Google ads

[David Miller]

Bart Decrem (the marketing guy at the Mozilla Foundation, for those that 
don't know him) had suggested that we might put Google ads on the 
bugzilla.org site in order to try to get some funding for 
Bugzilla-related activities.  What we'd actually use the money for 
probably depends on how much money it actually makes.  This would be our 
first source of income of any type specifically for Bugzilla, since our 
existing donations mechanism goes to the Mozilla Foundation, and we 
don't yet have a way to separate Bugzilla-related donations from any 
other donations they get.

The ads are really unobtrusive, are plainly labeled that the ads are 
from Google, and we have full control over the quantity and color scheme 
so we can make it blend in.  And it apparently pays quite well.  It made 
a surprising amount of money in the one day it was live on my personal 
sandbox to see what it would look like, with only the people who were in 
IRC at the time looking at it (like enough to cover a domestic plane 
ticket to Mountain View with 2 month's earnings if it kept going at that 
rate).

Only one problem:  95% or so of the ads are for products that directly 
compete with Bugzilla.  Google does have a blacklist, that we can add 
sites that we don't want advertised on our page.  I have 10 domains on 
that list so far, and I'm still getting lots of competing ads.  So far 
I've seen 3 ads for products that are actually based on or using 
Bugzilla, though. :)  (bugopolis, bugzillanow, and bugtracker.biz)

This gives us an interesting conundrum here.

1) Do we even want ads on bugzilla.org?  Usually we've said no, but 
Google seems to have their act together, and they really are 
unobtrusive.  If it weren't for the high quantity of ads for 
competitors, I'd have made it live already without asking.

2) If we go ahead with it, should we bother worrying about filtering the 
competing ads?  Ads for competing products are probably more likely to 
get clicked on, and more clicks means more money.  Should we just leave 
them?  After all, just about ALL of these products are ones that cost 
BIG MONEY, and our price is certainly low enough to compete on its own 
merits, and our feature set ain't that shabby either.  We *do* actually 
have a page that lists products that compete with Bugzilla, but it's 
quite dated and most of those don't even exist anymore (it's a chapter 
in the Bugzilla Guide actually).

-- 
Dave Miller      Project Leader, Bugzilla Bug Tracking System
http://www.justdave.net/             http://www.bugzilla.org/