3,500 VISITS per DAy and NO Income!

[azanmi]

I am getting 3,500 visitors per day to my link shortening website (http://dr.tl) but I can't figure out a good way to make money. Anyone have any experience with these types of sites?
I've attached a screenshot of the usage stats taken today at http://dr.tl/usage.png
And in this post. the 'mainstreet' in the name is because I have the site on a dedicated server with a primary domain of mainstreet.us. I;ve even been thinking of selling the site to someone that knows how to profit from it!

[SIKHboy]

This is the niche, where you need to intergrate ad on the main page. And very hard niche to begin with. I would personally always like to stay away from niche that CATER to webmasters. Because they always disregard the ads.

Where as online user who is not webmaster find ads helpful. So My guess intergrate the ads on main page and play with placements and see if u get any results. but in the long run, I would always cater a site that cater not to webmasters.

It would be nice to cater to webmasters if you have site like web development, building links etc, because they pay to get their stuff done, but not this niche, but hey, you can be next bit.ly so you never know.

Good looking site though. Good Luck!

*Also dont use this stats, use google analytics or other statistics. The one u use for count, are far from true, they are not as good.

[PokerPie]

Plenty of non-webmasters use these sites. They were invented to service Twitter users.

There are a bunch of these sites on the market now. I'd just look at all of them closely and see what they are doing and copy them.

bit.ly for example doesn't have any ads on the main page but they have a create an account thingy - maybe they charge for some premium services?

If you wanted to piss of your users you could make the links create a pop-up or pop-under after it opens the target page. These could be set to affiliate programs or something. It might hurt your userbase though if you have a lot of regular users.

If you want to let the site go cheap, shoot me a PM now or in the future.

[azanmi]

The redirects are through the roof! It took me a year to cross 1 million redirects. We've crossed 2, 3, and almost 4 million redirects in just the past 3 weeks! Analytics and server logs don't accurately capture redirects.

If I can find an effective way to insert ads into the redirect rotation without irritating the users, I''m sure the earnings would be pretty high.

---------- Post added at 01:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:22 PM ----------

Oh and we are now at #5 at Google for the term 'twitter link shortener'

[PokerPie]

What about serving the re-direct in some kind of a frame and having ads and other links at the top and or bottom of the page. For example how it looks when you click on a story on digg.com. You go to the other website, sorta, but you are still on Digg.com in a lot of ways. If you could add things to the tool bar that gave them value I think the users would accept the ads.

[Gerry]

Can you tell me what your source for reporting (and your graphics) you are using?

Looks like a nice all inclusive reporting.

[azanmi]

There is an option within the script to add a top or bottom frame with ads. I tried it early on but the corporate users did not like it. I would like to place an adbrite fullpage at random intervals every X number of redirects that shows with a countdown until it redirects. I wish I could find an example to list here.

Oh and the reporting is just AWstats based on server logs.

---------- Post added at 02:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------

Maybe a popunder? Can anyone recommend a good provider for popup/under?

---------- Post added at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 PM ----------

Sorry the stats are actually wabalizer

[exponent]

I tried a similar strategy with xyz .cc and I think I made about $0.30 a month. So, that lovely domain when back to hibernating in my "pending development" private stash.

[Banned: adonivideo]

Can you tell me what your source for reporting (and your graphics) you are using? Looks like a nice all inclusive reporting.

Guess u don't have a stock Hosting program like cpanel for that horde of domains you own

LOL

what is it webalizer or something inside cpanel and other generic admin panels

yawn

[ngconcepts]

Its webalizer.. usually provided by the webhost

[grace5]

a.) Try a email list for ___ users, offer free stuff,advice,free dog shampoo,pickles, ect thru the list, give them a reason to sign up.Then upsell them I realize most will not but with that many users 1.5% is alot
b.)Post an opinion poll to try to figure out what type of visitors you are getting.
c.) make a sign up for free things (or something) and add it to your signup form or as a tick box. This will get you the right to email them or not ...
d.) sell a real ad space on your home page.(I would buy one right now if the price was there)
e.).I see one of the links on your site is for paybox which will offer a free $10( Earn $10 per referral).I have made apx $250 for just running an offer like this on another site.I did nothing just added the text.
f.)sell me the site for $50

[Aleksandar]

Its webalizer.. usually provided by the webhost

Usually totally useless...

[Adam Dicker]

Can you tell me what your source for reporting (and your graphics) you are using?

Looks like a nice all inclusive reporting.

This is webalizer. Free and available here : http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/

-=DCG=-

[azanmi]

Current Webalizer stats. I tried the middle page option and lost some traffic for a bit because people didn't like it. I think I need to just sell the site to someone that would be able to better monetize the traffic.

[ksinclair]

I am missing something here. You want to make money but there appears to be no ad's on the page? no Adsense?
And no banners, plugins, etc?

[azanmi]

Yeah I've tried adsense and banners on the page but since the bulk of the traffic is in redirects, the ads don't really get exposure.