Those ads are strange. Nobody is supposed to click on them. They are just there for SEO as somebody mentioned earlier.

People have pointed out to me that KGS could make a few hundred dollars a month by adding such links. It's tempting, because they can be so unobtrusive, and a few hundred dollars a month is always welcome. In the end I decided to keep the KGS front page "cleaner" looking, but I wouldn't criticize the AGA for making the opposite decision; they can put the money to good use, and the web site is just as useful as before.

Thanks for the support WMS. One of the big reasons we're heading down this road is loss of funding from the Ing foundation, which has his Europe and other organizations just as hard. When your organization loses tens of thousands of dollars you need to find it somewhere. I hope this is the start to finding another generous sponsor like them.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

One link on such website as usgo.org or gokgs.com is at least 50 usd worth (per month).
If you put 10 links, you can get 500 USD every month. Maybe even more.

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Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

I'm in the camp that the ads are not worth it--I saw them before reading this thread, and even though I knew the AGA was accepting advertising, my first thought was "huh..the website has been hacked." Every day, I get comment spam like that, and it definitely makes the website look less credible.

But perhaps it would be good if someone elaborated on the badness of this type of SEO ad. Right now this discussion is wholly unhelpful to anyone who doesn't already know why these ads have such a bad reputation.

On a more pragmatic note, I'd always thought that selling links could have repercussions with Google--it would take a chunk out of your pagerank. But I have no experience with SEO, of the ethical or unethical varieties, and I could be peddling urban legends.

(A minute later) My memory isn't completely misleading, but perhaps this doesn't apply? http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=66736 ; http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/

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Occupy Babel!

I do appreciate that the ads are unobtrusive. Nothing is worse than the full page flash ads when you try to get to a site. If it is difficult to get enough go related advertising, have you considered something like an amazon affiliate store with gobans and books?

I can't speak for the AGA, but my recollection is that AGA relations with vendors of Go merchandise is a little tricky. The various sellers of Go stuff are in competition with each other; each has its group of ardent admirers within the AGA; and the AGA can't afford to play favorites there. I expect that some of the Go book sellers might be less than thrilled if the AGA were steering customers to Amazon.

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AGA membership customer service rep -- database@usgo.org
AGA Members Area: https://usgo.org/members

Why? Most of them aren't even sold through Amazon; only some Kiseido books are.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

If anyone is at congress there will be a meeting on Friday at 2PM, Breckenridge 5101, discussing this topic. I'll make sure to print off any questions and concerns you all have.

I cant say for sure about specific vendors but I can say we have had two go related persons ask us about advertising.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements