You may have noticed the double-underlined links on various phrases on my site. These are link ads that are dynamically generated through a service called Kontera. You may already know about Google AdSense and how it works by generating ads based on your page’s content, but if not, check it out now. Anyway, Kontera works very similar to AdSense, but I’m very excited to say that it’s much better!

Kontera doesn’t place ads in a single, static location. This is an important fact because there’s such a thing known as “banner blindness”. The term actually references a phenomenon where people will sub-conscientiously block out banner ads on a website. You probably noticed this by going to some website that has a banner ad on it and you skipped right over it to get to the content you were looking for. Well, unfortunately, the same thing happens to AdSense ad blocks and banners.

How does Kontera work?

1. Page content – Kontera uses its patented software to analyze your webpage through the use of a small snippet of Javascript.
2. Keywords – Every time a page is loaded, the script kicks in and dynamically creates ad links on certain keywords found within your page. These keywords are based on what advertisers are purchasing.
3. Dynamic ads – Even though your pages have static content (things that don’t change), the Kontera ads are all dynamic (things that do change), which means that a page loaded by one user will have different keyword ads than the same page loaded by another user.
4. Fresh ads – Because the ads and the links are generated dynamically, your users always see fresh ads no matter how many times they come back to the same page!
5. Non-intrusive – The ads don’t show up right when a page loads; only the links do. This means that your webpage can appear to be completely ad-free! When a user sees a link they think they might be interested in, they hover over it and out pops a Kontera window. The user can then decided to click through or not. If not, the mouse is moved and the ad goes away.

Kontera vs AdSense

• Placement – Adsense uses static ad placement which means your AdSense ads are always located in the same areas of your website and will stay there unless you move them. Kontera changes ad link placement every time a page is loaded.
• Visibility – Adsense ads are always visible and can be ignored by simply not looking at that area of a site. Kontera embeds ads directly into keywords on the site and a user is more likely to click on a targeted keyword ad. Since the ad links appear on page load, they can show up just about anywhere each time.
• Site restrictions – Adsense can be placed on just about any website you can think of–including spam and duplicate content sites. This reduces effectiveness. Kontera restricts websites based on strict guidelines and even page length. This increases effectiveness and welcomes higher quality advertisers.

My two cents

I’m not out to destroy Google AdSense and as you can see to the right, I still use it! However, I am already starting to see major improvements and response with Kontera over Google and I’ve only started with Kontera a few days ago.

My suggestion is to get and use both services for your website. Optimize your site with Kontera In-Text advertising now!