Check out Scott McLeod’s post on advertising at Dangerously Irrelevant.
Ditto, Scott.
I have been approached by companies wanting to advertise on this blog, although to be honest, not in quite the same manner, thank goodness. I loved Scott’s response.
I don’t like advertising on blogs. If you want to do it, that’s fine, but I never click those links, and I admit it makes my flesh crawl a little. I link to Amazon products, which is not the same thing in my opinion because it’s relevant to my post, and I use the referral fees to buy books for my classroom and for me. Not to mention I earn very little in referral fees. I also have complete control over the products that appear on my site. Finally, Amazon never approached me asking to advertise. To me, any ads on the site are a reflection of the owner, and if I cannot completely endorse every product that appears in ads, I won’t have them on my site. Tools like Google AdSense generate links to products I might not necessarily endorse. Once I was asked about advertising on my site, and when I checked out the company’s site, I discovered it was full of typos. I don’t want anyone to think I endorse a product whose Web site looks like that.
I have also been approached by folks wanting to write guest posts, too. This site is huffenglish.com. My words, my thoughts, my opinions. I speak for myself alone. I pay for the hosting fees. I do not speak for my employer. I own all the language on my site. Therefore, I can support and endorse everything that appears on the site. Why would I allow a guest post? It doesn’t make sense to me. If someone is interested in blogging, they ought to start their own blog. If they don’t have a lot of readers, then they need to work to earn them over three years like I have.
This site is mine. Everything that appears on huffenglish.com is mine unless attribution to someone else is provided. I have put a lot of work into this site, and I am proud of that work. Why would I compromise all that by accepting ads or guest posts?