adgridwork: The free version of Google AdSense and Google AdWords

First published on July 28, 2007

Link exchange networks are nothing new. You post links to other sites, and your “ad” gets displayed on other sites.

However, adgridwork has added the Google AdSense / Google AdWords contextual, targeted ads concept and… made it free! If you’re just not into paying for ads or placing pay-for-click ads on your site, you can 1) automatically give your site visitors relevant links and 2) automatically get relevant exposure for your site for free!

I just signed up for adgridwork and am experimenting with it on my 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada consumer forum. I’ve set it up to display Google ads half the time and adgridwork ads the rest of the time (although you can supposedly display both sets of ads on the same page). It might be a refreshing change for some site visitors to see “Free ads” instead of “Ads by Google” at times! They also have a free “review me, review you” service — a refreshing change from the “get reviewed by me for $400″ ads that I see sometimes.

The adgridwork management interface is quite easy, especially if you are familiar with either AdSense or AdWords. First, you create an about your site; then, you create a profile of your site with targeted keywords; finally, you paste some code to your site to display other people’s ads. Voilà — free contextual ad exchange, with all the legwork done for you You can even blacklist specific sites’ ads from appearing on your site. The one thing I’d like to see is regional targeting, as some of my sites are very Canadian-focused.