I got this question from a friend of mine and thought I'd share my answer with you all.
Here are the questions:
- Can advertising revenue be derived from a WordPress blog?
- Can the blog owner manage their own advertising links?
- Does WordPress have any revenue sharing available for their advertising streams?
As in all things in life, “it depends.”
There are 2 kinds of WordPress blog – hosted by WordPress.com or “self-hosted”. If the former, then the answer to advertising is generally “No.” If the latter, then “Yes.”
I know you asked 3 questions 🙂
But the central point is will you be hosting on WordPress.com or not? If so, the answer to all 3 Q's is generally no (stay with me here)
If you're self-hosting (i.e., you buy a domain name and set up a WordPress blog on your own host, like HostGator (that's an affiliate link and how I can be compensated even without money changing hands between you and me), then the answer to the first 2 Q's is yes. There is no answer to the 3rd question if self-hosting — you wouldn't want to share your advertising money with anybody else.
So why generally? WordPress.com does allow certain bloggers to run ads; they call it WordAds. I think it's subjective. They say on their site:
“We have a feature called WordAds that lets WordPress.com bloggers with moderate to high traffic and appropriate content turn on ads and earn money from their blogs.”
Emphasis added by me.
Sources:
Make sense?
Here is a link to a course (paid) that I created for Rapid Crush that teaches you how to set up a self-hosted WordPress website:
If you're interested, I can probably negotiate with the RC folks a substantial discount. Let me know in the comments if you want me to ask.