Imagine having an additional source of funds to help your church. On top of that, imagine you don't even have to do anything once it's set up in order to receive a check each month. You could do this by adding text or banner ads to your church's website which could bring in money that could be used to help pay bills, fund programs and more. Even though you can earn money on your website with little work, it's not worth it! In fact some of you are probably wondering what church would have ads on it's website. Well, I've seen several before, but I won't mention names.
There are several reasons you don't want to have ads on your site:
Displaying ads on your website detracts from the purpose and intent of your site. In fact many people might think the ads are for services or items from your church, which leads to the next point.
Even though you can control the categories or types of ads on your site with most services, you can still have problems with ads that are not suitable for churches or that might promote different views or opinions than your church.
The revenue generated by the ads won't be anything substantial unless you have a significant portion of your congregation visiting your site several times a month.
A general rule of mine is that a business that does not make a majority of it's income from ads, should not have ads. Many website that I read are funded by almost completely by ads, which in this case I think is a good solution for both parties. However sites like Amazon.com and Buy.com shouldn't have ads on their site.
Also, some hosting providers will provide free hosting if they can display ads on your website. While this was more practical and common back in the 90's (remember using Angelfire?), now it's very cheap and easy to create and host a site. This free hosting scenario isn't worth the payoff either and runs into the same problems listed above.
This is just one of several things that don't belong on a church website. If you want more ideas or guidance about what should be on a church website check out this article and this blog post.
What's the most ridiculous thing you've seen on a church website?
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