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, there's no question that "owners" should be able to Google Ad their articles to their heart's content. People who "land grab" an entity that they don't own, however, should be advised that they would be wise to build out "Ford Motor Company" to be a legitimately useful page -- otherwise, nobody's going to visit it or spend time on it, and thus they're just killing their Google Ad opportunity. We have put a cap on any single user's ability to "land grab" Directory pages. For example, after claiming 100 Directory pages, a user must demonstrate that they have adequately built out 50% of them before claiming another 100; otherwise they get blocked. That way, we have an ongoing rule that at least 50% of any user's Directory claims must have useful content before claiming more. The incentive of the Google Ad revenue is probably the simplest and catchiest "hook" to bring in good MediaWiki editors who want to make money, doing the thing they love to do. Of course, all Directory space squatters need to remember, they "own" the Ford Motor page only until the day Ford calls Centiare's management.
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.
