window xp widgets: How to Remove WordPress.com Ads From Your WordPress.com Blog

How to Remove WordPress.com Ads From Your WordPress.com Blog
Matt Mullenweg has just announced that you can go “ad-free” on your WordPress.com blog. While you may have never noticed, those who are not logged into WordPress.com will see ads on blogs across the WordPress.com network. two years ago, WordPress.com started experimenting with Google ads to help support the cost of the experimental and state-of-the-art multiple [...]

Matt Mullenweg has just announced that you can go “ad-free” on your WordPress.com blog.

While you may have never noticed, those who are not logged into WordPress.com will see ads on blogs across the WordPress.com network. two years ago, WordPress.com started experimenting with Google ads to help support the cost of the experimental and state-of-the-art multiple user free blog service. The intent was not to cover your blogs with ads, like many free blogging services do, but to show an occasional ad discretely within your WordPress Theme.

Since few complained or noticed, the experiment continued, helping to keep WordPress.com free and add a lot of free features that might have been paid upgrades.

These ads were so rare, I never saw them. So I forgot about them. I’ve written a lot about the WordPress.com Terms of Service policy that prohibits adding ads to your WordPress.com blogs, so I was dismayed a few months ago when I got a few emails accusing me of special favors from WordPress.com because I had ads on my blog. They were seeing the WordPress.com experimental ads. Unfortunately, one of the ads was - shall we say - inappropriate, a problem many have with Google’s ad program.

Still, this bothered me. I talked to the WordPress team about this and they agreed that users should have the right to determine whether or not to have WordPress.com ads on their blogs. As Matt explains:

At the same time it’s easy to imagine blogs that would never want ads on them: businesses, startups, non-profits, political activist sites, the list goes on. Google Adsense analyzes the content to show contextually relevant ads, but that might mean a link to a competitor. Because of this we’ve introduced a premium option that gives you control: the No-ads upgrade.

They’ve been working on this new feature for a while, trying to come up with a secure and affordable way for users to continue to support WordPress.com by permitting ads on their blogs, while allowing those with sensitive or special interests to not host ads. They’ve finally done it, and I applaud their foresight and integrity.

Removing Ads from Your WordPress.com Blog

Before you start jumping to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, remember that those ads, most of which you will rarely ever see, help bring in income to keep WordPress.com going. If they don’t bother you or your readers, leave them alone. Why not?

You are using one of the most powerful, state-of-the-art blogging platforms, a service that will survive the Digg-effect and high traffic surges without charging you; a service that keeps bringing you options and features without charge; a service that gives you a platform upon which to express yourself proudly - and is incredibly SEO friendly. Why not help them continue to keep this service free for everyone?

If you do feel a compelling need to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, go to Upgrades.

WordPress.com Upgrades Panel

Scroll down to No-ads and select the option.

Select no-ads to turn off ads on your WordPress.com blog

The cost to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog is 30 credits annually (USD $30 if you haven’t earned any credits) which comes to eight cents a day.

Whether you keep or remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, why not take a little time to give back to WordPress.com and other WordPress.com users by browsing the WordPress blog network and get to know your fellow WordPress.com members. You can use the Random Post feature in the gray dashboard bar at the top of your WordPress.com blog when you are logged in, or visit the WordPress.com Blogs of the Day which lists the most popular blogs by language, or the WordPress.com Tags list.

If you are familiar with how WordPress.com works, then why not help out in the WordPress.com forums and get to know the volunteers and staff there as well as your other fellow WordPress.com members. It’s a simple way to say thank you for this powerful free blog service.

I Want to Put Ads on My WordPress.com Blog

A lot of WordPress.com bloggers want to put ads on their blogs to make money for themselves. While some free blog hosts permit that, don’t forget that WordPress.com is also a testing site for many of the latest features of WordPress development.

While the world has to wait for the release of WordPress 2.7, WordPress.com users are already using the new sticky post feature and will soon be playing with other new features as part of the new WordPress Administration interface redesign, a continuation of user interface improvements from the previous version of WordPress - long before anyone else.

This means that WordPress.com has to stay clean of code that will screw up not just one blog but all the blogs on the WordPress.com network powered by WordPressMU. While most ad code is harmless, opening up WordPress.com to Javascript and other code languages opens the door up to malicious code, too. It’s a security risk WordPress.com isn’t willing to take, and I support that policy.

If you want to monetize your blog, get the free version of WordPress and pay for cheap hosting. Some hosts are offering web hosting for under USD $10 a month. With the full version of WordPress, you can not only add ads, but customize the whole look, add all kinds of cool WordPress Plugins, and really tweak your whole site to maximize its revenue potential.

WordPress.com has always been about blogging, about freedom of expression and creativity. It’s not about the code. It’s about the words. WordPress.com is working overtime to make sure we have a place to share our words with others around the world - no holds barred.