanthropic and charitable efforts that surround us. For this reason, whenever there is an auction for article advertising, Centiare will also set up (below the auction) a "Ballot Box" which will solicit nominations for charitable or humanitarian non-profit causes that have some relationship with the Main space article's topic. To continue with our Heating oil example, users might nominate and vote on organizations that help poor households pay their energy bills during emergencies (such as Connecticut's Operation Fuel or Oregon HEAT, both of which are 501(c)(3) public charities). At the end of each auction, Centiare will set aside 25% of the auction winner's final payment as a donation to the appropriate charity that received the most votes on the Discussion page. This will create remarkable public relations buzz for Centiare, for the selected charity, and for the winner of the ad auction. It really is a win-win-win situation.
