Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love, article.
Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue.
My arguments against that are:
1) So maybe some sites get paid per impression, not per click. But if advertisers won't keep paying if nobody is clicking.
2) Irritating your readers is not good business.
3) Text ads work well, because they can inform and give a choice.
4) Animated ads? Really? If the web could do it, would you also hit me over the head? It would get my attention.
I don't visit Ars Technica often, I'm not aware of what kinds of ads it use. But I know that when I turn off my ad-blocker, some sites just drive me nuts, and drive me out very fast. You just can't read when things are blinking in your face.
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(Eleven posts today! Duuuuude. Too much?)
My heart bleeds for those guys.
ReplyDeleteI recall one of my favorite sites had an ad which expanded and moved all the content on the page down. When I clicked to watch a video I accidentally clicked the ad instead and I spent the next five seconds figuring out what happened, clicking out of the new tab, and going where I wanted to go in the first place.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fairly minor thing all told but extremely annoying, perhaps borderline deceptive. If you've got to go that far to sell your product I won't buy.
I don't use an ad blocker, but as a consequence I just give up on many sites, that are infuriatingly long to load... and sometimes cause my navigator to crash! Today I pay my ADSL internet by data volume (or, more aptly, I'm limited to an average of 100MB/day, otherwise I have to renew my monthly subscription earlier.) Before that, my dial-up was billed on a connection time basis, which ALSO meant that any needless and lengthy loading ads would cost ME money. Nu-unh, forget my visiting!
ReplyDeleteOur main national french-language online newspaper uses a method which I especially resent: while reading an article, I notice that regularly, the page is loading something. Auto-refresh ads, consuming MY bandwidth!
And yet, they charge you if you want access to their archives. ON TOP of the constant ads.
As Josie would say, "my heart FARTS for those guys."
A great many sites manage to have A LOT of ads which altogether use very little data volume and don't interfere with your browsing and viewing. Tiny image tags, usually GIFs, but at worst with very brief animation. A word to the wise webmasters...
I notice that the sole "advertising" on Domai is a very recent tiny line mentioning GoddessNudes.com
And yet, persistent rumor has it that the webmaster is making quite a comfy living, with a lot of free stuff on both sites, serving as the best self-advertising. Odd, hunh? ;-p
OK, I think that's enough ranting for one day. I don't feel in such a sour mood, anyway. Let's see what else I've missed on this blog these last few days. Hopefully something fun! :-)
P.S.: Sometimes, when I do want the whole of a several page article on an ad-laden news site, I just right-click "save target as" to download only the page code, which I then read in offline mode.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes, I have to resort to technical tricks because of disabled right-clicking codes.
Reminds me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
Just as well. This way I keep my fingers clean. ;-)
Yes, I've never had advertising on any of my sites.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, they ruin the design.
Also, as an early adviser said to me: If I can sell for others, why not for myself?
Well guys, seeing as we're talking advertising, could I get any of you to visit my website (click on my name above) and tell me if the advertising annoys you?
ReplyDeleteI need to see this issue from both sides. I don't enjoy heavy-handed advertising on websites I visit, but I do understand advertising has to be there. I want the advertising on my site to be noticeable (obviously, that's the point), but not get in the way nor annoy my readers.
All comments welcome :-)
I visited your site once to read that -excellent- advice article about how to make GREAT photos.
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of ads I like to see: silent, small image and file size, no weird codes...
Annoyance rate: close to zero. (I'm keeping that "perfect zero" grade for "absolutely no ads", in order to be fair. :-)
Your site is one of those I wouldn't have minded visiting even in the days of my slow dial-up internet. It feels... well behaved, advertising-wise! :-)
Thanks, Pascal. A page with ads can only tend to zero annoyance asymptotically, but I'm glad if mine is at least way to the right of the graph :-)
ReplyDelete