One of my visitors, Richard Lindo asked this question in response to my last post :

I have to be honest... I tried to apply for Kontera a couple of years back when their pre-requisite included something about having half a million page view per month. My sites were still new at that time and that meant I didn't even bother to submit a request.

However, about a year ago (my page views for my highest site was still moderate then) Joel Comm struck a deal with Kontera. Basically, Kontera would allow anyone who was a subscriber to Joel's mailing list to gain entry. I immediately applied. Didn't know whether I would make money, but I was willing to give it a shot. No regrets.

From my interaction with my online buddies (some of whom make more money in one month than we make in a year), Kontera gives widely fluctuating results. Kontera seems to work well if your traffic is targetted. I understand from my them that blogs about general topics / family / friends etc, usually get less desirable results with Kontera, simply because you won't be using high paying keyword or attracting visitors who are in search or focussed topics based on these keywords. I can't really use HomeWithAndrew.com as a yardstick because I've yet to focus on driving targetted traffic to it. My other sites which are focussed on specific niches are doing well though.

Like I've said in previous posts, Kontera is not perfect and not for everyone, so I'll get the cons over with first :

• Used on a link or ad heavy page, Kontera can make things look pretty cluttered.
• Because you cannot fully customize how it looks, it can stick out like a sore thumb, clashing with your site's look when you roll over a Kontera ad.
• Not many features in the user admin. Many things still need to be managed with email to their support.
• As of this post's date, their stats reporting is not live. It is still delayed by between 1-2 days. I understand that this will be changed soon which is good news.

Now for the good stuff. Kontera has a couple of distinct advantages over Adsense :

Their ads are in-text, which basically means that you won't be victim of ad-blindness (where people get so used to seeing ads that they ignore them). There is NO WAY you can avoid seeing and reading a Kontera ad link because the active links are actual words in your content. When you mouse over a link, you get a short description in their pop-up which is pretty neat and looks really cool ;

Kontera complements Adsense by picking up keywords in your content and converts them to links. They fill in the gaps when Adsense gets its targetting wrong (which is quite often). Adsense generally serves ads based on what it determines your page is about. This means that if you talk about 3 widely varied topics on a page, you will likely get off-target Adsense ads as it struggles to find matching ads. However, with Kontera, you can write about 8 differents topics on one page, place competitive keywords within those paragraphs, and those keywords will be converted to Kontera links.

Does the technique above work 100%? NO. Kontera is not perfect. It is still a business entity with a profit target, so it will serve the highest paying ads, usually above the fold (top section of your content). Kontera allows you to customize your ads to suit your color scheme. This helps you blend your links to match your overall look.

Kontera's ad inventory is not the most comprehensive, so this leads to fluctuations in earnings but this also goes for every other ad program, including Adsense. For me, Kontera makes for a great supplementary revenue source. It contributes approximately 5 - 8% of my overall online income, but honestly, I don't know how it would perform if I were to use it exclusively - which I probably won't. So far, it's not in the same league as Adsense, but to sum it all up, Kontera can be a GOOD WAY TO MAKE MONEY. It's worth a try.

Apply to join Kontera here.