To Advertise Or Not To Advertise?

That is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to monetize one’s traffic,
And generate an outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of annoyed visitors,
And by offering advertising end them?

OK, I’ll stop pretending to be a literature buff now. Thanks as always to Wikipedia.

As an avid blog reader and new blogger, I’m noticing more and more sites cashing in on the traffic to their blogs via AdSense, banners, or paid text link ads. Jeremy Zawodny recently opened up his 3.5 year old blog to advertisers, and offered 15 spots with the anchor text of your choosing for $300 per month. It looks like he’s booked, so that’s $4500 per month just for doing something that you love. Add that to your regular earnings (which I’m sure are nice since he works at Yahoo), and you’re sitting pretty with some serious disposable personal income. I don’t fault anyone for turning their traffic into profits, nor do I feel it’s “selling out”.

While I find these links and Google ads to be unobtrusive (banners have always pissed me off for some reason), I have talked to a few people that suggest that advertising on your blog can annoy readers and actually cause them to stop visiting altogether. While I agree with the suggestion that text link ads or other lucrative in-house campaigns would be the way to go rather than AdSense, I wonder what the majority of readers feel about ads on blogs?

Do you think advertising on your blog is a good idea even if it means a decrease in visitors?

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