any idea which a a good program for forums? one of my forum gets an average of 150-200 uVs/day and over 1000 pageviews/day. What would be a good way to monetize it?

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I've heard putting up affiliate links to sites your members may be interested in can be pretty effective.

With those kinds of stats, it would be best to utilize adsense. In case the domain has a good PR and you are ready to take a hit from Google, you can consider putting text link ads or sell links privately.

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Monetizing vBulletin Forums

This might help

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I like Direct-Link-Ads, they have the best payout for publishers, I think because they market to Europeans and the Euro is HIGH.

Eric

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Direct Link Ads - Best Payouts for Publishers - Very Effective Distributed Links for Advertisers
MapPoint - Windy City - MapPoint 2009

Do not give away everything for free.

Restrict members galleries to paid members only,

Restrict being able to customize your profile unless you are a paid member,

Only paid members can create social groups.

If you have Downloads II installed, restrict regular members to X number of files a day, paid members get unlimited downloads.

Create a paid members group and give them their own section of the forum.

Paid members get a special VIP rank bandge, regular members can not get a badge.

Restrict avatars to paid members only, or make it so only paid members can have animated avatars.

Paid members can have images in signatures

Process all payments through the subscription manager built into vbulletin.

kev , does this still work as it seems so old school?

no disrespect however that does seem more the way it was done before there we so many free social networking structures around

would be interested to hear whether such an approach was still possible

if you have an established set of forums with people paying then it may be people are familiar with their club status but to start with something like that in a new forum I am not sure of its potential unless it is a niche topic

just my thoughts

My site is kinda specialized. It attracts a certain group of people. Other social networking site like myspace are crap - I have no idea why they are even popular. Mycrapyspace is maybe the worst designed website I have ever seen.

With a smaller community like mine, its easier to keep the trolls out and keep the paying members in.

I do not see myself trying to compete against sites like mycrappyspace, as my site is much better.

Keeping ads off a site is what members like. They do not like pop-ups, or flashy ads, or ads that take over the whole screen, they will go somewhere else.

The method I am using is working well for my site. It pays the bills, plus some. I do not agree with other sites giving everything away for free. If you want to use that picture gallery, or customize your profile - its a bulk package for $5 a month.

excellent kev, long-term it is all about niche presentation

myspace is moving to securing the more music, band presentation

however facebook is certainly providing a fair amount of toys on their platform

fads come and go

how long have your forums been running for?

I like adsense for monetizing my forums, it's worked very well for me. I also use intellitext from vibrantmedia, which also generates a fair bit of money.

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