CoinURL ceases its operation

[giantdragon]

When I have launched CoinURL a half year ago I believed that quality Bitcoin advertising network is necessary for the market and will be profitable enough. I have seen large interest from the users, number of publishers and advertisers grown all time, but not the profits.

Average CPC and CPM rates for the Bitcoin-related ads are much lesser comparing to the non-Bitcoin. I think it can be explained that large ad networks like Google AdSense target their ads to the middle-class customers with relatively high income. Unfortunately, at this moment, Bitcoin user audience differ in this way so advertisers don't see a reason to spend large amounts on advertising. I hope this will change in the future.

All time CoinURL's expenditures had been not so big because it was located on the cheap shared hosting. Unluckily, as you could guess, hosting company decided to terminate my account as it is not just worth for them anymore. CoinURL had heavy backend and to handle requests with acceptable response time it requires high-end VPS or even physical server, which would cost at least 4-5 BTC/month. Paying these amounts would lead me into the loss, so I had no other choice than to close CoinURL at all.

If you had unspent clicks and impressions on the CoinURL I can transfer your ads to the other ad places I have. In this case just write your CoinURL username and password to the info@coinurl.com. I will do this manually, so don't abuse it with negligible small amounts.

CoinURL domains "coinurl.com" and "cur.lv" are for sale!

Short links will continue to work at least before February 1, 2013.

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[SgtSpike]

I wonder if this closure can be blamed, in part, on deflation? I mean, everyone generally agrees that people save more in a deflationary environment, which could be indicated both by the lower price of similar advertisements in BTC relative to USD and also the lack of "middle-class customers with relatively high (READ: expendable) income" to target.

[Luno]

I never clicked on anything. I was afraid the timer would reset!

[ingrownpocket]

I never clicked on anything. I was afraid the timer would reset!

What?

[Luno]

I never clicked on anything. I was afraid the timer would reset!

What?

was'nt it a site like bitcoin4you.net where you watch a page for 5 minutes and get 1/2000 of a BTC?

[giantdragon]

was'nt it a site like bitcoin4you.net where you watch a page for 5 minutes and get 1/2000 of a BTC?

No.

[Luno]

Googled it, I'm a fool, Sorry.

[gbl08ma]

This is sad news. On the other side, other Bitcoin-powered advertising networks will have more market share which will help them not close at least for now.
I really don't know how many ads CoinURL served in a day (haven't checked the global stats since long ago), but I don't think you'd need such powerful server to serve ads. Maybe having two or three smaller servers (and using them based on the visitors location) plus a proxy server would have been cheaper and more efficient. Also, were you ever able to try alternative web server software such as nginx, which is usually lightweight even under heavy load?

Have you thought on scaling back CoinURL to be just URL shortening with interstitial advertising like in the beginning, and dropping the banner ad portion of the service (not sure how much that would help reduce the load)?

I read your post but I'm not sure I understand what happened to the balances of the user accounts. Is this money gone? Is it included in the "unspent clicks and impressions" category? I speak for my ~0.05 btc so it isn't much of a loss (well, if you take into account that's how much I get from ads in two months, yes it's a big loss) but I understand there may be people who had higher balances.

[giantdragon]

but I don't think you'd need such powerful server to serve ads. Maybe having two or three smaller servers (and using them based on the visitors location) plus a proxy server would have been cheaper and more efficient. Also, were you ever able to try alternative web server software such as nginx, which is usually lightweight even under heavy load?

Some time ago I tried to test CoinURL on the node where Peerbet is now located (XEN with 2 CPUs). This server is well-configured by professional admins. CoinURL's response time here was acceptable, although I am not sure even this node could be able to handle current load.

Have you thought on scaling back CoinURL to be just URL shortening with interstitial advertising like in the beginning, and dropping the banner ad portion of the service (not sure how much that would help reduce the load)?

Interstitial ads are too cheap and requires too my personal time to review clicks, that it is just not worth.

I read your post but I'm not sure I understand what happened to the balances of the user accounts. Is this money gone? Is it included in the "unspent clicks and impressions" category? I speak for my ~0.05 btc so it isn't much of a loss (well, if you take into account that's how much I get from ads in two months, yes it's a big loss) but I understand there may be people who had higher balances.

Publishers can make a withdrawal of the remaining funds, advertisers can transfer ads to my other sites.

[gbl08ma]

Publishers can make a withdrawal of the remaining funds, advertisers can transfer ads to my other sites.

And this withdrawal is done by emailing you with our CoinURL username and password, right? I'm not sure my 0.05 btc pay for my password (it is unique, but one can figure out my "uniqueness" system from it). While it's true that you, as the website owner, could still have access to the password anyway, the fact that you're asking for it makes me believe you didn't have access to it in plaintext. Or are you just asking for the password as a means of confirming the account ownership? And if yes, doesn't that mean you have access to the plaintext passwords so you can compare?

[giantdragon]

And this withdrawal is done by emailing you with our CoinURL username and password, right? I'm not sure my 0.05 btc pay for my password (it is unique, but one can figure out my "uniqueness" system from it). While it's true that you, as the website owner, could still have access to the password anyway, the fact that you're asking for it makes me believe you didn't have access to it in plaintext. Or are you just asking for the password as a means of confirming the account ownership? And if yes, doesn't that mean you have access to the plaintext passwords so you can compare?

I will accept also accept an e-mail address as proof of the account ownership.

[MPOE-PR]

A quality Bitcoin advertising network is necessary. The problem is that neither was your system a quality advertising network nor did you know how to react to corporate attention. This latter point is actually the most important, but I guess a little slow on the uptake.

[SlickTheNick]

That sucks man. Not much you can do about it though I guess. You can go ahead and keep my 0.03 BTC I had built up...

On the bright side for the rest of us,  this opens up some market share for new players to come in, with better systems

[giantdragon]

this opens up some market share for new players to come in, with better systems

Don't be naive to think that someone will create even more complicated system without enough profit expectation.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Or are you just asking for the password as a means of confirming the account ownership? And if yes, doesn't that mean you have access to the plaintext passwords so you can compare?

I assume he is going to do the same thing a website does.  Take the pwd, hash it, compare it to the stored hash.

[SlickTheNick]

this opens up some market share for new players to come in, with better systems

Don't be naive to think that someone will create even more complicated system without enough profit expectation.

Just because the way you did it didn't work out in the end doesn't mean that it can't be done. A new approach needs to be taken.

[payb.tc]

this opens up some market share for new players to come in, with better systems

Don't be naive to think that someone will create even more complicated system without enough profit expectation.

Just because the way you did it didn't work out in the end doesn't mean that it can't be done. A new approach needs to be taken.

exactly. just as some miners have access to practically-free electricity, some of us *wink* have practically-free access to fast high-quality hosting.

[xDan]

This is sad. Is there any other advertising service that offers revenue sharing with content creators?

Otherwise I'll have to stop Bitpasta.com too since it relied on CoinURL.

That being said, the profit made is minuscule, and it seems most users are using most bitcoin related ad services only as a way to "earn" bitcoins. So it's not surprising that the price per click is so low, it kinda breeds click fraud.

[MPOE-PR]

This is sad. Is there any other advertising service that offers revenue sharing with content creators?

Otherwise I'll have to stop Bitpasta.com too since it relied on CoinURL.

That being said, the profit made is minuscule, and it seems most users are using most bitcoin related ad services only as a way to "earn" bitcoins. So it's not surprising that the price per click is so low, it kinda breeds click fraud.

Well, you could go the direct route and just use BitBet's referral system.

[xchrix]

guys i have started a project on ltc-global to get some funding for buying the whole coinurl project and bring it back to live
please have a look here

http://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,1067.0.html
https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/COINURL-UPAGAIN