Monetization of Webmaster Key

[Andy]

I would like to help the webmaster get more paychecks without annoying users with ads.

The idea of google ads is to complement the content so should not be at all annoying if done well.

I think the best type of ad unit would be a search box at the end of threads so people can use it if they want to search for something relevant to the thread.
Ad targeting is difficult for a forum since the content can change very quickly.

I noticed an ad search box after threads but it seems to scream ads and I don't think many people would search for ads. Plus the graphical appearance of it looks slightly flawed in my browser window (Firefox 1.5).

[SensoVision]

I would like to help the webmaster get more paychecks without annoying users with ads.

thanks! keeping members happy is my prime priority, that's why I didn't wish to publish ads for so long.

The idea of google ads is to complement the content so should not be at all annoying if done well.

actually this was the reason of why I decide to try and put ad on the end of the page.

I think the best type of ad unit would be a search box at the end of threads so people can use it if they want to search for something relevant to the thread.
Ad targeting is difficult for a forum since the content can change very quickly.

not sure if it works as we already had searchbox available in search dialog, and people use it for the search. Having box near posts could be really useful IMHO, so I don't see why we can't try this for some time.
As for current ads I think we had problem as Google bot which index pages for AdSense seems to be pretty lazy lately, I didn't seen him in Who's online statistic as much as usual Google Bot and spider from Yahoo and other search engines, so many posts probably just not indexed yet. And I had to agree with you that forum is really to dynamic to match ads.
Here is the bost topic which match ad correctly: http://forum.weblamp.net/index.php/topic,4167.0.html
if we'd have such ads here that would be just great and they ideally complement post content in my opinion, guess this happen because this thread was for a while here and was collected with bot.
On other hand I saw related ads about whale on thread which was posted yesterday, although they are gone after some time(that's wired ): http://forum.weblamp.net/index.php/topic,4938.0.html

Plus the graphical appearance of it looks slightly flawed in my browser window (Firefox 1.5).

not sure what you mean here as I also use Firefox and it looks ok with me, maybe you can provide an example or even a screenshot of how it's look?

[SensoVision]

just replace old ad with Google searchbox.

[SensoVision]

UDPATE: because SMF page is done like a form and Google also utilize it, I had to put it under quick reply, but maybe it's even for better.

[Andy]

It's good to experiment with ideas to finally work out what works. One of my friends visited me the other day and commented about how so many people assume the programs that they try don't work, yet they do. It's what we do that determines if they do or don't work for us.

In the UK we have a pensions crisis with people being told to contract in/out shake it all about or whatever and put aside most of their income to pay for the old people's trollies to wheel them around hospital wards and mop up the superbugs off the wheels. Personally, I'm not too keen on this idea. I'd rather be sipping champagne on my boat in a warm climate with my web sites pumping the cash into my bank account.

I would always advise to set aside some time and effort to building your pension income stream 

[SensoVision]

can't argue with what you said, as I've also seen various situations which I thought wouldn't work but they did.
As for pension it's very tempting idea as I probably wouldn't have pension as well of course if I didn't drop freelancng and hire in some local office.

[Andy]

There is still a risk in relying on the web for income since things may change in the future beyond our control, just like pensions.

I'm thinking that the only safe way to safeguard your future is to make as much income as fast as possible and buy gold in the form of Sovereigns or Krugerands  I think you can carry 1Kg+ of gold around in your hand luggage around the world and not worry about exchange rates. But you obviously need to worry about being mugged 

[SensoVision]

I should admit that Adsense spider is very active lately, I've spot it crawling something almost anytime.
And after I've used Google tags http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23168
and when these threads are crawled they display perfectly targeted ads, so I'm planning to stick with AdSense