[nubbles526]

Has Hard-Light made any money from the google-ads? If so, how much? And who keeps the money?

[Dark RevenantX]

Most likely, yes.  And most likely for Kalfireth.

[Nuke]

i very much doubt the money is kept for very long, its probably all spent on keeping the site up and running.

[Goober5000]

The money is spent exclusively on hosting.  When we have a surplus of revenue, we save it.  When we have a deficit, we dip into our savings.  Absolutely none of the money is ever given to any of the HLP admins.

[karajorma]

That's what they say but I reckon it's only so they don't take a pay cut now me and Tolwyn have joined.


Seriously though running HLP is fairly expensive. Generating false clicks won't help (Google take a dim view of that) but donations will.

[Polpolion]

How exactly can Google tell what is a false click as opposed to a normal click?

[achtung]

How exactly can Google tell what is a false click as opposed to a normal click?

Multiple clicks from the same IP address.

[WMCoolmon]

Google already knows all about you, anyway.

[Polpolion]

 

[nubbles526]

We better behave, otherwise we would end up as HC. Google got pretty pissed at them.

we dip into our savings

Our? Who are you talking about? (Probably there isn't a 'our', but only goob. Should change it to

we dip into my savings

[Fineus]

Actually I don't see any of the money, though I sure as hell wouldn't complain

As Goob says though, HLP has its own financial set up - it doesn't belong to any one person - it's HLPs entirely. No one person has ever profited, it all goes to the website.

[Goober5000]

Yes.  "Our savings" means HLP's savings.  If HLP earns excess money, it goes to HLP's account.  Not to any one person's.

[Bobboau]

HLP has run a surplus?!

[Mefustae]

HLP has run a surplus?!

Not really. When a surplus is recorded, all funds are channeled into the HLP Hidden Volcano Fortress account. It's slow going, but the Base should be operational by the year 3000.

[Goober5000]

When BTRL was released, the burst of activity ran up a surplus.  We've been slowly using that up over the course of the year.

[colecampbell666]

I'd like to see what happens when BtRL full is released.

[Polpolion]

Not as much as when the full WCS campaign will be released, because WCS is actually hosted here.

[Goober5000]

Since Game Warden and HLP are hosted on the same server, that doesn't really matter.

[Polpolion]

Phooey. So us and GW have the same fund, not a "you get half and I'll get half" thing?

[Nuke]

why bother running them as separate sites at all? wouldn't it be easier on the server to merge the forums and hosting accounts into hard light?