...they cost me 10cents each. And that might not sound like much, but it adds up when you're getting 8000 referrals a month.Google's pricing system is worth mentioning - it's a great example of how the company does things so right. OK, so I've signed up for the website to be listed as a sponsored link when people search for "anti-Bush t-shirts" and similar phrases. But there are other people signed up for the same thing...how does Google decide who gets to be at the top of the list? Simple: we each set the maximum level we're willing to pay per click - and the highest bidder gets the top spot, with the 2nd highest getting slot #2, and so on.
When setting your bid, you can see the max bid and beat it or come in right behind it, which I was doing for a little while. But I was paying an average of 25cents a click and quickly coming up against my daily spending limit of $25. So I turned all my bids down to 10cents, Google's minimum. The next full day, I got 250 clicks for $25 instead of the 100 clicks I had been getting before. This shows how many people are doing anti-Bush related searches and looking at anti-Bush related content on the Google network...enough to allow Google to throw me an extra 150 daily visitors without batting a virtual eyelash. (Update on 22 Sept 2005: apparently the "black box" nature of the AdWords program troubles some users.)
BTW, I just learned what the dime's decorations symbolize: the torch is light or enlightenment, the olive branch is peace, and the oak branch is strength. The other side of the dime bears the image of a man who annoyed the living hell out of the conservatives of his era: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
