Summary: Highlighted posts are similar to banner adverts, but their content related nature makes them much more effective when used properly.
The highlighted posts from sponsors method is a relatively new approach to monetising websites. It is based on the approach of eBay, where people can pay extra to have their items highlighted in lists of items for sale, thus making it more likely people will buy them. It is similarly implemented in Google, in the “Sponsored Links” section on the right of the website. It can be applied in different ways for different websites. For information based websites such as blogs, highlighted posts can be included in the general blog stream, so they appear in the middle of all other posts. For aggregator and search based websites, highlighted sponsor posts can be placed in a different column. For example, in the new aggregation site www.techmeme.com, aggregated technology news results are displayed in one column, with highlighted posts appearing on the right under the heading “Techmeme Sponsor Posts”.
Implementing this on a website can be preferable to the standard banner and column adverts, as people are more likely to click on a link that appears to contain content, rather than one which is obviously an advert. However, care must be taken to ensure that the sponsor posts are separated from the non sponsored posts; otherwise visitors may become confused and feel misled. Google generated significant controversy when it included its sponsor links in the main list of results, even when they were highlighted, and felt it had to move them into a separate column to avoid damaging its brand. Also, some effort must be made to ensure that the sponsor posts are relevant to the non sponsored content, or the search terms used for aggregator sites, otherwise the sponsor posts will not receive many clicks, and the sponsorship will probably be lost. Indeed, if trying to implement this on a website, it is best to send the clicks to a redirection page before they reach the sponsor post, to show just how many people are clicking on the link and hence to justify its value.
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