how do websites that do not charge any money for their products or services, make money for their owners??
it is not through any form of advertising or ppc that i am referring to since very often this adds up to an insignificant source of revenue unless your site has a massive ammount of visitors as i understand it… can anyone tell me for example how the more successful websites that have become popular have done so as a result, i am thinking of the bebo’s of this world and are valued at in the region of millions without having taken in a cent..? or am i just niave, do they receive their revenue from another source that i am unaware of.?
Firstly – good question.
Now lets look at how the big players make money, like Google, Yahoo etc.
You spending time at their site is good enough reason for them to keep the site online cause you are using some ISP to connect and paying them for that and the more people get online the more the potential visitors to their sites. Then there is internet ads – all the banner ads that you see.
Now running a site like yahoo give you access to so much info – imagine if its your site and you know how many users from london log in everyday you know their personal details cause you are supposed to give it before you get an account now there are million things that can be done with such a data. You can target products to people with certain taste and the list can go on.
Google on the other hand has become from nothing a decade back to the mother of all information – millions of users flock their sites everyday looking for something or the other – they are making people spend more time on their sites in return ensuring all that revenue comes to them so you dont pay google anything but they earn it anyways. They have so many successful sites of their which they facilitate using Gmail – like Orkut, something for Pictures and now video so if you are checking gmail and at the same time checking some video in Youtube or google video you are spending that much time on their site in return so much revenue and then there are user you like few ads here and there and they click on those and buy something so here comes money again, imagine this will millions of users your hit rate is awesome.
Hope i was able to answers your query
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