One of the ways that website owners sometimes try to defray the costs of hosting and other overhead is to solicit donations from their readers. We are fortunate not to need to do that at SER (although I am sure Barry would be happy to accept), but this is a perfectly acceptable method of raising funds, in my opinion. I have sometimes wondered if this method works. As a matter of fact, in recent research for an upcoming conference, I came across a website that actually tried to use PayPal to accept donations but was shut down. This is a different story, however, since the website was soliciting donations in a manner that was somewhat questionable in taste. See that whole story at savetoby.com...

A thread at WebmasterWorld Forums from earlier this month asks a very interesting question:

Has anyone tried to make money with PayPal donations? And if yes, how do the earnings compare to AdSense earnings (same site, same traffic, etc..)?

The answers ranged from

I never received a penny with PayPal donations.

to

While donations are few and far between the value of each is at least an order of magnitude higher than an AdSense click.

Another member claims to make twice as much from donations as from AdSense.

This is an interesting subject. From the responses so far, I would compare AdSense to the slow turtle that beats the rabbit in the long race. Yet the average donation received by the people who spoke up seemed to be certainly worth it. Head on over to the WebMasterWorld Forums to vote for your income champion.

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