IMPORTANT UPDATE!
I received an email from the company I did this review for informing me that BlgAds is a fraud. The email read in part:
Hi Costa
It has come to our attention that the advertiser associated with the following opportunities:
1) BLGADS (READ THE RULES BEFORE BIDDING)
2) Free $300 MasterCard® Gift Card
3) Advertising On Blogs
4) BlgAds - Blog Advertising Network
is fraudulent.
I have taken down their Ads and I feel it would be advisable that those who has signed up to take them down too for the time being and see how things turn up.
In my quest of looking for a viable alternative to Adsense, I am happy to have found and be able to review the newest kid on the block that hopefully will provide some ray of hope for those who are not happy with Adsense or the other more established companies like Bidvertiser that are offering contextual Ads. From initial impression, BlgAds, the latest company to join the fray into Blog Advertisements seems like the eventual shining star.
Conditions Before You Can be Accepted.
There only 4 conditions to be met before you can be accepted. The TOS of BlgAds only runs one page inclusive of the Terms set for Advertisers. This is a far cry from the TOS of their competitors.
The 4 criteria are:
Only blogs are accepted.You cannot display more than 3 Ads in any one single page.You cannot have more than 25% of invalid clicks per month or your account will be terminatedPayments are made when you have earned $30.
The 25% invalid clicks is a god-send. No one in their right sense of mind would accidentally click on their own Ads so many times. Payments are made via wire transfer with a fee of $5 for each transfer made. Payment via PayPal will be made available by the end of March.
Registering With BlgAds.
Signing up as a publisher with BlgAds is a no brainer. My application was approved the instant I finished the 4 initial steps which required the nothing more that our personal details, email and a password of your choice. Unlike Adsense where we have to wait at least a week for the green light to start inserting Ads, this is very refreshing.
Looks and Feel
It’s real easy to configure your Ads. All standard formats like the half banner, full banner, rectangles and so on are offered and there is the usual option for you to change colors to blend in with your blog once you have decided on the format to use. Look at the one on the right hand corner of this post. If you don’t see the link at the bottom, it will be easily mistaken as a Google Ad. Anyone who has dabbled a little bit in contextual Advertising will not face any problems getting their Ads up in a minute or two.
How Much Do They Pay
BlgAds promises that they will deliver the highest paying Ads to your blogs which is something I cannot affirm to as I have been only running the Ads for less than 1/2 an hour prior to writing this posts. Like all other companies, BlgAds does not reveal their takings for each click so it all remains to be seen as to whether we will be getting 3 cents clicks like those we get from Adsense. Anything that pays above 30 cents per click will be quite satisfying and viable.
My Take
The terribly easy way to get the Ads running made me a little bit cautious as there has been too many scams of late. Another point that got me a little uneasy was there were no option for us to include our PayPal address or Account number needed for the wire transfer but maybe I was being overly cautious and this option will be made available once we trigger the minimum payout limit of $30
BlgAds also does not mention anything about whether they allow a single account to be used in many blogs. Though channels are included, I don’t know if it could be used to track Ads if we run them in other blogs other than the one we have registered. There was also no “Add A New Blog” option in our Account page. I seriously feel this is something that should be addressed as most bloggers have more than 2 active blogs and some have hundreds.
Other than these, I don’t really have much complain, though the Ads appearing might not be as relevant as those from Adsense, the overall look and feel for this blog advertising network is okay with me though there may be some shortcomings being so new. Feel free to give BlgAds a try.
