Blog and Business models

While the great majority of blogs are non-commercial, full-time bloggers have struggled to find a way to make a profit from their work. The most common and simplest method is to accept targeted banner advertising. However, some bloggers have been hesitant to use this because of negative reader response to the ads. A more discreet form of advertising is for bloggers to promote merchandise from other sites, receiving a commission when a customer buys the item after following a blog link.

Others have tried a click-to-donate model. Prominent political blogger Andrew Sullivan claimed at one point that accepting voluntary donations to his blog was more lucrative than his magazine work for The New Republic. Following the practice of public television, Sullivan boosted donations with periodic "pledge drives," one of which was reported to net him $120,000. Sullivan's attempt at securing corporate sponsorship for his blog fell apart after strong negative reader response to the deal.

No other high-profile blogger has accepted a single corporate sponsor since Sullivan's failed deal. However, In the early twenty-first century, many magazines and newspapers began sponsoring personal blogs by their employees. The business model in this case is essentially the same as that of a traditional newspaper columnist. In a creative extension of the model, employees at other media companies began blogs focusing on the companies' products. For example, many actors in pornography blog about their work on company sites, creating a sense of personal connection between consumer and product.

Fairly new, and highly controversial, is the pay-per-blog model, in which the blogger writes a set number of words on a topic (usually a web page or product) provided by an advertiser. The post always includes at least one link to a web site relevant to the topic, as a way of creating "buzz" and helping the advertised page's rank in search engines. In return, the blogger receives a small amount of money, usually no more than 10 US dollars.

The reason for the controversy is that many bloggers do not reveal to their readers that they are being paid for a given post, leading to the impression that they are sincerely endorsing the product or service when in fact they're acting as writers of ad copy. In response, many bloggers denounce the practice of paid posting as "facilitating the pollution of the blogosphere" and even "evil". Others claim that there is no ethical problem as long as the blogger discloses that he or she is being paid. This dispute seems unlikely to be resolved in the forseeable future.