Placing text ads on samiam.org or maradns.org

Every now and then, I get someone who sends me an email wanting to participate in a "link exchange program" or to pay me a little to place a text ad on one of my websites.

For example, about a year ago, during the worst of the recession, I had someone offer to pay me a little money to place a text ad up on maradns.org and samiam.org. The person insisted that the ad be permanent. I told him I wasn’t going to do that; he got agitated and I finally handled it by ignoring the person. Nothing is forever.

I finally have come up with a policy and pricing structure for these people (the price is, yes, a little high, but that is a case of giving invoice therapy):

The fee for a simple text-based ad on samiam.org is $50 per month. The fee for a simple text-based ad at maradns.org is $100 per month. This fee is paid by sending money to my PayPal account; the text ad will be placed after 100% of the first month's fee is paid. This fee is to be paid in full one week before the first day of the month when the text ad appears. The fee is not prorated; if you wish a text-based ad to be placed immediately, you must pay for the entire month.

Please allow up to seven calendar days for a given text ad request to be processed.

Multiple months can be paid for, but fractional months are not allowed (I would just pocket the extra money). There is a 10% discount if you pay for an entire year's worth of text-based ads.

Anyone willing to pay this fee will be listed as a sponsor on the MaraDNS list of sponsors for the foreseeable future; this listing will include the content of your text-based ad.

Simple text-based ads will be placed at the top of the content area of the "portal" page before my main content, and separated from my content with a <hr> HTML tag. Text based ads can include links, but the only other markup allowed is italics.

All text-based ads must be approved by me before being placed on my site; any changes to text-based ads are subject to prior approval. Text ads for pornography or advocating any illegal activity (as per US law) will not be accepted. Fees paid for rejected text ads are non-refundable.