If you are one of those people who blog using WordPress.com, there’s a good news for you. You can now monetize your WordPress.com blog by applying for WordAds advertising program!

As most of us know, WordPress.com provides free blogs like yourname.wordpress.com, but with advertising restrictions to monetize these blogs, i.e. you can’t use programs like AdSense, Chitika, Infolinks etc. without meeting the requirements mentioned in WordPress.com Advertising Policy.

monetize wordpress blog wordads

Coming back to the point, WordPress.com has teamed up with Automattic and Federated Media Publishing to create WordAds, which lets bloggers earn money through advertising on their blogs. It is an optional opportunity for WordPress.com bloggers. Only “publicly visible” blogs with custom domains (TLDs) will be eligible for WordAds program. WordPress.com also quoted that blogs will be chosen on the basis of amount of traffic and engagement, the type of content and the language used. They also cautioned – “Some blogs may not be accepted.”

WordPress.com created curiosity on WordAds launch by rolling out it’s answer to Google AdSense:

We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.

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WordPress.com itself has used Google AdSense on it’s blogs for a long time to monetize. I think the above unnecessary swipe is made for seeking attention only. Every web monetizing program needs traffic and time, and still many AdSense publishers are making good money. So, that is totally a ridiculous statement on AdSense.

According to Andrew Watson, the advent of WordAds has raised few noteworthy, “yet to be answered” questions:

  1. What will the terms be? How much of the ad revenue will go to the blogger?
  2. Will WordAds replace AdSense on WordPress.com?
  3. Will there be a plugin to allow self-hosted WordPress blogs to run WordAds?
  4. Will it be possible to run WordAds on non-WordPress sites?

Sign up for WordAds »

So, are you going to sign up for WordAds? Or have more things to tell or ask? Let me know.