The ProductCritic Blog

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4

The Easiest Way To Understand All Those Camera Functions
2007-02-21 09:48:03
Although many of us have digital cameras, how many of us really know what all those camera terms like f-stop, aperture, and ISO mean? I own a Digital SLR (Canon 20D) that has almost every imaginable setting but even on my pocket camera (a Canon SD500), I can adjust some of these settings.It's taken me awhile to understand what all these terms are and how they affect the picture I'm taking (I still don't have a full grasp of it all) but that took a lot of time as I learned through lots of trial and error. Each of these settings affect the other settings and all these combinations can definitely be overwhelming to learn.Photonhead.com has a load of fantastic tutorials on how to use a digital camera:Beginner's Guide to PhotographyDigital Camera Buying GuidePhotography TipsPhoto EditingBut, the very best thing on Photonhead is SimCam which is an online Film and Digital Camera Simulator. It gives you the ability to play around with things like f-stops and apertures, take a "virtual p...
More About: Fun , Functions , Those , Hose

Get Full Referral URL's Despite Using Analytics
2007-02-20 09:47:03
As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm completely addicted to the stats generated by ProductCritic. Maybe it's just the fact that we gain knowledge on areas we need to tweak for the site (and we're tweaking on an almost daily basis).Besides the server logs (which I don't check all the time), we use Google Analytics as our main source of information about visits to the site. Analytics provides a large amount of data and first time users of this tool can easily find themselves overwhelmed.Although I look at almost all areas of Analytics from time to time, I mainly focus my daily stats fix on two areas. The first is Visitor Segment Performance/Referring Source. I want to know where visitors to ProductCritic are coming from. It's been quite useful as we've immediately been able to determine when someone links to ProductCritic and where that link exists.The second area that I use in Analytics is Search Engine Marketing/CPC vs Organic Conversion. Although we currently don't use ...
More About: Referral , Sing , Full , Ferr

Use Your Cell Phone Without Getting Irradiated
2007-02-16 15:44:04
Since my previous post on Highest and Lowest Radiation Cell Phone s, CNET has updated their Lowest Radiation Cell Phone s list. I've listed them below along with any relevant ProductCritic scores:LG KG800 Chocolate (ProductCritic Score = 66)Motorola Razr V3x (ProductCritic Score = 81)Samsung SGH-t809 (ProductCritic Score = 73)Bang & Olufsen Serene (Samsung SGH-E910)Sanyo RL-4930Helio DriftNokia 3250Samsung Sync (SGH-A707)Samsung Jitterbug Dial (SPH-A120)Samsung Jitterbug OneTouch (SPH-A110)Samsung is obviously doing something right with 4 out of 10 spots on this list. Although the LG KG800 Chocolate generates the least amount of radiation, maybe you get what you pay for as it currently sits near the very bottom of all the Cell Phones on ProductCritic.
More About: With , Your

Kodak Is Struggling...Is It Really Surprising?
2007-02-15 21:42:01
The BBC website has a short article with the headline "Koda k to cut an extra 3,000 jobs". The article notes, "Struggling US camera company Eastman Kodak is to cut at least 3,000 extra jobs this year as it continues efforts to fully adapt to the digital age."Since they made all their profits on film, Kodak was slow to warm up to the digital camera age. Instead of jumping ahead of the pack, they spent more resources on advancing the quality of film (and, in my opinion, proceeded to stick their head in the sand).Still, once a giant like Kodak decided to get into the digital camera business, you'd expect that their brand alone would sell cameras...and it does (although not as well as Canon or Nikon).Given the quality of Kodak cameras, is it really surprising to anyone that Kodak has the lowest workforce they've had since the 1930's? I've listed a couple Kodak cameras that we've aggregated reviews for on ProductCritic:Kodak EasyShare C743 - ProductCritic Score = 63Kodak EasyShare Z6...
More About: Real , Sing , Really

The Secret Behind "More Megapixels"
2007-02-15 03:41:05
When I bought my first digital camera, I didn't know much about how many megapixels the camera should have. I went for the most megapixels I could get within my budget.Now that I've bought a few more cameras, I've learned that how many megapixels a camera has plays a very, very tiny part in the final quality of the pictures. I currently have a Canon SD500 (7.1 megapixel) and a Canon EOS 20D (8 megapixel) but when I look back at the pictures I took with my Canon G1 (3 megapixel), it's interesting to note that the pictures are every bit as good as my current cameras (I've included one with this post...the elephant scared the crap out of me). I took my Canon G1 to Africa in 2002 and of course I would have rather have had something like my Canon EOS 20D but I'm not disappointed in the resulting pictures that I have from that trip.The NY Times has a good article debunking the megapixel myth. As they state:But one myth is so deeply ingrained, millions of people waste money on itever...
More About: The Secret , Secret , More , Behind , Pixel

Block Your Ads. Get Better Stats.
2007-02-14 15:40:11
As part of the added value of ProductCritic over other review aggregator competitors, we add reviews and products manually (instead of using a spider or bot to scrape review sites). We believe that the quality of review summaries, the overall coverage on a product, and the summary review scores (and therefore, resulting ProductCritic Score) are much higher than with automatic scraping.On any normal day of working on ProductCritic, I probably reload the page 20-30 times depending on how many products and reviews I'm adding. This has a negative affect on the stats that you see on Google Adsense and Analytics because your pageviews are added to the total thus giving you inaccurate statistics. Since I'm such a stats addict, I wanted to remove my own pageviews of the site.Since I use Firefox, I installed the Adblock add-in. It's a great add-in for blocking all ads or specifically chosen ones. I actually don't block ads from other sites because I want to see what ads other sites, blog...
More About: Your , Stats , Bloc , Better , Bett

CNET's Top 7 Megapixel Cameras - January 2007
2007-02-13 15:39:02
CNET's Editors' Top 7 Mega pixel cameras are listed below along with their ProductCritic scores:Canon Powershot SD800 IS (ProductCritic Score = 81)Sony Cybershot DSC-T10Sony Cybershot DSC-T50 (ProductCritic Score = 79)Canon Powershot A710 IS (ProductCritic Score = 83)Sony Cybershot DSC-T30Nikon Coolpix S7cKodak EasyShare V705 Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 (ProductCritic Score = 78)Canon Powershot SD550 (ProductCritic Score = 85)Unfortunately for us at ProductCritic, this list highlights all the work we still have to do as four of the nine cameras on this list do not yet have their reviews aggregated on ProductCritic. We'll be working to get these onto the site as soon as possible.
More About: Camera , January , Cameras , Pixel

Startup Lessons From ProductCritic - Why We Run Linux
2007-02-09 21:35:01
This is part two of Star t up Lessons from Product Critic. Part One can be found here.Deciding on the operating system that will host your application has a huge ripple down effect on the rest of your system. There is effectively two options you can choose. Windows or not-Windows which is effectively Linux but not always.Choosing Windows will almost certainly lead to IIS, SQLServer, and C#/VB.NET and choosing Linux will almost certainly lead to Apache, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby. Yes, you can run ASP.NET under Mono and you can run Ruby on Rails under Windows but doing so I find is an uphill battle. If there is anything that I have learned is that working in the preferred environment makes life a lot easier.The preferred environment means using the software in the same environment that it was built in. If you work in QA this is a bad idea because little bugs will go unnoticed but as a user it makes things far easier.Luckily, both OS's have platforms for their preferred...
More About: Startup

Follow up to Memory Cards for Digital Cameras
2007-02-09 03:33:01
As a quick followup to our previous post on Fast Memory Card s and Digital Camera s, I wanted to call attention to an article by The Photography Bay that provides all the details that you should need about which memory cards to purchase to get the most out of your digital camera.It's a very well written post that's clear and concise. Whether you're a beginner or a "prosumer", I think you'll get something out of it.
More About: Digital Cameras

Startup Lessons From ProductCritic - Save Server Costs
2007-02-09 03:33:01
We thought it would be interesting to share some of the technical decisions we made with creating Product Critic. In this first of a series we talk about the hardware running the site.ProductCritic runs on its own VPS (Virtual Private Server ) supplied by SliceHost. A VPS allows a single machine to emulate multiple machines. What this allows is a service provider like SliceHost to own a high end server and then slice it down into any number of smaller less powerful servers and then rent those out to customers.It's a really great because you get your own rock solid piece of (virtual) hardware running in a secure data center with fast network connections at a very reasonable cost. Since you own the entire slice you can install anything you want on it. You also don't have to worry about anybody else wrecking the server when they install something because only you have access to it. Since the service provider is running very little software itself not much every changes on the ser...
More About: Cost , Start , Star

Kill Bad Ads From Your Site And Increase Your Revenue
2007-02-09 03:33:01
I can't stand all those Made For Ads (MFA) sites that are all over the internet. You know the ones I mean. They are sites that have nothing on them but more ads. These sites are absolutely content free and add nothing to the Internet community. They are the cockroaches...wait, leeches is better, of the Internet. I don't even want to link to one of them here because I can't stand giving them any more attention then they deserve.Don't you hate it when you look at your Adsense stats and see clicks that pay you less than 10 cents? Sometimes, you'll get clicks that pay you 1 cent! I've learned that many of these clicks come from ads that are actually MFA sites. You only get a certain number of people clicking on an ad in a certain day and you definitely don't want that click wasted on an ad that pays 1 cent!So, what can you do about them? First, you need to find them. Maybe there's an easier method to do this but I do this manually. I reload my page (at ProductCritic) and view th...
More About: Site , Your , Revenue , Kill , Ease

Now I Remember Why I Chose Canon Over Nikon
2007-02-09 03:33:01
I have a Cano n 20D, a DSLR, and a Canon SD500, my pocket camera that I can carry around with me everywhere. I've always been partial to Canon digital cameras ever since my first one, the Canon G1 (of the G-series, I still like the G6 better than the G7).While working on ProductCritic, I've read almost all the reviews for the latest Nikon cameras and, given their fantastic reviews, I had started getting a little nervous that maybe I should be switching brands. On ProductCritic, Nikon has currently captured 3 of the top 5 ratings spots:Nikon D200 (ProductCritic Score = 92)Canon EOS 20D (ProductCritic Score = 91)Nikon D80 (ProductCritic Score = 91)Nikon D70/D70S (ProductCritic Score = 89)Canon Digital Rebel XT (ProductCritic Score = 88)A post on Engadget entitled "Nikon fesses up to new CCD malfunction problems" shook out the remaining doubt in my mind. It details the latest CCD failures with some Nikon models. Granted that in 2005, CDD problems hit almost all major brands (including...
More About: Over , Hose

Your Rank In Search Results...How To Compare Against Competitors
2007-02-09 03:33:01
Since launching ProductCritic last month, I've learned a lot from other bloggers about various terms and tools that you should use to optimize, improve, and gather information about your site or blog.What is SERP? It stands for Search Engine Results Pages. SERP tools help you gather information on where your site ranks on the search engines for various search terms. My favorite SERP tool is Shoemoney's Serps Script. It's really free, fast, has nothing extraneous, and works great for comparing where ProductCritic ranks against its competitors. I also use it to compare the rankings for ProducCritic against one of the largest technology review sites on the Internet....CNET.Not surprisingly, for a site that only launched a month ago, ProductCritic doesn't rank at all for the generic and most popular keyword searches like "digital camera review". What is surprising to me is that some of the "long tail" terms (I'll post a blog entry on short tails, long tails, and hittail next week) ...
More About: How To , Comp , Rank

Get The Most Out Of Your Digital Camera...Take This Free Course
2007-02-09 03:33:01
The original motive for starting ProductCritic was because we were tired of the hassle of keeping track of all our research before we bought a product. In fact, the current three categories of consumer electronics that we provide review aggregation for on ProductCritic were chosen because we had recently bought a camera, camcorder, and cell phone.So, part of this blog is also about the products that we cover. I definitely consider myself a very amateur photographer who really enjoys the creative outlet that photography brings. Although I'm not sure that my own photography skills have improved a lot, my pictures have turned out better just because of my current camera, the Canon 20D.In order to actually improve my skills (and not just my tools), I've recently started going through one of the best free online photography courses I've found. From instructor, Jodie Coston, it's very well written and gives good background information behind the instructions.The 10 lessons are broken ...
More About: Digital Camera , Camera , Free , Take , Your

Is This The Best New Way To Promote A Site?
2007-02-01 15:31:03
This blog exists to promote our main site, ProductCritic. We're quite open about this and the name of this blog should be clue enough.As I've written about previousely, we use a variety of strategies to promote the growth of ProductCritic. I've just started to use another method that I'm hoping will help gain some backlinks from the second most popular search engine...Yahoo!How do you do this? Use Yahoo! Answers. I've started reading some of the questions in the Consumer Electronics category (specifically Cameras, Camcorders, and Cell Phones). There appear to be quite a lot of questions in the form of "Which of these digital cameras is the best?" and "Is the Nikon D40 better than the Canon 20D?"I provide honest answers to questions that I know something about and provide a link to the relevant products on ProductCritic and their ProductCritic Scores. I believe this can genuinely help people answer their questions while at the same time providing a plug for ProductCritic. I'll ...
More About: Promote , Site , Prom , This , Best

Does A Fast Memory Card Matter For Your Digital Camera?
2007-01-30 21:29:16
When you buy a new digital camera, they usually include a tiny memory card (e.g. Compact Flash or SD Card ) that is big enough for you to immediately try out the camera and fill it with....5 pictures. For most cameras on the market, you will want to purchase a much larger memory card. These days, depending on the megapixel capabilities of your camera, I would suggest a minimum of 512MB or a 1GB card. On my 8 megapixel Canon 20D, my 1 GB card allows me to take about 230 pictures (in jpeg format) before I have to empty the card. Unless I'm specifically taking a day for improving my photography skills, that makes it very convenient to take the camera out for the day and usually not have to worry about running out of room on my card.Memory cards (of which there are many different types) come in a variety of prices as well. Should you be spending the extra money for these "ultra fast" cards?Here is a good article from BobAtkins.com that gives you a lot of information about memory cards f...
More About: Digital Camera , Camera , Your

CNET's Overhyped Cell Phones
2007-01-30 09:28:02
CNET's Overhyped Cell Phone s lists four cell phones that don't quite live up to their hype billing. In no particular order, they are:Motorola Q (ProductCritic Score = 77)LG VX8500 Chocolate (ProductCritic Score = 75)Bang & Olufsen SereneMotorola RAZR V3i (ProductCritic Score = 81)Note that ProductCritic doesn't have a score for the Bang & Olufsen. Although our aim is to have as comprehensive a database as possible, we are trying to target the brands and models that people are actually considering (since that's the whole point of making ProductCritic as useful as possible for people). I've never even heard of the Bang & Olufsen and at a $1000 price point (which CNET calls out), I doubt it's a phone that many people are actually considering.I actually don't think the Motorola's or the LG are too hyped given their ProductCritic scores but I guess if the hype really points people to a high expectation, then the ProductCritic scores are definitely disappointments. I don'...
More About: Cell Phones , Cell Phone , Phones

How To Buy A Cell Phone
2007-01-28 21:26:01
If it's been awhile since you had a new cell phone and you're looking for a new one but are a little uncomfortable PC World has an introduction article about How To Buy A Cell Phone .The "Big Picture" section of the article is the most helpful as it gives a good explanation of all this talk about 3G, GSM, CDMA and a host of other non-helpful acronyms.By the way, remember that the iPhone, even though it's supposed to be the hottest thing is not 3G capable which means that the information transfer speeds to it (when you're browsing or if you want to watch streaming video) are slower than what the latest technology allows.Great, I just blew it. I had stated I wouldn't talk about the iPhone again and only ten days later, I mention it. I guess it's hard to steer clear of the hottest talk amongst the geek (and even non-geek) crowd.
More About: Cell Phone , Cell-phone

Yahoo Challenging Google Adwords
2007-01-27 03:24:02
PC World has an article about Yahoo 's revamped Sponsored Search. I haven't tried Google Adwords yet as I'm still trying to figure out what keywords I'd use for ProductCritic. Since Yahoo only has 22% of the US search market vs. Google's 63%, you might be able to buy keywords for cheaper with Yahoo's Sponsored Search. Since you can't use Adsense and Yahoo ads together on the same site (even if they don't appear on the same page), I'm sticking with Adsense until I have a much better sense of what's working and what isn't.One of the tools I'm using to determine the best keywords is HitTail. I'll provide more details in a followup post detailing some of the tools and sites I'm using the manage this blog and the main ProductCritic site.
More About: Word , Words , Google Adwords

Interview With SEO Book Author Aaron Wall
2007-01-26 15:23:01
Jonathan Leger has a great blog dedicated to Adsense, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Inter net Marketing. Yesterday, he conducted an online group Question & Answer session with Aaron Wall s, the SEO expert and author of the popular SEO Book .If you joined Jonathan's list, you would have received an announcement about when the Q&A session was taking place and how to participate. I did not get a chance to do that. Fortunately, Jonathan, who continually impresses me with his professionalism and blog smarts, has posted a transcript of the session.If you are at all interested in SEO, Adsense, or how to start an online career, I highly suggest you go to Jonathan's blog and read the transcript.
More About: Interview , With

7 Steps To Promote ProductCritic
2007-01-24 21:20:02
We launched Product Critic earlier this month. When you launch a site, you should have no illusions about how long it might take for the site to be "successful". It's completely understandable to create a site just to make money but if that's all you are in it for, then you will probably be disappointed.If you're going to apply so much of your energy and time into a site (and you will, if you want people to visit it), then ensure that you have what it takes to be in it for the long run. If it's a blog, update regularly, be creative, and spend time with it. For ProductCritic, believe it or not, our main reason for creating it was NOT merely to make some $$'s. Before buying a consumer electronic (like a Digital Camera), I do tons of research to make myself comfortable that I'm spending money on something that I'm going to be happy with. I got tired of keeping track of all the different reviews and not really remembering what different reviewers said about the products. I got eve...
More About: Promote , Prom , Promo , Step

Ten Most Popular Cell Phones of 2006
2007-01-24 09:20:01
Wirefly is the #1 seller of cell phones and plans in the US. They recently announced their Ten Most Pop ular Cell Phone s of 2006. I've provided the list below and, as usual, the ProductCritic scores associated with each phone.Cingular RAZR by Motorola (ProductCritic Score = 81)T-Mobile RAZR (ProductCritic Score = 81)Verizon Wireless RAZR (ProductCritic Score = 81)Cingular Sony Ericsson z520a/z525a video phones (ProductCritic Score = 80)T-Mobile Motorola v360 (ProductCritic Score = 80)Verizon Wireless Motorola v276 (ProductCritic Score = 77)Sprint Nextel Motorola i850 (ProductCritic Score = 70)Sprint Nextel Motorola i710Cingular Motorola v220 (ProductCritic Score = 65)T-Mobile Samsung T309 (ProductCritic Score = 62)It's amazing how Motorola just dominates the list and the RAZR rules the top three spots. It was a sexy phone when it was first released and it should be no surprise that it's so popular now that you can probably get it for $50 with a plan.Additionally, it also shouldn'...
More About: Cell Phones , Cell Phone , Phones

Adding Chitika Ads - Pretty Simple!
2007-01-24 09:20:01
Google Adsense has one major restriction in their Terms of Service (TOS) that you must honor if you are going to use them. While you are allowed to have other ads on your pages alongside Adsense ads, you are not allowed to use other contextual ads. That is, ad networks that determine what ads to show depending on what they perceive as the content of the page.On ProductCritic, we have small Amazon affiliate ad on the left panel that is directly targeted to the product review being displayed. That is allowed under the Adsense TOS because we set the appropriate Amazon ASIN for that product (the ad itself doesn't figure out what product to show just by looking at the page).We had always planned to add Chitika ads to the site as it fits with the products and allows us to provide prices without having to create a whole pricing engine...especially since many other sites already do that well. Chitika ads also fit with the core purpose of ProductCritic in that it helps people make the smart...
More About: Simp , Simple , Pretty

iPhone Hype - I Think I'll Wait
2007-01-24 09:20:01
At first, like everyone else, I was super hyped about the iPhone . I thought it was the holy grail of handheld devices....one device to rule them all (phone, camera, browser, pda, handheld computer, game machine, mp3 player, and video player).I have incredibly high hopes for the iPhone but after reading some of the "hands-on" articles like the one from Gizmodo, I've brought my expectations back down to earth.The phone has the great Apple design and looks great...especially the screen. It's got some amazing functionality and features but it's definitely lacking in some areas.BabyGotMac has a post entitled "The 5 Weaknesses of the iPhone" which is a start in bringing me back to Earth but my own personal disappointments (without actually having seen or touched the phone) is:No removable battery. What happens when the battery dies? Do you have to send the phone back to Apple like you do when the iPod battery dies?No MS Exchange or MS Office compatibility. Yeah, I understand this is an...
More About: Iphone , Hype , Think , Wait

Last Thoughts About iPhone
2007-01-24 09:20:01
OK, because everyone else had talked the iPhone to death and I'm getting sick of all the hype and speculation, this will be the last time I blog about the iPhone until it actually comes out and we aggregate the reviews on the main site. I'm only discussing this post because like I've stated in previous posts, it might be a good idea to doubt the hype you read from CES.CNET's gadget blog, Crave, has an entry entitled "Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype". Here is a summary of the thirteen points:No 3G compatibilityDoes Wifi overcome lack of 3G?What's under the hood?Download from iTunes?OSX and multitasking?"iPhone" name?Who's the phone for? Who can afford it?Will the user have any freedom?Extra costs?Another iLock-in strategy?Is the touch screen useful?What's after early adopters?Other factors involved in a cell phone purchaseI believe that there are definitely "hype" elements to all this iPhone talk. Specifically, I'll discuss a few of the points I find valid. My opini...
More About: Iphone , Thoughts , Last , About

Faking Context Sensitive Chitika Ads
2007-01-24 09:20:01
As you may have seen on the main site, we have added Chitika ads in combination with the Google Adsense ads that were already on the site. Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you use Adsense, you are not allowed to have other ads on your site that are context sensitive (i.e. what is displayed in the ad is deduced automatically from the ad provider spidering the page).We like the Chitika ads because they are dynamic (roll over them and the tabs change) but in addition to the ProductCritic Score, I keep getting asked to add the price of a product. While we have thought about doing that, it will still take awhile before we can add that functionality to the site. Instead, Chitika can help people who want that info (and help us at the same time).To make it useful though, we needed to ensure that the Chitika ad was relevant to the product page. Since we already know what product we are displaying, it's as easy as adding a line like this to the Chitika script:var ch_queries = new Arr...
More About: Text , King , Context , Sens

10 Megapixel DSLR Comparison
2007-01-24 09:20:01
The Comp arison Shopper has created a detailed summary table of specs for 10 megapixel DSLR's. This is a helpful summary for people contemplating their first DSLR and want the best consumer level that they can purchase.Below, I've listed the 5 cameras and their corresponding ProductCritic Scores:Canon Rebel XTi/400D (85)Nikon D80 (91)Pentax K10D (88)Sony A100 (83)Olympus E-400 (82)The Nikon D80 definitely leads the pack (tied for all-time highest ProductCritic Score with the Canon 20D). The Sony puts in a respectable showing for the first version of their consumer DSLR. I'm surprised by the high score for the Pentax though. Looks like one to check out. Finally, the Olympus is included on Comparison Shopper's list but note that it is not available for purchase in North America.
More About: Paris , Pixel , Mega

Blog I Never Heard Of Makes $1400 a Month? I Have Hope!
2007-01-24 09:20:01
Before I started doing this, I always thought that you had to be one of those hugely popular blogs (like TechCrunch) to make even decent money. I ran across this post from a blog called American Desi Notes discussing his earnings from Adsense and some strategies that worked for him (like using the 336x280 ad sizes).So far, for ProductCritic, because we've just started, earnings are small but we've definitely had some success with Chitika (probably because the ads are so targeted to the content).I think that the blog author has a great point in this quote:Most new AdSense publishers are demoralized by the low clicks and low traffic that they recieve. The one thing that new publishers has a hard time doing is being patient. A web site will not get millions of hits over night. So, for all you new bloggers, keep going! Keep writing great content and people like me will subscribe to your blog in our reader. I guarantee it. I'm only hoping people find this blog (and the main ProductCri...
More About: Blog , Hear , Hope , Have , Ever

The Evolution Of The Cell Phone
2007-01-24 09:20:01
This is an interesting video (TechBloom: Cell Evolve) of the evolution of the cell phone. It makes me laugh because I remember a guy carrying one over his shoulder. He really thought is looked all cool and hip with that huge thing. It had a brown leather case and was about as big as a copy of "War & Peace". Of course, back then, maybe some people did think that was cool!
More About: Phone , Evolution , Cell Phone , Cell-phone

Google Referrals - I've Decided Against Them
2007-01-24 09:20:01
In our constant attempt at optimizing the ads on ProductCritic, I tried Google Referral s for a few days. Google Referrals are those ads you see that give you advice to "download Firefox for better browsing" or "download the Google Pack". When a visitor to your site clicks on that ad and actually downloads and installs the application, you get a referral fee.After having the ads on ProductCritic for a few days (they were located on the left column under the Amazon ad), I decided to pull them. Although, in the three days that they were up, ProductCritic did not get any referral fees from them, that's not why I took them down. The main reason I took them down is that I thought they just made the left column look too crowded and took too much away from the overall clean feel of the site.This is an important lesson. Don't just put ads all over your blog or your site at all costs as too many ads can distract from the main reason people are visiting your site....for the content! It's no...
More About: Again , Them , Ferr