As an advertiser it must be frustrating believing you're getting what you've paid for and trusting others to deliver that service for you.

From a publisher's point of view, and using Annie's comment above too, how are you supposed to know who to contact? You contact the company you're dealing with, TLA. They don't make it easy to remove a site from your inventory, so I presume you have to contact them. But that's the best you can do.

I certainly wouldn't be impressed to discover that a publisher had contacted my client to inform them that the link I had purchase on their behalf was now being removed. Just as I wouldn't be impressed if my hosting company contacted my clients who I resell hosting to. Just because you have a domain purchase a link on your site doesn't necessarily mean the domain owner is responsible for the purchase of the link. This is why Text Link Ads take 50% of your sale, to cover the admin, the service etc. and to cover dealing with issues when they arise such as this one.

The main person/people at fault here is the service provider, Text Link Ads. They failed to inform at least one if not all of the advertisers that their advert had been cancelled off the site.

Of course, in this situation Mark was aware of one of the advertisers (ie. Kevin), but clearly it's just a difference of opinion on what to do and how to proceed. I've never contacted the few advertisers I have, it's never even crossed my mind to! But as I mentioned, without definitely knowing who is responsible for the advert link purchase, perhaps simply emailing the site owner isn't necessarily a good idea.

It was his decision, and it was a bad one on his part. Not establishing good relationships with your readers, advertisers, and everyone in contact with you does damage for your blog. By reading Mark's comments, he portrays himself as very untrustworthy and acts as if he doesn't care if he gives his advertisers what they pay for or not.

Just sharing my opinions here. I'm on your side, Kevin, but I won't go against Mark even though I completely disagree with him. Hopefully he'll learn to treat people with more respect in the future. If he doesn't, he'll never get that respect back in return.

Chad – You bring up a very good point which has not been mentioned up until now ie. the fact TLA has not informed me of this and the fact it looks like they wont either. Perhaps I would not have brought it up on Marks site had I received an email from TLA about it.

I think this is illustrated by the fact that TLA has no idea why the ads are no longer there. Sure, they can tell that they aren't working, but did the site go down because of a power outage, or was the blog software changed, or did the resdesign mean something was left out inadvertently? They have no way of knowing that it was an intentional removal.

While TLA is selling the ads, they are doing so at the behest of the publisher – Mark in this case – and if asked, they are going to point the finger at him. It's best all around if he either waits to the end of the period or lets everyone know.

I suppose the links were paid for the month of September so launching the new design at the beginning of the next advertisement period (in October) would have had the same effect but without making any of the advertisers feel cheated.

Thanks for doing a post on this subject. I'm actually in this situation now on one of my blogs where I'd like to axe Text Link Ads as the middle man and sell links directly to advertisers.

The obvious way to go would be to contact the people who are advertising on my site now (through TLA) and see if they'd be interesting continued at a reduced rate (since I could charge less with no middle man), but TLA doesn't make the advertiser information available to the publisher, as far as I know.

In some cases, you can just go to the website and talk to the person, but I suspect some of the links currently on my site are there through SEO companies, but who knows which ones?

Anyway, it's a bit of a dilemma to be mulled through. I appreciate your input on the problem from the advertiser's point of view.

But two things stick in my mind … the first is,

Do you want to have a relationship with yur advertisers, or not? Either way would be a valid practice, but if you don't want a one-on-one relationship and a misunderstanding flares up in your comments section, just delete the comment and refer things to the third-party. don't make anon-personal issue personal and public.

Second, the more I re-read Mark's uncalled for dismissive comment re: not wanting partners who only spend $15 the nastier it sounds. I have a couple hundred dollars earmarked for advertising a blog I want to build up and have been building a list of potential "spends". I am a "samll-timer" and my individual ad buys wil be "small-time". Can anyone guess which blogger or bloggers I probably won't "burden" with any of these "nickel-dime" ad spends?

You really can get an education online.

Obviously I didnt want to give the impression that I was saying I was right because I made more money or whatever. The only reason I mentioned money was because Mark said that it was only $15. My point was that it was not about the money, I was trying to put it into perspective that the price of the link didnt matter to me, it was the fact the ad was removed without my knowledge.

It was a throwaway comment I said at the time because Mark was implying that I shouldnt make a fuss about the ad being removed because it was only $15.

Mike – I understand people not wanting to read quote after quote but it was difficult to explain my view and Marks without repeating them in the post

The one aspect of this I don't like is bringing your personal earnings into it. It stinks of the "I'm right because I earn more than you" style of argument (whether it be true or not). If the amount you paid for the link is irrelevant, then the amount you spend on advertising over the month is also irrelevant. If money is irrelevant, it's irrelevant regardless of whether it supports your argument or not, you can't pick and choose.

Anyways, notifying via email would be a nice gesture. Although, I'm not sure where to even find that info on the text links I have up on my two blogs.

I think it would bother me too if my paid link just disappeared after I paid for it. But I would have conducted the exchange through email and not in comments, although controversy makes for interesting reading. I also would have contacted TLA for a return or credit toward another link.