And I think now, why do I not think of such possibility in the first moment?

When Wikidot started and for some time after it did state that there would be no ads - ever.

Ah, I completely forgot about this. Now I understand why he was so upset. I guess I already had the educational upgrade back then so I didn't have to worry about this. Maybe there could be a similar upgrade for non-profit charity or environmental organizations?

I do know that Brunhilda has struggled with the payment model as well for her work. She is not arguing with you. Actually I think she is supportive of the position you are in, as am I and others here.

I would urge you not to move to Wordpress, it is not as advanced as Wikidot in many ways and the community does not seem to be so good. If you need your site to be non-ad then I'm sure we can can come to some sort of arrangement. I have a huge number of sites available on my account and would be happy to allocate one to you. It might require me to remain master admin but other than that I would take no part unless asked. Please do PM me if you would like me to sort something out in this way, I work with charities on a daily basis so know the constraints you work under and would be happy to work with you to continue the development of your site on the Wikidot platform.

Good thing you're not doing customer service!

When I came here. Remember?

To exactly what question is this answer?

They changed the TOS, not me.

ToS are not written in stone, they can be changed from time to time. It is our choice as customers, to continue with them or not, depending on if these new conditions suit us or not. Obviously, they don't suit you and you are free to go, but there is no reason nor it is necessary to go insulting.

Lots of sites are still free and I use them. They don't have ads.

Wikidot sites? I doubt it. Or maybe I don't understand this…

One of the directors of our non-profit set up this site because it was free.

Non-profit organizations usually live from sponsors. Have you ever asked Wikidot headquarters if they are willing to help your cause? On the other hand, I wonder if you insult like this all your sponsors when they stop sponsoring you. This is not very nice behaviour, you know.

You know, when I came to Wikidot, there were no ads at all. So, you see, I also came here because it was ad-free free site. But, that was at the beginning. I was mad, too, as you are now. I also felt cheated, as you are feeling now. But then I thought a little bit, and I realized that Wikidot is not a charity organization and the people who work in it, they do it for money, not for "thank you". We all work for money, so we can buy our clothes, food, to pay our rent, to go to the cinema or theatre, to travel, etc. in one word, to LIVE. So, why Wikidot would do differently? So we decided to pay for it, because we didn't want ads at our site. Otherwise, we could have gone to other wiki farm. But I investigated before this decision, and you know what? I haven't found anything that could give me the half of the quality that Wikidot offers, and especially not one very important thing — a fantastic Community with unselfish and friendly people who are always ready to help. So you see, I stayed because of the people who are here, not because of Wikidot itself.

Try another argument, that one didn't work.

Why would I do this? I am not discussing , nor arguing with you. I don't need to do it, nor I want it. I am just reacting to your exaggerated reaction. Nothing else.

Try another argument, that one didn't work.

Yes, the whole unethical capitalism thing is a major problem worldwide. I thought with Wikidot I might have the ability to determine whether I wanted to be a part of that system. That's why I came here, obviously. I was wrong! My bad!

Hm, I would say your bad was in believing you can get a web site for free. Otherwise, how did you imagine to compensate for the service Wikidot gives you? You are not the only one non-profit site here, rest assured. I agree that maybe there should be more options for choosing the type of ads that will appear on you site, but you simply cannot remove them. I doubt you'll find anyone in the Internet that would give you a site for free without adds.

And we're not in a position to give you $50 to fix the problem.

A clarification: I don't represent Wikidot in any way and these are my personal opinions.

And I'm sorry for being rude, it was just a reaction to your own way of expressing things.

Edit: I agree you there that you should be able to affect the contents of the ads to a certain limit (which ads are shown or more precisely, which ads are not shown). But it's understandable that ads are present on free sites.

Don't be disingenuous. It is absolutely inappropriate for these ads to be on our website, this is our enemy and my site is driving traffic to him? Are you kidding me? And there is NO OPTION to change anything about it - not even the location of the ads? Please. I don't see this working out in a good way.

They have clearly stated why they changed the policy and the ToS also is updated. Every company does changes to their Terms of Service every now and then. Now it says:

To compensate costs of hosting free Sites, Wikidot keeps exclusive right to use advertising space on web pages within free Sites. Users of free Sites are not allowed to place any other advertising to monetize their traffic, unless the Site is upgraded to any of the paid plans.

I want to block Google ads from my site. We're getting ads for unethical real-estate developers that our non-profit group is campaigning AGAINST. I need to fix this situation immediately. Please advise.

You will have to upgrade then. Only pro accounts have the option to switch off the ads. Pro-lite (49,90 US dollars for non-EU citizens if EU, then + 22% VAT) per year is not that much.

It's probably better if you ask those questions there (as like I said I'm no help with DNS / CNAME - related issues). There are a lot of people watching the community site and some will reply when you post the question … but not everyone watches the blog. There's RSS for that :)

and no body has contacted me so far (2 weeks).

Which is why I suggested you create a wish / feature request for it. At least that way you're guaranteed to get an answer - yes or no - as to whether the ad network will be supported in the future.

I'd say you should probably post both the name of the ad network, as well as an example of the code they give you to embed into the website.

I haven't got the link for you, but there's a page on the community site dedicated to setting up a custom domain. Just go to http://community.wikidot.com and try searching for "custom domain"

- leiger

Leiger, I got the community page on "custom domain". But I am seeing none of the UI elements mentioned there like:- advanced DNS settings or CNAME, in the control panel provided by my domain provider. The domain name I am pasting into the text field at admin:manage » custom domain, is a valid domain and it is recognized when I type it in a browser and it directly takes me to my wikidot site. But at wikidot I am getting the error "Domain does not resolve into a valid IP address"

But let me know:- Ads are working when manually pasted into page-source but not working when added into Advertising Panel (in the ad-unit box) - is this a normal situation? Also what should I post at feedback page? The name of the ad-network or the code they provided? I am not seeing anybody put a wish to make work any specific ad-network, there. All I am seeing there are wishes for various features.

I thought pressing the button:-

This code should work - Send us a report

will send the code I pasted in the ad-unit box to Wikidot Dev Team and they will make it work. Because after clicking that button I even got the message:- "We will look closer at the submitted code and contact you if we have more questions". But so far my code didn't work (in the ad-unit, but it always work when pasted directly in page-source) and no body has contacted me so far (2 weeks).

It will be great if somebody can help.

To request that the ad network you want to use is added so that it will work in the Advertising panel, my guess is that you should create a wish at http://feedback.wikidot.com

I haven't got the link for you, but there's a page on the community site dedicated to setting up a custom domain. Just go to http://community.wikidot.com and try searching for "custom domain"

- leiger

Anyway, I purchased a new domain and set it to redirect to my wikidot sub-domain. But when I try to use the admin:manage » custom domain feature, it is giving the error message:-

The new domain does not resolve to a valid IP address. See the tips at the bottom of this page.

The new domain is recognized by all the web-browsers and it is also redirecting perfectly to my wikidot sub-domain based on the settings I gave in the control panel of my new domain. But why is wikidot not recognizing it?

I looked at the tip at the bottom of the page but I could not see advanced DNS settings or CNAME.

Please help!

The error message says:- The html code is not recognized; It might be because we still do not support the advertising network you are using, our code recognition mechanism failed, or a malformed code was pasted. It also prompt me to send a report. Then it gives the message:- We will look closer at the submitted code and contact you if we have more questions. If you wish to contact us, please send an email to moc.todikiw|troppus#moc.todikiw|troppus.

I have been trying this since 2 weeks and the problem is persisting.

Please help!

Regarding acquisition. It would be very unsettling to see wikidot go to someone that has little to no regard for us and I hope that if it is ever sold, that this will be considered within the contract. I would like to think that I do my part in promotion and as much as I bitch about things relating to wikidot, I still promote it and amoung those that I introduced to wikidot, I can confirm that 5 upgraded to pro-lite or better. Enlarge Media does not match any existing user name BlueZero kjaroscak Topher Lum does not match any existing user name Javier de Castro

I had some query to Google also. What pains me most is that the site which was all OK for ads for more than three months became not OK because the application came from India. Here is what I could understand from Google.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense/thread?tid=4fb0b430e9c1619f&hl=en

I would like to know if Michal could get any info directly from Google. The information I got from was from AdSense helpers and I don't know if this is the same answer one will get from some Google official. Ads or no ads, the over all experience I am now having in this issue is very painful.

Hello JIJITH NADUMURI RAVI,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into Google AdSense
at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:
- Page Type

Further detail:
Page Type: In order to participate in Google AdSense, publishers' websites
and application information must satisfy the following guidelines:

- Your website must be your own top-level domain (www.example.com and not
www.example.com/mysite).
- You must provide accurate personal information with your application
that matches the information on your domain registration.
- Your website must contain substantial, original content.
- Your site must comply with Google AdSense program policies:

My site had Google Ads since December 2009 to `18th April 2010 and it satisfied all the guidelines so that Google had no problem in placing ads on all pages in it. How come the site stopped satisfying the guidelines since 18th April when I changed it to Pro Lite when it is now my turn to choose the ads?

I will also drop the email at moc.todikiw|troppus#moc.todikiw|troppus as suggested by Michal.

I am now waiting for the mail from Google after making a re-submission today.There is a possibility, I made some mistakes while filling the AdSense application form while I did it the first time or may be I did it so quickly? I did it as soon as I converted my free account to Pro Lite, in the same hour. I should get reply for this new application by today or tomorrow. If the outcome is still negative, I would like to drop the email at moc.todikiw|troppus#moc.todikiw|troppus.

Name of my site is http://ancientvoice.wikidot.com. It is one of the top sites in the monthly category, staying top for the last 4 or 5 weeks.

Thanks and Regards
Jijith

http://feedback.wikidot.com

You can always request a refund within a month of buying a Pro account - but as it's only you experiencing this issue it seems more like a bug… and something which I'm sure Wikidot will be able to investigate and fix if they are made aware of it.

Edit: Just realised Brunhilda basically said the same thing I just did xD

Maybe it has something to do with putting them before this change in Wikidot (100% earnings are for us, Wikidot does not take 20% anymore), since both I and leiger put ads before it came into force… Michal would know about it…

I am really disappointed. I upgraded the free account to avoid out-of-context ads (pedigree ads in pages describing ancient sacrad-texts etc) coming on top of my articles. I also wanted to recover the expenses incurred to build the site, like internet-charges by placing ads which are within my control. Now it seems like I cannot have Ad Sense ads on my site even after upgrading it to Pro Lite paying 49$.

Do I now need to buy a domain like yoursite.com and link it with yoursite.wikidot.com? Or is there any other way out? I read somewhere in the wikidot manuals that one can have wikidot sites with domain names where the word "wikidot" is not there.

I upgraded my free account to Pro Lite account yesterday. I am also in the process of creating an ad-sense account with Google. But today I got a mail from Google that they looked at my web-site and found that the name is of the nature xyz.wikidot.com where as they expect it should be of the nature xyz.com,; it looks like a sub-domain of wikidot. This is a surprise for me. Because I have not read it neither in Wikidot manuals nor in Google AdSense manuals that such sites are not acceptable for Ad-Sense. What I thought was to put Ad-Sense ads one should have the edit rights for the site and should have the right to insert ad-sense code, which I now have as being the owner of the Pro Lite account and the super-admin of my sites. Apart from this the site had Ad Sense till yesterday when it was free. So the nature of the site (its domain name, its content) remain the same. So I do not understand why it is now different for Google when I changed it into Pro Lite by paying money. Perhaps there is something I am missing, and it has nothing to do with Google? Is there any way you can guide me here?

2. on free sites that have no activity in the last month (no page edits, forum posts)

Hmm, i did not know this. i thought that the adds showed up to every visitor that was not logged in. this is much better than i though.

We have quite many wikis that ended their lifecycle. I think it is a reasonable way to monetize them.

However, I cannot definitely say that this is the final solution, but I am glad "this is not that bad" :-D

Please also look at my new post about monthly payments — I think it would make upgrading much easier, and worth it.

What is this TLA program? I'm wondering what "TLA" means.

srnk already said: Text-Link-Ads.

Yes, TLA program was kind of an experiment which we did not want to continue. It was enabled for selected users only, so if you already have access to it and want to keep using it, please do.

What is this TLA program? I'm wondering what "TLA" means.

Right now, we are displaying ads when:
1. on free sites to visitors coming directly from search engines
or
2. on free sites that have no activity in the last month (no page edits, forum posts)

Hmm, i did not know this. i thought that the adds showed up to every visitor that was not logged in. this is much better than i though.

What I'm suggesting you consider is a set of themes for free sites that explicitly provide space for ads, so the look&feel is smooth, and that free sites cannot use custom CSS nor other themes.

This was my idea Pieter… ;)

Although this idea of designing a special themes with explicit space for ads is good (I like it), maybe it is too much work for developers. What about making all themes a little bit narrower, and put a strip of ads on each side (or only on one side, whatever you think it would be best)?

BTW, why limit the use of CSS? One can use CSS to make those ad spaces customised, according to the site, like many of free users did with a Wikidot toolbars… Maybe the possibilityu to change colors of background, links etc, so ads merge fit better into their sites… The only thing they shouldn't do is to remove them. The same policy as for Wikidot bars…

What about TLA program - can I use it on my free site?

Yes, TLA program was kind of an experiment which we did not want to continue. It was enabled for selected users only, so if you already have access to it and want to keep using it, please do.

Right now, we are displaying ads when:
1. on free sites to visitors coming directly from search engines
or
2. on free sites that have no activity in the last month (no page edits, forum posts)

I didn't know about 2nd - but I would apprecate much if the policy remained like above said. About limiting themes - does not seem a good idea to me. This would downgrade free site functionality. If ads are to be displayed all the time, sidebar (or other 'non-prime-time' area) would be far more acceptable then the title area.
What about TLA program - can I use it on my free site?

Yes, but given variety of themes, and ability to create custom themes — this is challenging.

What I'm suggesting you consider is a set of themes for free sites that explicitly provide space for ads, so the look&feel is smooth, and that free sites cannot use custom CSS nor other themes. And that ads be shown all the time, and perhaps also that the toolbars be optional on free sites.

What do free users here think?

About discouraging users — what we had with AdSense integration, and now Pro sites earning money from ads, new users can still be discouraged from joining Wikidot, because they face ads. And there is no immediate info who owns those ads.

I am still not certain about the above policy. Perhaps ads should be extended unconditionally to all free sites, but I do not like this idea.

This would be ideal if the ads were nicely integrated into themes. It avoids the "unpleasant surprise" that many people get when ads suddenly appear. On the other hand it would discourage people from starting a site, since they see ads right away.

One thing to clarify: we did not pull the ads and introduced toolbars instead. Ads were always there, if e.g. a visitors come from a search engine like Google.

Right now, we are displaying ads when:
1. on free sites to visitors coming directly from search engines
or
2. on free sites that have no activity in the last month (no page edits, forum posts)

Ads are displayed only to visitors not logged in (without Wikidot accounts). This is still a fraction of the overall traffic we have.

I am still not certain about the above policy. Perhaps ads should be extended unconditionally to all free sites, but I do not like this idea.

One thing for sure — I can see no problem in removing solutions that do not work.

We are working on monthly fees right now (talking to banks to get a full merchant account etc.) — I will blog about it today or tomorrow. This would, as we believe, make the paid plans much more accessible. $5 a month for removing all advertising, toolbars and giving more features and space for all your sites seems like a pretty good deal.

As Wikidot considers the best way to go about this, though, I would like to say a few things. First, Wikidot has been trying for awhile now to figure out a way to earn money without alienating users or making the site look ugly. With the arrival of the new ads, though, we have an unfortunate accumulation of all the previous methods.

Initially ads on free site were on the "your ads or ours" policy, which meant that if a person cared about site design, he or she had the tools to ensure that ads worked with the site. Under this policy, the user also earned part of any money generated from these ads, ostensibly to motivate the user to place the ads well.

Because of user complaints, Wikidot pulled the ads and introduced the Wikidot top and bottom bars. These are actually well-designed and look quite nice. Of course, people inevitably complained, but I think overall the bars weren't that much of an imposition.

Then Wikidot raised its prices to upgrade membership in order to make up for the lack of ads on free sites.

Now what we have is higher membership rates, the top and bottom bar, and glaring ads that users neither have control over nor earn money from. It seems that after trying each of these different methods, what we have is not the best solution, but all the solutions. This may understandably annoy some longtime users.

So, the first problem is that free users are now dealing with every money earning scheme Wikidot has tried out.

As for the ads themselves, they are obtrusive. Michal asked for suggestions. I would say that the difference between an unprofessional site that looks poorly designed and spammy and a professional site that looks inviting and safe is how the ads have been integrated into the design. This will be difficult to do given the range of themes and design options Wikidot offers. However, one possibility is to go back to letting users decide where to place the ads. Another option is to give users the choice of where to place the ad div from the Site Manager. The least obtrusive but still visible places are either above the entire page (above the banner) where they will not wreak havoc on the site design, or as a side bar, with the user choosing left or right.

In my last post i was more of just hoping that wikidot wouldn't ever come to that becasue i love it so much, and it seems that Wikidot has reassured me that it wont ever come to this, so, im happy :D (although that add at the top of free sites is still rather ugly ;-)

as for the toolbars and stuff. i actually rather like the toolbar at the top. but the one at the bottom could be replaced. maybe the adds could go there instead?

Your idea of putting ads in very specific places in certain themes is an interesting one. To make this work, free sites would have to be limited to such themes, but this could be a good incentive to upgrade as well. And if those free themes were nice enough, people would probably not mind.

However I agree that there might be too many "distractions" right now on the free sites: top "toolbar", promoted sites at the bottom, and occasional ads. I am open to any suggestions in this field. Wikidot should not encourage people to upgrade by making the free version crap, but offering a better experience instead.

Glad that you see it like that. It makes me wan't to stay here. Of course unless I find a service that is functional, free and ad-free (but we all know I won't find anything like that :D ). So my concern is whether sites with ads will remain 'readable' to my visitors. It was possible somehow with wikidot toolbars, try with ads.

One thing is clear: nobody in this world will give you anything for free, without asking absolutely nothing in return. And if he gives you something for free, this does not mean "for exchange for nothing" — if you don't pay with money, you pay in some other way, and ads are one of those non-money payments, like TV, for example. You don't pay TV, but there are ad blocks that are so long that make you forget what you were watching. They are annoying, but thanks to them, you can see that programme. Other option is to pay satelite or cable TV and to be able to see what you want and without interruptions.

Now, we have here two sides that both are right. On one side there is a "broken promise" thing, and on the other, the fact that that promise was a foolish and hasty (and Wikidot admitted it, in various occasions) and that in reality, we all must pay in some way if we want Wikidot continues to host our sites.

Maybe it should be the solution an open discussion rather than a combination of justification and accusation and mutual "ping-ponging" ("you promised, zou destroyed, you will make it unusable" vs."and you are ungrateful, you get more than at any other wiki farm, are you SERIOUSLY concerned that this is going to be only paid service" bla bla thing), and to accept Michal's invitation to suggest constructive solutions. Let's work together, and not against each other, because this way has always showed to be the best way for resolving problems.

So, I already gave a proposal. I will giva another one: maybe it is not a bad idea to have two versions of each theme, one with ads and the other without ads. Ads would be placed on the side, or both sides of the content, for example, the theme Bloo has a space on both sides where I think that a strip of Google ads would fit perfectly, will be visible, but not disturbing… What do you think?

So you can be sure that the free plan is always usable, attractive, and better than anything else around.

Indeed, well said.

I think I can share one insider story at Wikidot — about one of the acquisition offers. The main reason we turned away from it was that the new owner would (among other strange things) aggressively put ads all over the sites, and dramatically increase fees to turn ads off.

Sure, taking the overall traffic into account, this would bring a lot of money almost instantly. But this would kill Wikidot within days, its community, the product itself. Although we would benefit from the deal, our users would be at least upset.

What we are trying to do here is find a balance and our own way. This often requires changes of plans and direction. So far we have not been looking for loads of cash from huge investors — this would probably allow us to cheerfully build totally free products, but we would rather build a stable business. And, honestly speaking, this is getting some real shape.

We like working at Wikidot, making it grow, and we like providing the service to our users, who (supposedly) like it too. The solution to this is only one: give our users a good product, clear message, and fair choices. We are aiming at this.

By all means we will keep free accounts and free sites. They are key to our growth, as Pieter said.

this just makes me wonder, how long till wikidot becomes a paid only service? Or maybe how long till the free plan is virtually unusable and you have to upgrade?

Well, it's a fair question but easily answered. Free sites get the full power of Wikidot (not crippleware) and they show ads as a way of offsetting bandwidth and service costs. Pro sites treat Wikidot more as a hosting service, and get full control of their screen.

If Wikidot made the free plan "virtually unusable", growth would stop, obviously. So you can be sure that the free plan is always usable, attractive, and better than anything else around.

The promise was in May three years ago. We've had ads since July last year. That promise lasted over two years before Wikidot (the service you love) required extra funds to continue to survive.

this just makes me wonder, how long till wikidot becomes a paid only service? Or maybe how long till the free plan is virtually unusable and you have to upgrade?

Seriously? You're concerned this is going to become a “paid only service”?

Look. YouTube didn't have ads superimposed on their videos before Google bought it out. I hate using YouTube because I can't pay to get rid of the ads. This is where Wikidot is ahead of the competition, because they're getting an income through ads, and through not having ads.

You are right with one thing: "Wikidot will never put ads on free websites" was a bad concept, which we acknowledged a while ago. Making such a promise was a huge mistake, and probably far too much optimistic.

Simply speaking, it is very difficult for us to support free sites just for free, and subsidize them with revenue from paid accounts.

Placing ads is nothing new on the internet. Look at Flickr, Facebook, Wikia, WetPaint, Ning, Twitter — just anything.

Wikidot is still a small project, and we can afford to be agile. We have to. Which also means we need to reconsider our business from time to time, look at spendings, and possibilities in general.

However I agree that there might be too many "distractions" right now on the free sites: top "toolbar", promoted sites at the bottom, and occasional ads. I am open to any suggestions in this field. Wikidot should not encourage people to upgrade by making the free version crap, but offering a better experience instead.

It is just a suggestion…

Ads are appearing on my educational site. Will this be changed?

If that's the case, it's a probably bug and I think it should be reported.

Wikidot still gives users (free users included) a lot of features and control that the competition doesn't give even to their paying users.

BUT, regarding advertising and free sites, a few promises have been broken there and that's something that will turn quite a few potential and current users away.