Changes to Infobarrel

Infobarrel has made changes to how you can make money writing for them, effective as of yesterday.  Previously, when writing for Infobarrel, you were not paid directly by Infobarrel, but rahter inserting your Adsense, Chitika, and Amazon Associates IDs into your account.  Your affiliate IDs were then shown anywhere from 75-90% of the time depending upon participation on the site.

Infobarrel has now changed the system where you can be paid directly by Infobarrel.  Infobarrel has gotten rid of Chitika entirely as well as an Amazon banner on the side.  (Writer can still incorporate Amazon elements into their articles.)  Writers will now make money through two tiers of ads on the site.  I believe Tier 1 is Adsense and Tier 2 is Chitika, Amazon, and similar ads that they get on the site.  Existing members have the option of keeping their Adsense IDs on the site as it was before.

The plus of using the Infobarrel payments system is that payout will be $50 from Infobarrel via Paypal rather than Adsense's $100.  Therefore, writers can reach payout faster.  Infobarrel also hopes that they will be able to get higher quality ads which will mean higher revenue for everyone. Revenue share will be split with the same percentages previously used.

I have decided to switch to the new program and while there will be a few hiccups for me.  Some minor (changing the formatting of the spreadsheet that I used to track my monthly earnings) and some not so minor (being stuck below minimum payout at Chitika and Adsense), I will find ways to deal with it.  With Adsense, Infobarrel was my biggest source of Adsense earnings and what was really pushing me towards reaching payout.  My other sources of Adsense earnings: Triond, Hubpages, Wizzley, and personal blogs, are minor by comparison.  I will have to amp up writing for these sources and promoting them in hopes that I can get Adsense payout at least once per year.   On Chitika, Infobarrel is the only place I use Chitika and the earnings there are fairly low.  My current balance is around $7.50 and their payout is $10.  I hate to lose that money.  I might have to incorporate Chitika ads here and on some of my other blogs in hopes of reaching the minimum and then I can either close my Chitika account and take the ads off or if they are some what successful, leave them on.

I will report back to see how the new payment system goes and I do have the option of switching back if I wish (although Chitka ads are definitely gone for good).  I imagine I won't want to leave earnings sitting with Infobarrel, so I'll probably stick with it unless it's an utter disaster.