Ad Disclosure

Edited March 13, 2012

Currently, most of the advertising that used to be on the site is being removed. But for what little advertising remains, the following is the site advertising disclosure policy.

Statistics

The whole site gets about 300,000 +- hits per month.

The alexa rank is hovering around 325,000 – for the most part because robots were denied access to the site while the site was being redesigned this past winter. Now that robots can spider the site again as of February 2012, our ranking number is slowly but steadily returning to our normal, which is under 200,000.

On twitter, @artistatlarge is on over 500 lists and has over 2500 twitter followers that consist of travelers, artists, techies, galleries, museums, and friends.

We no longer have a site Facebook page. All posts to the site get pushed to twitter and site members are responsible for pushing their links to Facebook.

There is only one person working on the site at the moment. The site has been online, and growing, since September 4, 2000. We’re in it for the long haul. Need more information? Email us!

FTC Guidelines

… The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims. …

How We Use Advertising

For a long time there was no advertising on artist-at-large. We thought of ourselves as more of a content site rather than a trip planning site. But circumstances led to a need for placing art, travel, and culture related advertising on the site in order to pay for things, like rent and web-hosting bills. The site has become a full-time commitment for the founder, and while advertising might be a viable path to take for some, it isn’t for us. Our experiments with putting ads on the site became a distraction from what we really wanted to be – a community driven site. Although there are still a few banner ads, text links, and google AdSense ads on the site, for the most part, the site is completely supported by its paying member subscription base.

If we review a product of any kind, it is because we have purchased it, liked it (or really hated it), and wanted to tip off our readers to something wonderful (or not). If we happen to have an affiliate relationship with someone who provides the product, we will of course add that affiliate link to the review or post. It may or may not be the vendor we bought the product from.

In the future, if a vendor would like to offer us a free-something in exchange for a review, that could probably happen. But it will also be noted in the review that the product was sent to us free of charge.

We do not return test products.

Stories from press trips are noted where needed.

Whatever the case, our reviews are our honest opinions and we are not shills or PR people. We are interested in giving our readers quality information on quality products.

How google AdSense works

Note: We are no longer using google AdSense blocks on the site. Keeping this bit here for historical reference.

If you see a google AdSense text ad block on a page, and click on it, it brings money to artist-at-large. How much depends on how much the advertiser is willing to pay for their space on our site. Sometimes it is only a few pennies per click. Other times it is a few dollars. google keeps some, and artist-at-large gets a percentage. It is not wise to click on these ads unless it is something that really interests you. artist-at-large can be penalized and dropped from the program for false clicks.

Affilate Partners

Affiliate partners are those companies who pay us a percentage of an actual sale that is made when clicking through an affiliate link on our site. The affiliate partners are represented by banner ads but moreso by text links, for the most part, on the Travel Resources page.

If you click through an affiliate’s banner ad or text link, the affiliate will place a cookie on your computer. If you make a purchase anytime within a designated time period from first clicking on the link (in some cases it is 24 hours, or ten days, but it could be as many as thirty or forty-five days), artist-at-large receives a small percentage of the sale.

Some of the art images that we use to illustrate informational articles on museums or artists, and our Art History cultural posts, are obtained from our affiliation with art.com and allposters.com. The Mad Men poster on this page is one. Clicking through those images, or the links at the bottom of the posts will take you to the product page on the affiliate site.

Affiliate links will sometimes contain advertising or PR text as part of the link.

You can find most of our partners on the Travel Resources page.

Third Party Services Offered Through artist-at-large

We use blurb.com to produce our photographic books. We set the prices for the books, which in turn sets the profit we receive from each sale. Which is about ten percent of the purchase price.

We have site swag available at CafePress. Here too, we only receive a very small percentage of the total sale price.

Disclaimer

artist-at-large is not responsible for any actions taken by its readers, nor is it responsible for anything that happens to its readers while they are traveling, such as: loss of property, theft, sickness, and/or injury to self or others. artist-at-large.com is not responsible or liable for the products bought and sold through any Affiliate/Sponsor/Partner of artist-at-large.

Image at left: Mad Men