WidgetBucks Update – Speeds Up Loading Time, Removes Backlink and Removes Non English Sites From Network

WidgetBucks today emailed publishers using their system with a note to let them know that they’ve been working on loading times for WidgetBucks ad units. This has been one of the major complaints of publishers about the system.

The upside is that they’ve found a way to decrease loading times for publishers – the downside is that you need to update the code on your blog for the changes to come into effect (see below for instructions).

The other benefit of the update that they didn’t actually mention in the email is that the new code no longer has a backlink to WidgetBucks in it (something that has been criticized by many). Andy Beard has more on these changes and makes some suggestions on other changes they need to make.

Here’s how they said to make the update:

You will need to update code of your existing widgets for the speedier load times to take affect on your site, blog or network. Know that changing the code will not impact earnings for any of your widgets.

Here are the two steps you’ll need to follow:

1. Sign-in to http://widgetbucks.com and go to My Widgets

2. For each active widget, simply edit and re-copy the code block into your site or blog (the same steps you went through when you created the widgets originally)

Update to WidgetBucks Policies Regarding Non English Sites

Also announced today by WidgetBucks is that they’ve updated their Policies to exclude Non English sites in their program.

They explain:

“As we’ve continued to evaluate impression, click and conversion data during WidgetBucks’ first 3+ weeks, we’ve observed that a majority of non-English language sites are delivering a consistently low conversion rate. With our merchants and advertisers predominantly based in the U.S., this is not a surprising phenomenon. And as an advertising network, we have a responsibility to our merchants to deliver quality traffic that has the highest likelihood of conversion to sale.”

This is going to hurt for non english sites and already I’ve heard complaints – understandably so. Some have complained that they’ve seen good conversions on their non english sites. My response would be that by ‘conversion’ I suspect WidgetBucks is not talking about the ads getting clicked – but about the ads converting for advertisers. I suspect that the reason for this change is that advertisers complained that they were paying out for traffic that didn’t actually buy from them.

It’s a pity that WidgetBucks didn’t foresee this problem and learn from the pain of other ad networks who had the same issue.

PS: I’d be interested to hear whether others are noticing faster loading times. My initial feelings are that it’s marginally faster – but still slower than I’d like. I wondered whether it’s my location impacting speed and have put in an email to WidgetBucks to see.