Webanswers.com - anyone got any views?

*Star06*

I have joined webanswers, I don't think that it is something that will make you rich or anywhere near that, though some do 'claim' on there to be making around about £500+ a month, though they have answered thousands of questions.

I have answered less than 20 so far and been awarded 2. I would say if you have joined up and have had questions awarded to you, then keep your account open, as they will be yours for a year I believe to earn off, when people click your ads.

I answer a few questions here and there and ask some for fun, if it makes any OK money then good, if only pocket change then it's better than nothing, but I'm not putting my focus on this as a job.

baboomum

Hi

I just thought I'd give you my input!

I joined a week last friday and answered 242 questions. So far I've had 16 of them awarded and I've earned £8 on adsense.

It isn't a lot of money but once an answer has been written you continue earning on it for 12 months so depending on how much traffic it gets I could stop answering questions today and still make a bit of money for the next 12 months.

Once you have awarded answers you can promote them online to increase traffic to them. Thus increasing the chance of someone clicking on one of the links.


It isn't going to make me rich but I enjoy it!

tomterm8

*Star06* wrote: »

I would say if you have joined up and have had questions awarded to you, then keep your account open, as they will be yours for a year I believe to earn off, when people click your ads.
.

That's the biggest problem with it. If I write an article on hubpages, or infobarrel, the ad revenue stays mine forever and I'll probably be making the most money from it in three years time. If I answer a question on webanswers, I just get a year.

There's no long term way to build a passive income from it.

So, I am out.

*Star06*

tomterm8 wrote: »

That's the biggest problem with it. If I write an article on hubpages, or infobarrel, the ad revenue stays mine forever and I'll probably be making the most money from it in three years time. If I answer a question on webanswers, I just get a year.

There's no long term way to build a passive income from it.

So, I am out.

I agree totally. Webanswers is not a good way of making a good living for years. Maybe it *might earn you a little bit of money in the short term. I don't like the fact that you only 'own' that awarded page for a year.

I am pursuing a freelance writing career and plan on using those kind of sites (hubpages etc) to build up a good residual income, also Squidoo and a few others as well.

red_devil

any more feedback on this?

Sixer

*Star06* wrote: »

I agree totally. Webanswers is not a good way of making a good living for years. Maybe it *might earn you a little bit of money in the short term. I don't like the fact that you only 'own' that awarded page for a year.

I am pursuing a freelance writing career and plan on using those kind of sites (hubpages etc) to build up a good residual income, also Squidoo and a few others as well.

I am not sure there is a big future in residual income from content farms, you know:

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7112-blekko-bans-content-farms-but-should-google-follow-suit

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365257/google-targets-content-farms-with-new-blocking-tool

nakmeister

I'm fairly new to this and am probably averaging about £1 a day. I've managed a £2 day, which was exciting, and a 12p day which was less so. As a long term residual income it is not a great option, you are better off with Hubpages or one of the other article sites (squidoo, infobarrel etc). While you will earn residual income from your answers (or Questions you ask) if you stop posting your income will trail off. However what I like about is that you can ask or answer a few questions whenever you have a few minutes, you don't need to sit down for an hour or two like you do to write an article. Most days I don't find the time to write an article, but I do get to do a bit on Web Answers.

The other good thing (or bad thing depending on how you look at it) is that you don't need to bother with promoting your work, ensuring you've got good keywords, backlinking and all of that. While the amounts may be small, you can start earning the same day you start answering questions (once you get your adsense account approved and linked that is). With something like Hubpages it takes (I am told) months to start earning money, but once you do the earning potential is much greater.

I think it depends on your expectations. I see it in the same way as survey sites. It is never going to make me rich, but it will earn me a bit of extra money. I'm far more optimistic in the long run about making money through article sites like Hubpages, but in the meantime the steady trickle coming in from Web Answers will be a nice extra earner and will keep me interested.

To clear up a bit of confusion about what you earn money on: the site splits its Adsense revenues, 60% to contributors, 40% to itself. If you get awarded an answer, you get the full 60% from that point on. If someone else gets awarded it, you get nothing for that answer. If no one gets an awarded answer for that question (and I've read that more than 80% of answers never get awarded) you get a share of the revenues with the person who asked the question and the other answerers. How much of a share of those unawarded answers you get depends on your 'quality score' based on the overall quality of your answers. No one knows exactly how this is done as it is kept secret to prevent people trying to manipulate it, but I understand it is a computer algorithm which assesses grammar, spelling and other things.

nakmeister

There's been a few debates about this on Hubpages, and the bottom line seems to be that sites like Hubpages are not content farms, and Google has previously said it will never block sites with social features like they have. Only time will tell though.

Sixer wrote: »

I am not sure there is a big future in residual income from content farms, you know:

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7112-blekko-bans-content-farms-but-should-google-follow-suit

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365257/google-targets-content-farms-with-new-blocking-tool

red_devil

what do you write about?

nakmeister

On Hubpages or Web Answers? On hubpages it is best to specialise in a couple of different areas, so you can link similar articles together. I've done a bit of a mix so far. Most get a visit or two a day at best, but I had a Valentines Day themed one which for a few weeks in the run up to Feb 14th was getting 50 people a day visiting, all from searches they did on Google.

On web answers, I answer any questions that I can. There are some daft questions but a lot of serious ones too. I've answered quite a few in books, entertainment, computers & internet and business and so on.

I'm giving both sites a few months to see if, long term, the money I'm getting is worth the time I'm putting in. There are quite a few people, particularly on Hubpages, who are in the £500-£1,000 a month bracket. I'd be happy with £100 a month, but I'm quite a bit off that yet.