I was skeptical about some of these fantastic claims about Xomba. However, I'm really trying to make a full time living from my online writing, so I decided to look into Xomba.com and find out what it was all about. Could Xomba really provide me with that elusive full time writing income I've been hoping for?
Getting Started With Xomba
Full of optimism, I decided to give Xomba.com a chance and signed up for an account with the site. Xomba is a revenue sharing site that is a bit different in its approach than Triond or Associated Content. In order to participate in Xomba, you must have a Google Adsense account (which is relatively easy to obtain.) Sign up for Google Adsense at the website www.google.com/adsense, or register for a new account through Xomba (I already had a Google Adsense account through my blog on Blogger.com.)
Once you are approved by Google Adsense and you have your Adsense account number, you then insert it in your Xomba account. Google ads are then placed on all your writings on Xomba, and you share in the ad revenues whenever someone clicks on an ad that is shown on your Xomba articles.
Excited by the prospect of earning big bucks with Google Adsense, I went to work on Xomba. In fact, I was initially so excited by the thought of earning money with Xomba.com, that I planned to focus a lot of my attention there, and cut back on my article writing for Triond and Associated Content.
I think that was a big mistake, because my experience with Xomba has been hugely disappointing so far. I definitely prefer Associated Content, and especially Triond, to writing for Xomba.
My Experience with Xomba
There are two types of content that can be posted on Xomba.com. According to Xomba, "Xombytes" are magazine type articles of 100 words or more. In my experience, lots of Xombytes aren't 100 words in length and are just excuses to post links to other websites, or the author's own products. "Xomblurbs" are used for social bookmarking purposes; a Xomblurb is a link to an interesting website, blog, photo, or news story, with a brief description of the link and no minimum word count for that description.
I'm heading into my second week on Xomba, and I've posted one Xombyte (article) and some Xomblurbs. Each day I eagerly log into my Google Adsense account, and I've had lots of page views, but only one click. That one click has earned me a grand total of four cents so far! It's very frustrating to see my work on Xomba getting page views, and not earning any income on the page views like I would on Associated Content or Triond.
Xomba made a serious mistake in my user profile that will probably drag down my page views and my potential to earn money from those valuable clicks on ads. I noticed on my Xomba profile that my Xombytes are not visible from that page. When someone visits my profile and wants to click on my Xombytes to read more, they are taken to the Xomba homepage. There is no link to my Xombytes from my user profile.
I contacted technical support and they responded that it definitely was an error, and it was being sent to "a programmer to take a look at it." Meanwhile, I'm losing potential revenue, as Xomba readers can't find any of my Xombytes from my profile page. To me, this is a serious error, one I've never had on any other website I write for. As I write this, Xomba has still not corrected the error on my profile.
Some Xomba members have literally thousands of Xomblurbs that they've posted to the site. If you are going to give Xomba a try and hope to earn big dollars there, then posting tons of Xomblurbs or Xombytes is the way to do it. Also, consider writing Xombytes and Xomblurbs that contain popular tags; those are the hot topics that people are searching for on Xomba.
Getting your Xomba work out there through social bookmarking, and building traffic to Xomba articles should also increase your revenues. In order to earn money on Xomba, you must drive a lot of traffic to your Xombytes and Xomblurbs, and hope that your visitors will also click on some Google ads. Xomba itself will not pay for any page views to your articles, and revenue is only earned directly through Google Adsense. So it's conceivable that you could work really hard on Xomba and write a lot, and not see a dime unless you get clicks on some ads. That has definitely been my experience with Xomba.
Until the error with my account is straightened out, I'm not writing any more Xombyte articles. I'd rather write articles for Triond and Associated Content. I may post some Xomblurbs now and then, to see if I'll earn some revenue from ad clicks, but I don't see myself writing many articles for the site.
So that's my experience so far with Xomba. I much prefer the slow and steady money making that occurs with Triond and Associated Content, than I do the gamble on earning big bucks with Xomba that doesn't seem to be working for me. While I'm willing to give Xomba a chance to correct the error in my profile, and I'm probably going to continue with them, I'll definitely be focusing most of my future money making efforts on writing for Associated Content and Triond.
Published by Allison West
I'm an actor and writer living and working in New York State's beautiful Hudson River Valley. My writing specialties include: arts and culture, travel, health and wellness, animals and nonprofits, and green... View profile
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- Blogging for Cash!Xomba.com is an online community of people who like to write. SIgn up and start blogging. Once you start writing, you can start making money!
- My Writing Plan for Summer 2009Here is my writing plan for summer 2009, and how I hope to significantly increase my revenues as a web writer this season.
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10 Comments
Post a CommentI was researching Xomba and came across your article. Just as I was getting ready to comment, I saw your comment below. I'm going to read it now.
I haven't checked them out yet but I have heard good and bad about them.
I have since updated my review of Xomba with two more favorable articles about writing for the site. To read more, see my recent AC articles Writing for Xomba: An Update and Writing for Xomba: My First Adsense Check. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1457849/writing_for_xomba_an_update.html?cat=3
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1457967/writing_for_xomba_my_first_adsense.html?cat=3
Can you write an article about Triond for me? I would love to learn more about that site...I have written for them a few times and i need to learn the tricks of the trade. How about steady...lol
Thank you, this really explains how Xomba works...I too am a writer on AC and I figure slow and stedy wins the race!
I prefer xomba to AC - better community, easier to use, better pay out.
Love ya
wHATUP
bah.
Sorry to read about your efforts being not appreciated. I have read some of yours on Triond and am an avid subscriber to you here now too. I am goodselfme on triond .thank you for the info on Xomba. Roberta B.
Thanks Curtis! You have to make $100 at Google AdSense to receive a payout, that seems like a far away goal for me at this point. AdSense then sends a check when you make your first $100. I like getting payments for page view earnings right into my PayPal account, like I do at Triond and Associated Content. So far my earnings for October have been about $6 on Xomba, I've got a long way to go to reach a payout!
Google Adsense is pathetic. With my blog: thestealthvandweller.blogspot.com which is being viewed by about 100 people a day has earned a whopping $20 in the past year. By submitting my blog entry's to AC I not only receive a good healthy upfront payment, I get PPV for every page of my blog that my readers hit. Google analytics confirms that many of my readers are hitting up to 20 pages a session. Much better return for my effort.