A Single Article

Get a Trackback link

1. Giles November 20, 2005

   As far as I know, Adblock won’t block text-based ads, except those that are in their own iFrame. It’s built for blocking pictures and iFrames. There are lots of text-based ads that I can’t block with it.

   On the subject of “is it stealing”, I would answer “yes maybe”. But if the person is so adverse to your advertising that they want to get rid of it using an ad blocker, then there’s a rational argument to be made that they were never going to click any of your ads in the first place. Therefore an ad blocker isn’t depriving you of any ad revenue.

   I don’t think people feel “entitled to free everything”. I think piracy and hatred of advertising is a natural counter-reaction to the expectation that we should conform to the ‘consumer’ template. The feeling that society seems to hold that any and all spare income we have must be spent on consumer products and that we should automatically consent to being marketed to (think of the number of times you buy something and then find you have been sold adverts with it). I think web-ads just get caught in this crossfire.

2. C Montoya November 20, 2005

   I agree that people blocking my ads would probably not bother clicking on them anyway, but I’m curious as to how it affects my impressions. The amount of money I make from ads is calculated with some complicated algorithm that involves measuring the percentage of clicks, as well as the number, vs. ad impressions. If people are blocking the ads altogether, I’m guessing the total number of impressions goes down, and if that’s true, then my clicks are worth less… not good at all.

3. Ignat November 20, 2005

   While Text ads are an OK way to make a few extra bucks to get coffee and what not, I think blogads are the way to go. Unfortunately you need to have at least a 1000 readers to be even considered, if I’m right. Also, there is Adbrite and their text-based ads. I’m just saying that fortunately for us there are plenty of options to advertise on blogs/websites. I think that if you have great content, then there is nothing wrong with putting up some Adsense or any other form of advertising.

4. Aliver Griggs December 3, 2005

   Your article is so far too short sighted to be even be considered a fully fleshed out position on this topic. You fail to even discuss several facts:

   • Bandwidth cost money, too. Since this all comes down to dollars and cents to you, will you be reimbursing everyone on a metered connection for their bandwidth which gets consumed by allowing banner ads? It’s true that text-based ads take less bandwidth, but advertisers usually only “fall back” to text ads when their images are blocked (Google AdSense being a notable exception). Additionally a small amount of bandwidth on a dial-up connection can seem like a lot. Some Ad blockers work by blocking iframes or GIF files of a certain size. Others work by blocking domains like doubleclick.net. Filtering based on the content of the Ad would require a much more sophisticated Ad Blocker. Does anyone expect that your average Firefox user is going to hack AdBlock to do content filtering just so they can be “fair” to sites which are burgeoning with annoying, dangerous, or trite advertisements?
   • Many ads will install spyware given a chance.
   • Many ads are from dishonest individuals for the purpose of “phishing” so that they can trick a person into going to a mock-up of a site they trust like Amazon or Paypal. Text ads are not immune to this. Anyone who isn’t familiar with the ways to identify a phishing scam are at risk when they click a banner ad with the intention of buying something.
   • Many ads use “dirty tricks” with JavaScript or CSS that can crash your browser while attempting to redirect you.
   • Many ads will “hijack” you away from the site you are viewing. This is especially true while using IE with the default settings.
   • Nearly every Internet Advertising firm uses cookies to track their customer’s “hits”. Depending on the browser settings cookies can be a privacy risk since advertisers track users from site to site by using cookies and referrer logging.
   • The use of cookies and referrer logging provides advertisers with free marketing information about the browsing habits of the individuals who aren’t protected from the ads. It’s commonplace for these advertising firms to sell “market research” that they gather in this fashion. The value of such data can be immense. I don’t believe that advertisers and web site operators (sorry, you aren’t a “webmaster” IMO) have the right to make money off of their patrons in a way which doesn’t solicit their participation and violates their privacy.
   • Sites which have content worth paying for don’t need to advertise. Your site is mainly just low-quality photos and op-ed style blogs. It’s no small wonder that you’d need to resort to ads but the lack of valuable content on your site is no reason to call a portion of your visitors thieves.

   Do you really think that the risk, annoyance, and privacy-trashing externalized cost to your patrons is worth a few cents in your pocket? Sounds like hubris to me.

5. C Montoya December 3, 2005

   First of all, you sound very paranoid. You even entered a “nospam” e-mail address, as if I’m some kind of criminal who is going to sell your address. Who the heck uses websites that are full of obtrusive ads anyway? I’ve been using the web for years and I’ve never been “tricked” into a phishing scam because of an ad. Maybe you should disconnect your computer right now, you wouldn’t want Phishfoot or the Phishness Monster to eat you.

   And bandwidth costs money? Do you know how many users actually have metered bandwidth? About 0 out of 1000. I used my calculator and did some derivations, that comes out to 0%. Or nobody.

   As for ads that take advantage of IE, moot point. Adblock is for Firefox based browsers.

   Cookie blocking is another moot point. Cookie blocking and Adblock are not related. You can block cookies without blocking ads.

   This site does not have ads. My only sites that have ads are Liquid Designs and Color Your World, both being very useful sites for developers. You could disagree, but then you would have to argue with the hundreds of users who have given me good feedback. And thanks for saying that my site lacks valuable content, you’ve officially made it clear that you are a flamer.

   As for “sites worth paying for don’t have ads,” that’s not true at all. Go look around the web to “every site worth paying for.” Try search engines, web portals, webmail, blog networks, games, videos, forums, etc. They all have ads. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t exist. I’m sure they dislike Adblock too.

   And what is your definition of a webmaster?

   To sum it all up, it sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about. Everything you have said is unbased and you have all your facts confused. I might be shortsighted but at least I am not lost. At the very least you are saying to “throw the baby out with the bathwater. You lack experience with the web and don’t understand that everything on the web is supported by money, whether through advertising or user donations. You don’t even know how to make a comment; you enclosed your text in a blockquote and filled it with hard returns. I had to go in and fix it all. Please read up before replying. If you can’t make an argument without any idea of what you are talking about, then don’t talk at all.