Mar 26 2008

Holy Crap Kontera

By Jeremy Schoemaker 93 comments »

Was looking at my arch nemesis John Chow’s blog today and noticed 8 million things loading in the status bar. Fired up firebug and holy crap kontera loads SIXTY EIGHT (68) different things:

I could not even fit them all in 1 screen shot on the 30″ Apple Studio Display.

Click for full image:

And notice the one is a 404 (file not found)…. oups.

Looks like a lot of people have been removing them from their site.

I was sitting with a guy from Kontera on a panel at blogworld and was asked point blank why I dont use it. I gave the honest answer…

1) Editorial control - Like with Google Adsense I have very limited editorial control over what is displayed on my site.

2) Selling yourself short - Unless you have some scrapper blog do you really want to give up your reader traffic for pennies?

3) Loading issues - as mentioned above.

I challenged Kontera a while back in my forums (now killed off) and they said they would accept but I have not heard back from them sense.

Sabrina said on March 26th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

I signed up with Kontera right after I started Sabrina’s Money Matters and hated it, it made my page load slow and there were no conversions so it was a waste of my space.

Off topic though - - If I sent you a shirt for your Friday blog from my site, MouthyGirl.com - would you still wear it even though it’s for a “girl” site? I think you’d rawk it - but wouldn’t want to waste a tshirt if you don’t wear girl site shirts…..lol.

[Reply]
Ray said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

That’s why I use NoScript in Firefox. I don’t get all the junk like kontera. Just to check I went John’s site and no script forbids kontera from loading. Of course I don’t let pimptel.com load on Shoemoney.com.

[Reply]
Mark said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

LOL… In my never ending quest to learn as much about how YOU do things Jeremy…

I spent more time looking at the FF toolbars portion of the image! LOL

Lets see… typo generator, ringtone link, Ask… and one I’ve never read about, Trigget!

Time to go read for awhile… wait, wasn’t this about Kontera?

Mark

[Reply]
Karthik said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Kontera’s never been my cup of tea - it really irks me to find a popup box when I accidentally hover over a “contextual” link.

[Reply]
Hyder said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

That’s why they pay him $1000 a month regardless of how much money he actually makes with them or not, which in my guess is not that much anyway.

[Reply]
devtrench said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Yeah, I was able to get my blog signed up for Kontera by mentioning John’s blog, but took it off when I realized how slow it made my site. Like most things John pushes, it’s not the actual product that makes him $$, its all the signup referrals. I think that is where his marketing skills lie - he’s able to sign a ton of people up for stuff.

[Reply]
Sean said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Didn’t even know about kontera until you mentioned it. seems like many of the smaller kontera images load slower than the big ones. although I would want to test it multiple times to really tell. You will be negatively hitting his signups now

[Reply]
Dom said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

I ended up removing Kontera, and this is one of the reasons why. It’s impossibly slow (as well as being spammy looking and hardly earning any money).

[Reply]
Hustle Strategy said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Does it load last? If it loads last, does it matter how long it really takes? Just curious…

[Reply]
Syed Balkhi said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:29 pm

Yes I dont like it as well. First it takes too long to load, and second not a good conversion there.

[Reply]
Terra Andersen said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

I use Kontera, and have had no problems with it so far. @Hyder and Devtrench : I definitely agree that John Chow makes a great income from referring people to services.. probably is where his greatest skill lies.

[Reply]
Paul said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

What was the load time for that? Did some one say he gets paid for using the adds even when he is not referring any visitors? I will have to go visit his site and see how its doing, I did hear a buzz that he was unindexed altogether even for his name on Google. How did that turn out for him?

[Reply]
ShoeMoney said on March 26th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

shhhhhhhhh fixed

[Reply]
Sean W said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

I hate that crap with a passion…

[Reply]
Yogesh said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

That’s why I stopped using them on my sites as well, also I got the feeling that they were a bit annoying to the users as well.

[Reply]
Neil said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Yes I have never had any luck or cared for Kontera. Thanks for bringing this to our attention Jeremy.

[Reply]
Affiliate Confession said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Kontera seems like a big pain to me. I don’t enjoy having to dodge all the in content pop ups my mouse may scroll across.

[Reply]
Teddy said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

What’s typo generator for?

[Reply]
jtGraphic said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

He actually has good grammar, but doesn’t want to let on…

[Reply]
jtGraphic said on March 26th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I’ve never used it. It seems like I probably never will either.

[Reply]
cbinthehouse said on March 26th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

I’m not a big time webmaster, but honestly, ?who cares? I make a significantly larger amount of money with the addition of in-text to my site than just AdSense alone and my users don’t hate it as much as my coder does. I get tired of people that bash everything new. I remember people that hated flash as well as and HTML in email. It’s 2008 — lighten up a little.

[Reply]
ShoeMoney said on March 26th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

for generating typos

[Reply]
ShoeMoney said on March 26th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

just my opinion chief BTW I still hate flash.

[Reply]
Lisa said on March 26th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

Yet there are still two typos in this post

[Reply]
Mike Huang said on March 26th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

I tried Kontera in the past, but took it off after realizing that viewers HATE it! But I guess if you’re John Chow, no one really cares..

-Mike

[Reply]
misterpro said on March 26th, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Hey shoe, hit F11 on your browser and you’ll be able to show more of that screenshot.

[Reply]
Sabrina said on March 26th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

Alternatively, would you have your babysitter or wife model it? If you picked it that is…

[Reply]
tech blog said on March 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm

it takes some time to optimise.

[Reply]
Dwayne said on March 26th, 2008 at 6:55 pm

I never understand what Kontera was trying to get you to click for anyway. Their ads did not make any since to me. A first grade could have done better with the keywords. I do not think they will be around much longer anyway.

[Reply]
Rob said on March 26th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Used it for a while…a few readers complained…ditched it. Perhaps with John’s level of traffic it’s meaningful but for me it was just a distraction.

[Reply]
Terry Tay said on March 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

It pays him enough that the positives outweigh the negatives. The visitors don’t seem to mind either. I don’t really like the delayed load time but I still go back for some reason
~Terry

[Reply]
Jcyreus said on March 26th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

AdBrite has something similar to what Kontera does. I actually replaced AdBrite’s with Kontera’s context links a few weeks ago and haven’t had enought run time to compare conversion rates. Any thoughts on one vs the other?

[Reply]
Melvin said on March 26th, 2008 at 11:35 pm

In text advertisingf are scandalous…

[Reply]
sockmoney said on March 27th, 2008 at 12:40 am

We did a trial run with Kontera and asked for feedback from our members on what they thought of the ads. It was weird, but most folks preferred them over Adsense. Some went as far to say Adsense was annoying, and the Kontera ads were very subtle.

We were quite surprised with the feedback. Regardless, the payout was so poor we stopped using them after the trial week.

Then Kontera contacted us and asked what would it take to run their ads again. We gave them a CPM we wanted, and they agreed… We’ve been running them on a CPM contract ever since… and it has been an excellent addition to our income.

We have not had any performance complaints either… but we do limit the number of links to 3 per page, which might help on performance…

[Reply]
Mayank Rocks said on March 27th, 2008 at 12:58 am

They do. I dont like the fact that Johnchow.com loads so slow.

[Reply]
Mayank Rocks said on March 27th, 2008 at 12:59 am

My forum members get pissed off if I ever add that. They all complain the slow page loads. I myself face it. So I block myself from showing kontera. Unfair that members face that and I run away from it.

Johnchow.com loads so slow for me that it is extremely pissing. VERY SLOW!
Takes ages to load and most of the time never completely loads also.

[Reply]
Mayank Rocks said on March 27th, 2008 at 1:00 am

They are crappy. How much time you need to optimise?

[Reply]
Malayan said on March 27th, 2008 at 2:37 am

Yup, that happens to me also but still running on adsense do gives me better ads.

[Reply]
Myo Kyaw Htun said on March 27th, 2008 at 2:50 am

YUP! I removed it for long time because of low pay and it makes my visitors away from my blog. Loading time too!

[Reply]
UttoranSen said on March 27th, 2008 at 3:05 am

i have read that in your forum, and i was waiting for the kontera review. i guess the kontera staff agreed on the review on your forum. It is very sad to know that they did not responded.

My march average is 5 cents per click, and all my visitors are from google, msn/live, aol and yahoo, and the content is absolutely unique and sites are niche sites! looks like it’s time to remove and forget kontera,

[Reply]
Rob said on March 27th, 2008 at 3:54 am

Interesting approach. Perhaps I’ll give them another try.

[Reply]
jtGraphic said on March 27th, 2008 at 5:46 am

I think Flash has it’s place. But that place isn’t everywhere…

[Reply]
Too Much Vodka said on March 27th, 2008 at 7:11 am

Another proof that some advertising networks rather spam the computer han being user friendly.

[Reply]
Mayank Rocks said on March 27th, 2008 at 9:15 am

haha. I agree

[Reply]
Thanoz said on March 27th, 2008 at 9:37 am

I really agree that Kontrera and all similar programs on the market(don’t think it’s right to focus only on Kontrera) are not suited for a blog that really does provide quality content. They just ruin it.
At least me, personally, wouldn’t bother reading any article full of those links that can popup little windows at any time. I would be more willing to click a link or an ad at the sidebar rather than in-text.
As mentioned in the article above, they do slow your website, especially if they are a lot in number.
The only bad thing is that new bloggers, think that as their ideal way to earn money through their blogs, and focus on creating Kontrera-keyword-links-friendly articles so that they’ll get their..cents..
Actually with so many advertising programms (in case they don’t get accepted at AdSense), that plethora of affiliate networks and yet lot of people focus on Kontrera-like networks.
Pitty..

[Reply]
Rajaram S said on March 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am

I had Kontera on my blog for a month or so. It made me 36 USD only, much lesser than the other forms of ads on my blog. Also, it made my blog look ugly!
So, i forfeited that 36 USd and removed it

[Reply]
Peter said on March 27th, 2008 at 10:05 am

John Chow and his useless tips. Look at the interview he had on tv, rubbish tips. He has no idea what he is toking about.

[Reply]
blogstheme.com said on March 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am

He’s doing typos so that the post will rank also for typos more traffic!

[Reply]
Paul said on March 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am

Speaking of crap did you see Johns vid post about the subject? I thought it was really funny. I am sure that you have seen it, I just don’t know why he posted it. He is crazy!

[Reply]
oakling said on March 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm

Sounds like they had a good idea but aren’t backing it up the way they need to….

[Reply]
shanX said on March 27th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Kontera sure sucks, I even made a blog way back - http://xtoned.com/log/2007-08-29+kontera-sucks

But am still looking for a Kontera alternative, content link solution for my sites :S

[Reply]
king kong said on March 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

i think its tacky! I dont think your selling yourself short, money is money!

[Reply]
Nick Larson said on March 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

I’m dissapointed Shoe… you should be using Safari…

[Reply]
DamnSmiley said on March 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Who is even promoting them? I really dont see anything there but waste of time only!

[Reply]
DamnSmiley said on March 27th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

are you sure of that? lol

[Reply]
Richard said on March 27th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

Well, John Chow sees value in using them. For the life of me, I don’t see why. I think the quality of their ads are rather poor.

[Reply]
Erica DeWolf said on March 27th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Yeah, Kontera sucks.
If you’re gonna get pennies for your clicks, peakclick is the best, i think, after Adsense and Yahoo, of course.
CPA is a whole lot better.

[Reply]
MagicBlue said on March 27th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

Scandelous…

[Reply]
Terry Tay said on March 27th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

That’s pretty interesting that they agreed to the CPM that you wanted. I guess they figured taking a cut in profits would benefit them in the long run. I wonder if they give everyone the option of choosing their prefered CPM?
~Terry

[Reply]
POYTSPOT said on March 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

The sudden pop-up in kontera is really distracting

[Reply]
Teddy said on March 27th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Wow, shoe PWNED me!

[Reply]
June Yasol said on March 27th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

pop-ups are pop-outs for customers, its good only for first timers
if you use it you look desperate and tricky

[Reply]
Affiliate Confession said on March 27th, 2008 at 9:20 pm

You should see the new ones John just wrote about on his blog. They’re even bigger.

[Reply]
Hakukoneoptimointi said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:08 am

Thank god that most of those sites I visit don’t use Kontera! A little tip for you webmasters: if you are frustrated by your sites loading time and slow loading is becouse of too much headers and stuff, try PHP Speedy. It gzips all code and images your site has and improves loading time.

[Reply]
shanX said on March 28th, 2008 at 2:42 am

Does anyone know a better Kontera alternative??

[Reply]
CodeFreedom said on March 28th, 2008 at 3:28 am

Hi Paul, I saw it too. I think it was posted to get reactions - like yours and mine, because it made no sense to me - I am a bit slow though

[Reply]
ninjashoes mixed martial arts said on March 28th, 2008 at 4:31 am

wow I am gonna stay away from kontera

[Reply]
Keylogger Hater said on March 28th, 2008 at 5:24 am

Sorry, but personally I regard AdSense as the best system to monetize most of my sites traffic. So in my opinion is really nothing to talk about.

[Reply]
Scott Fillmer said on March 28th, 2008 at 5:50 am

I got on with Kontera right at the beginning too, but it only took me about a week before I removed them totally. I know it has it merits and the advertising might be good for some people but I find it totally annoying when reading an article myself, so I didn’t want to have up something I didn’t like to read around.

[Reply]
Aerogarden said on March 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am

I suppose it depends on how successful your blog is, if your already well known then it probably doesn’t hurt much… If your a small blog like 99.95% of us then I agree it hurts more then it helps… I wouldn’t mind so much if the ad’s were a little less frequent… People visiting John Chow’s site are hammered with a lot of advertising already so whats a bit more..

[Reply]
Flimjo said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm

John Chow likes Kontera. I’d like to see a viral video debate between JC and Shoemoney on this issue. That would get hits.

[Reply]
Flimjo said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Is it really that annoying? I don’t mind it.

[Reply]
Flimjo said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

That’s about the one thing I don’t like about his site. Why is that?? It can’t just be Kontera.

[Reply]
Flimjo said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

I’d prefer it over Adsense as well. It’s hidden in the content as opposed to some bright ad box over on the right that’s distracting.

[Reply]
Flimjo said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

How much money did you make from other ad networks during that same period?

[Reply]
johnd said on March 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

The ads are a little too intrusive for me.

[Reply]
johnd said on March 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Kontera’s ads are too intrusive.

[Reply]
Bash Bosh said on March 28th, 2008 at 3:36 pm

I have just disabled them on my blog. Blog is little bit faster too.
Thanks for the nice warning

[Reply]
Affiliate Confession said on March 28th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Yea, they are kind of annoying. It’s a hassle when you drag your cursor across a target word and that dang box just pops up and blocks the content you’re trying to read.

[Reply]
Paul said on March 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pm

John Chow blog loads very slowly but he has fresh content so he thus gets away from the nuisance which smaller blogs may not be able to do so.

[Reply]
Luke said on March 29th, 2008 at 1:35 am

NoScript rawks! It’s cool not being forced to load stuff you don’t want to load.

[Reply]
John Esberg said on March 29th, 2008 at 10:48 am

I’d eat that one up too. I would follow it like religion to say the least.

[Reply]
John Esberg said on March 29th, 2008 at 10:52 am

I really don’t mind it. I easily just cruise my mouse around the link and avoid the pop ups. I also prefer it to seeing another bunch of google text links.

[Reply]
UttoranSen said on March 30th, 2008 at 1:35 am

actually it dosenot makes a difference to my adsense earnings, so i keep them! am just worried about the page loading which is really really slow!

[Reply]
Funky South said on April 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 am

never tried them, some ads look so cheap . . .

[Reply]
Meethere said on April 2nd, 2008 at 8:35 am

yeh , kontera suchs.
It makes the site slow and i dont like irritating popups.

[Reply]
Forumistan said on April 2nd, 2008 at 2:20 pm

I dont like flash, too.

[Reply]
Forumistan said on April 9th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Looks nice, gonna use it soon.

[Reply]
Lisa- Add Your Site to DoFollow Directory said on April 10th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Ditto. I gave up on kontera after a few days. For the amount of impact it had on my website; i.e. slow load time, wall to wall links, etc it just wasn’t worth the pennies per click I made. I can’t recommend to anyone. In theory it is good idea- the implementation is just abysmal.

[Reply]
Not John said on April 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I hate all the double underlined words. it is simply a distraction that no one clicks on.

[Reply]
Nate Hill said on April 13th, 2008 at 9:43 pm

I haven’t heard great things about it either but I might give it ago and then post a review of it and what it was like and it does make the site take much longer to load.

[Reply]
Gorilla Gripper said on April 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am

I tried kontera briefly…it made navigating my site a nightmare!

[Reply]
Getting More Visitors » Blog Archive » Post comments in blogs said on March 27th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

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