A couple of site updates

Two days ago, we rolled in some optimizations to the home page / river that vastly sped the page up for most people.

However, we learned that folks who had subscribed to multiple keywords were seeing some timeouts - this was fixed last night, so now everyone should be seeing a faster home page while logged in. While logged out, we have the home page loading in under 0.2 seconds, which is as fast as its ever been.

Yesterday, we rolled in some optimizations to the list page - these pages should now be loading rocket fast for everyone. Even some of our notorious Crunchbase lists which have 17K items are loading pretty quickly.

Today, we're going to be taking on the item page - once we get done with that, I think we're going to have a pretty fast site.

Finally, we made some small tweaks to the AdSense revenue sharing code yesterday - please let us know if you see improvements in your daily AdSense numbers.

Improvements to Google AdSense Revenue Sharing Program

Guys, we rolled in some important improvements to our revenue sharing program.

Specifically, we are now sharing revenue 50/50 with program participants on every Google ad block on qualifying pages; Your Profile Page, Your Lists, Items You Contribute to Others' Lists, and your Review Pages.

I expect that this will result in a moderate increase in earnings for participants.

Also, we've made it MUCH easier to link your RateItAll account to an existing Google AdSense account.

To sign up for the Google AdSense revenue sharing program for the first time or to link your RIA account to an existing Google AdSense account, just go to your profile page, click the "Edit Account" link on the left hand side, and check the box that says "Sign Me Up for Google AdSense so I can earn cash."

Then choose whether you'd like to sign up for a new AdSense account, or link an existing AdSense account to your RateItAll account and fill in the fields.

You will get an email from Google confirming your enrollment. Also, you can check the status of your AdSense account (approved or pending) right on your RateItAll account page.

More on Making Money with RateItAll

Some of us are starting to make some decent money on RateItAll via the RateItAll Economy Program, just for doing what we were doing anyway - making lists, adding items to other people's lists, and writing reviews. My personal account is now getting a check every couple of months from Google for more than $100.

Yesterday, I posted a series of reviews sharing my tips for how to maximize earnings. These reviews can be found within the Maximizing Revenue list.

From my experience, the two best ways to make money on RateItAll are by 1) Building quality lists; and 2) Adding high profile items to existing lists.

Both in these activities result in a 50% ad rotation share on the pages you contribute.

In terms of lists, it's all about getting Google to notice the list, and send it traffic. Here are the important things in making this happen:

1) Link to your lists from other sites. If you have a blog or MySpace page, make sure to link directly to your lists using the proper keywords in the link itself. For example, if I was promoting the list Dog Food Brands on my blog, I'd want to make sure to link to the list using the appropriate words: in this case: Dog Food Ratings

I wouldn't want to link like this: check out my list about dog food. The words "my list" doesn't describe the page, and make it harder for Google to know when to display your list as a search result.

2) Use the list widgets on your blogs or profile pages. These list widgets send both traffic, and give you links.

3) Write unique content for your list descriptions, and individual item descriptions (with generous use of the list / item's keywords). If you don't write your descriptions, your list will appear to Google to be too similar to every other list page, and not worthy of sending search traffic to.

4) Title your lists and items appropriately. If your list is about country music songs, call it "Best Country Songs of All Time" - don't call it "Stuff You'd Hear at the Farm." If you use colloquial language, Google will have no way to figure out what the page is really about. Try and title your lists and items with words that people are actually searching for.

5) Seed your lists with reviews. This gets to the unique content mentioned in item 3. Also, items with reviews are much more likely to attract more reviews - making it that much more likely that Google will send you traffic.

6) Target niches. The serious web publishers try and target verticals for which there is an ad market.

Remember, lists that duplicate other lists will often be put on "invisible" mode. Be creative, create unique resources, write unique content, and send your pages external links when possible.

YouTube to Emulate RateItAll

At a recent conference in Davos, YouTube founder Chad Hurley announced that soon, YouTube would begin allowing contributors of video to share in the advertising revenue associated with their contributions. This sounds a lot like the RateItAll Economy Program, right?

And I think it's great news. Back in August of last year I wrote a long rant on this blog about how I felt that too many sites were exploiting the contributions of their members. Here's an excerpt:

Now big companies and venture capital firms are realizing that people are happy to work for these Web sites for free. Thousands of new "user generated content" sites are launching. Thousands hoping to be the next YouTube, the next MySpace - thousands hoping they can slap together a site, and have volunteers make it worth millions.

It ain't right, and it ain't sustainable. It took me a while to realize that revenue sharing is the only possible direction for RateItAll, but I'm happy to say that we are still one of the only sites on the Web to step up to the plate on this.

I'm thrilled that YouTube has come around, and I hope that others will follow.

I hope that the primary reason to visit RateItAll never becomes money. If that happens, something about our community will have been lost. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do things the right way and reward contributors.

Sharing Revenue on RateItAll

Has anyone checked in on their Google AdSense earnings via the RateItAll Economy program recently? Mine are showing a bump. RateItAll has posted five straight months of growth, and it makes sense that all of us should be seeing more traffic to our lists, listing suggestions, and profile pages.

Here's one glitch that started for me yesterday, however - because I never verified my AdSense account with Google (put in my SS# and address so I can be paid) - they started running Public Service Annoucements on my pages (not ads). I went in yesterday to verify my account, and they asked me for a pin number that they had supposedly mailed me. I never got it, and had to request a new one (which takes 2-4 weeks). I'm trying to get in touch with Google to see why they are showing PSA's now while I wait for the new pin... it doesn't seem fair. I'll keep you posted.

But in the meantime, if you are participating in the RIA Economy program and have not yet verified your Google AdSense account, I recommend that you do so by going to the AdSense site and signing in.