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Should Bloggers Profit Off Of Spammers Via CAPTCHA Ads?

Should Bloggers Profit Off Of Spammers Via CAPTCHA Ads?

Despite the fact that blog platforms like Blogger and WordPress are moving away from CAPTCHA’s (aka those silly puzzles that verify whether you’re human), it looks like one company is trying to make CAPTCHA’s cool again by helping bloggers profit off of every word typed.

ADSCAPTCHA’s™ innovative Pay Per Type™ platform creates profits from CAPTCHA technology. Instead of paying for CAPTCHAs, website owners and developers can make money from every ADSCAPTCHA™ that is typed in full. That’s 280,000,000 opportunities – and counting – every day. […]

The ADSCAPTCHA™ model links advertisers, website owners and web developers so that everyone benefits. Website owners & developers get high-level internet security and a share of advertising revenues. Advertisers gain the most powerful marketing tool available today, customized to their targeted audience and budget. The ADSCAPTCHA™ experience for the user is more fun and more meaningful than standard CAPTCHAs, which means it is a powerful opportunity to “capture” the target audience.  (ADSCAPTCHA.com)

Although ADSCAPTCHA is not the first to envision merging word puzzles with ads (as Confident Technologies is also attempting to do this), they probably will not be the last which means that bloggers will soon be arguing whether CAPTCHA’s are still relevant (now that there is money on the table).

Since there seems to be a loyal fan base devoted to CAPTCHA’s (note: I use to be one until I encountered Akismet by WordPress), here are a few reasons why bloggers should (and should not) use CAPTCHA ads for their blogs.

Devil’s Advocate: Why CAPTCHA Ads Make Cents

Whether we like it or not, spammers are always going to find ways to thwart ad defense systems, regardless of how much money Google and Automattic (the company behind WordPress) invest in stopping their advances.

Instead of fighting the rising tide, why not profit off of those attempting to insert links upon your blog?

As the video below does highlight, comment sections are one of the most viewed sections of a blog, and if one could position advertisers in front of more users it only means more money in your pocket at the end of the day.

After all, one could always resort to moderating all of your blog comments, enabling one to profit off of the robotic and human spammers without irritating blog commenters with offending hyperlinks (not to mention risk your blog’s page rank).

Why CAPTCHA Ads Are Not Worth It

While there is nothing wrong with a blog generating revenue (as long as it’s legal and ethical), bloggers should avoid using CAPTCHA Ads as those funky word puzzles make it hard for the blind and visually impaired to partake of the discussion.

To make matters worse, CAPTCHA’s are no longer effective as spammers are either building complex programs to get around the funky quizzes or hiring cheap labor to bypass your defenses.

Although you could always moderate every comment that is posted on your blog, you may end up spending half of your time moderating discussions when it could instead be used to create more content.

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Making matters worse, you will more often than not annoy your readers, inspiring them to become lurkers instead of commenters thus killing off your community for the benefit of only “a few pennies.”

Where Do You Stand?

Even though ADSCAPTCHA’s approach is innovative (and potentially lucrative, at least according to my spam files), the thought of placing more barriers in front of my readers is enough to convince me that this service is not for me.

While ADSCATCHA’s word puzzles are thankfully far easier to read than Google’s, I would rather spend my time creating content than moderating comments (which are becoming harder to tell apart from real commenters nowadays).

Are any of you considering installing this upon your various blogs? If so, feel free to share why in the comment section below.

(Hat Tip: Weblog Tools Collection)

View Comment (1)
  • I think adcaptcha’s are a fantastic idea. What is needed is to present captcha ONLY if the visitor is posting a url link. Spammers don’t make posts without urls in them. Sifting through comments with urls in them costs me time, so I might as well get paid for it.

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