Three months ago I decided to buy some Text-Link-Ads for promotion of my new sites. Well, just as with Google Adwords and Yahoo advertising programs, it’s been another miserable failure and a total waste of money. I’ve spent $450 on TLS’a in 3 months and I’m getting little or no response from the blogs / sites I’ve advertised on. Not only that, there has been no jump in PageRank or SERPs as promised by the program. Although I felt it was a good karma thing by purchasing advertising on the sites I liked, it’s been nothing but yet another expensive and bad experience that has left me with a negative outlook on TLA’s offering. I’ve checked their listings thoroughly and I’ve come to realize that the sites that are profiting the most from TLS’s are actually regurgitaion sites that provide little or no original content, merely they are clever in their linking strategies which makes them so appealing to people such as myself who look for innovative places to advertise.
My next billing cycle with TLA is Aug 18th and I’m planning on cancelling all my ads a few days before the deadline because having been on the internet since 1992, and wasting thousands upon thousands of dollars in similar advertising programs I’m well aware that early cancellation will cause the ads to be cancelled prematurely and I’ll have no option to be pro-rated for the days that my ads weren’t shown.
I’d just like to let anybody who is contemplating purchasing TLA’s know thats TLA’s *will not* increase your traffic. If you’re looking for a boost in PageRank, you can forget about that as well. In my opinion Text-Link-Ads suck… I’m going to dump that program as well as AuctionAds because just like in MLM’s or ponzi schemes, the first people in are the ones who make money. Everyone else loses.
Goodbye TLA’s… I’ll spend my $150 per month on better things like CD’s and DVD’s.
Hmm interesting read, thats why you should use us for :) for your contextual links
I already have Google Adsense for contextual ads and as far as I’m concerned, I’m finished with advertising for now. i prefer to promote my sites the old fashioned way, by word of mouth.
“$450 on TLS’a in 3 months” maybe you should have just bought links directly from specific blogs or websites wouldn’t that have cost you less ?
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title Link-Ads Suck. Thanks for informative article
[…] you even have a clue as to the number of high level and quality bloggers you pass up because you base your approvals on the Alexa ranking system?” Don’t get me wrong… I love Text-Link-Ads; however, I feel strongly that TLA […]
I was using TLA to advertise my music site around the same time as you. I got some results for Yahoo and MSN, but Google isn’t fooled by them any more. And the term I was really gunning for I got no traction with. And it’s not like it’s a hard phrase to rank for.. Text link ads do suck! Also, don’t depend on their ‘experts’ to draft you a worthwhile proposal. They will just recommend a mish mash of sites, many of which have nothing to do with your demographic. Ok, I’m done ranting now. Thanks for putting this online, cause I was gonna blog about it.
John, thanks for the comment. My bad experience with TLA was not only the two sites I bought links (for advertising, not PR purposes) were both smacked from PR5 down to PR3 after this last update. On top of it, I tried to cancel my account, they deleted my login and password but kept charging my credit card. Thanks to Bank of America, I was refunded my money and the representative I spoke to said BOA has had numerous complaints against TLA.
Personally, I’ll never touch anything Patrick Gavin (founder of TLA) has anything to do with ever again. Auction-Ads was a miserable failure and a waste of my advertising space was his newest venture ShoppingAds.
WHy pay for TLA when you can get targeted links for free. I use Arkayne on several of my blogs and it works great for page rank as well as relevant exposure.
For the curious: http://www.arkayne.com
Good Luck.