Complaints.com Ain’t Complaining About AdSense Revenue
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Written By Reprise Media | July 21, 2005 | Share This
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If you don’t have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself.
Unless you’re Matthew Smith.
Then you start Complaints.com, a highly successful web site drawing over 40,000 unique visitors a day and more than a million page views a month.
Started in 2000 after Smith got the idea while taking a shower (he was looking at the customer service number on the back of a shampoo bottle), Complaints.com has weathered the dot com bust and has emerged as the second most popular site of its kind.
Smith attributes the site’s success to a combination of timing and Google goodness:
“We are really piggy-backing on the success of Google. Ninety-five percent of our revenue comes from Google’s AdSense program.”
Right now businesses can check up on consumer complaints by entering simple queries on the site containing their company name, but Smith’s long term plan is to eventually sell more detailed consumer data.
This article has more.
Sites like Complaints.com are part of what Wendy Boswell and others call “consumer generated media” or CGM. This article on ClickZ further defines the term:
“Unlike paid media, CGM is created by consumers. It’s often inspired by relevant product or service experiences and is frequently archived online for readers convenience and other consumers or key marketplace influencers. Examples of CGM include blog entries, consumer e-mail feedback, message board posts, forum comments, personal Web sites, and personal e-mail.”
In simpler terms, CGM is all about consumer empowerment. Big business, watch out.
Topics: Advertising: Online |
How much does complaints.com make in adsense revenue ? I could not open the link in the above story . Thanks
Well, the article’s over a year old now, so we’re not that surprised if it’s been taken down. Don’t know if they’d say, but you can try asking Complaints.com themselves.
Complaints.com is a good website, but it limits the user to search ONLY what complaints.com has. http://www.commentsearch.com actually lets users search ALL comment and complaint websites for content. PLUS it allows users to leave comments and complaints anonymously.