Forum Moderators: skibum
Unlike other media such as radio, TV, etc. we can actively sense when ads aren't being displayed on the web page which means we could prevent the content from displaying if the ads aren't displaying. The technology isn't that complicated to stop visitors with ad blockers from viewing the site and a simple technique could even be employed to detect the lack of javascript running.
I envision this freeload stopper showing an alternate page with something like:
"This web site uses modern web technologies and requires javascript to be enabled and banner blocking technology to be disabled."
The immediate worse case scenario I can see is some visitors which currently are non-revenue producing (no CPM ads, no CPC ads, nothing) are no longer permitted on the web site unless they permit ads to be displayed. Banning them would obviously have an impact on total web statistics of visitors/pages that some of us use for selling advertising but in reality these visitors weren't seeing those ads anyway so it's sort of a moot point except for marketing (aka bragging rights).
What do you think the repercussions would be to implement technology on a web site that would block visitors from viewing content if the surfer has AdSense blocked?
Would this possibly call undue attention to AdSense and provoke a invalid clicks by initially "blocked" visitors?
If you had the technology to block "freeloaders", would you use it?
[theregister.co.uk...]
I am COUNTING on Google to be developing a tech solution to this potential problem, and I suspect it would be replacing Javascript with some other sort of medium to embed their ads on publishers' web sites.
I could be wrong but I don't think they're working on it at all as they're making plenty of money as-is and they would have no way of knowing how many pages they are missing due to ad blockers as they are only aware of page impressions when their scripts actually execute.
The only solution I see is something implemented server side on the publishers machine, like an API used to download and display the ads as local page content since anything else from a 3rd party is easily defeated by the ad blockers.
There is NO WAY for the visitor to eliminate the ads if implemented in a similar manner,unless they want to bloack all the HTML, but then what would be left to look at?
Seriously, if you can truly imagine surfers following step-by-step instructions on how to disable their firewalls so that they can view website ads, then you have a more vivid imagination than I do.
Web sites that depend on advertising for revenue, like AdSense, seem to be at odds with freeloading surfers that use all the latest technology that blocks AdSense, affiliates and other ad technologies.
Arguably, Google is a creator of such technology (for popup blocking).
You might as well ask "how do I force my visitors to buy something that's advertised on my site, or pay to see content on my site?"
The marketplace will sort this out, one way or another. You might ponder why it is that lots of people will tune in to the Super Bowl just to see the ads. Maybe because the ads are compelling enough to look at? AdSense is no different. People will look at what they want to, when they want to.
There is NO WAY for the visitor to eliminate the ads if implemented in a similar manner,unless they want to bloack all the HTML, but then what would be left to look at?
They could, of course, not bother to visit the website any more.
Unless you have a site with unique, must-have content, people can always find somewhere else to get the information. The most successful websites will make the appropriate tradeoffs between monetization and maintaining the client base.
step-by-step instructions on how to disable their firewalls
We aren't talking about disabling firewalls, we're talking disabling ad blockers.
Just because Norton buried it in a firewall doesn't mean it should be there.
What about all the sites with flash? Tons of them and if you don't have flash installed you don't get to use that site. Most peopl install flash and do whatever to access those sites if they want to badly enough.
I'm just fed up, I'm at the point I honestly don't care if they can access the site or not if they aren't open to the complete content including all ads.
I'm just about ready to make it take it or leave it for a week or a month and see how it impacts my income and traffic.
If you had a business would you stop people who wander into your shop and just look around? They are using your power, wearing out your carpet wasting time with your staff.
Since when do people browsing get called "freeloaders", thats just an emotive term used to label people who hate adverts.
Heck if I knew your website I would avoid it merely because of your attitude to other web surfers. People are more than money in your pocket.
Maybe if its such an issue you need to get a real job instead of panicing so much over your adsence revenue.
Certianly if I encountered your site with the demands to unblock the adverts, I would not enter, there are many other websites on the net that I can use. Even if I DID obey your instructions, I would be reluctant to click on your adverts because of your demanding nature.
Maybe instead of getting upset over new technology you need to work more in increasing your visitor numbers. Technology will move on regardless of wether you like it or not.
Such an attitude towards advert stopping technology is antideluvian. I enjoy my income from adsense but at the same time use Firefoxes Adblock software. I consider myself to have the best of both worlds. It is unstoppable as a program as you can ban the root of the adserver.
As always new technologies will arise to meet the advertisers insatiable greed for revenue.
"Thirsty for more?
Me too. This site buys my beer.
If you want to keep reading, either click here to buy me a beer, or turn off your adblocker and let someone else buy the next round."
Or work a text based money link into as many pages as you can, and show only those pages to people with adblockers.
As far as calling them free loaders, this world is made up of givers and takers. Do you want to attract the givers or the takers? I've personally had to switch web hosts more than once because of bandwidth usage problems. If I had known that I could have saved forking out extra dough by banning "free loaders", I probably would have done so when the issue(switching to a more expensive host to meet bandwidth requirements) came up in the past.
But you're not paid for people viewing your ads, you are paid for people clicking on them. So why not ban anyone who lingers too long on the site, or anyone who clicks on your navigation? I mean they should have clicked an ad instead shouldn't they, the bunch of freeloaders? Why not dump the content altogether and just show the ads?
You don't do that because those are the rules of the game: you lower the barriers to entry, you try to get volume and targetted traffic, and you hope that you get enough licks to keep the wolf from the door. So instead of worrying about whether your AdSense is showing because Javascript is switched off,be a bit more inventive: why not try putting some affiliate links in a
<noscript>Adblockers are here to stay. If they were widespread, Google would be forced (and may be forced) to use something other than Javascript for ad delivery. Their profits show that adblocking is far from ubiquitous, don't you think?
Obl. disclaimer: I use an adblocker, but I block very few ads, and I don't block AdSense.
[edited by: encyclo at 1:13 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2005]
If you are going to come to the Pub or Restaurant and just sit there and enjoy your time without ordering anything - then better don't even come there. Make space for customers who actually bring revenue, value given services, appreciate usefulness of the site, and pay attention to what is actually offered to them. If you don't want to pay for services, but enjoy sitting in a Pub or a Restaurant for free, then I suggest you look for a free pub or a restaurant in which free meals and drinks will be served. But stay the heck away from quality places where you are actually expcted to contribute something.
The argument here is: If you are going to use my services, then pay me. This is a basic law of fairness that applies to all cultures.
If I spend 300 hours developing my website, I expect you to view my websites as it is - with flash, java and javascript enabled. By disabling these options, you are disrespecting my work, because you are blocking what you did not even see. Imagine going to an Art Gallery to watch art masterpieces with sunglases that automatically block all colors from the painting? What a horrible experience and disrespect for talented artists and painters! Why are you wasting your time in an Art Gallery if you don't even want to see the colors artists used in oil paintings? What a horrible disrespect and waste of time for everybody.
[edited by: Dantol at 1:13 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2005]
[edited by: Woz at 2:22 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2005]
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There is disaster in the making. If you choke off those visitors, you lose traffic. When you loses traffic, your rankings begin to drop, IF you are a marginal or weak site. When rankings drop, traffic drops, and rankings drop, and the Adsense earnings drop, because your traffic that does see the ads, is much, muchhhh less... and the circle of disaster spins away. You will want to think REALLY hard about that, before you jump.
More than 50% of all users on the web, have no idea at all what Java script is and no idea how to enanble it, or any idea why they should. They will just surf on and not come back. I see the only exception to this as a site targeted to techs, who definately know what java script is... (The same thing I do when I see pdf. It is so annoying, I will surf on to find a html file, within the search results.)
If...
They come to find something, I think the average visitor realizes it may well be found in the ad content on your site, and would want to see it. I know I would.
But you're not paid for people viewing your ads, you are paid for people clicking on them
You are dead wrong my friend. Some Google image ads pay per every 1000 impressions, others pay per click.
I had one image ad that paid me $5 per 1000 impressions. Now imagine, 1000 impressions from people who don't want to click on my ads, and I still made $5!
[edited by: Woz at 2:23 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2005]
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Oh what rubbish.
Yes, but it's a lively thread
If you had a business would you stop people who wander into your shop and just look around? They are using your power, wearing out your carpet wasting time with your staff.
AH HA! YOU MADE MY POINT FOR ME!
If I had a business people would be seeing what I had to SELL!
The freeloaders are like people that stop in at your restaurant and bring their own food yet use your napkins, condiments and toilet. They will NEVER see what I have to sell as they will NEVER turn on their ads!
Since when do people browsing get called "freeloaders", thats just an emotive term used to label people who hate adverts.
When they burn my bandwidth and don't give ANY of my adverts a glance.
I'm paying for these freeloaders to take all they want at my expense and I'm not that charitable overall. I don't care if they click or not, just give them the chance for a GLANCE, they are all ON TOPIC, nothing like "Click the Cockroach and win an IPOD!", none of that crap but have the decency to see it as I presented it.
If they don't like it they won't click it but at this point all the ad blockers NEVER see anything and NEVER give it a chance - just freeloaders of the 'net.
Heck if I knew your website I would avoid it merely because of your attitude to other web surfers. People are more than money in your pocket.
Give me you're IP, I'll save you the trouble and block it :)
Maybe if its such an issue you need to get a real job instead of panicing so much over your adsence revenue.
I'm not in a panic, I'm just sick of paying all the bandwidth (and my site burns a TON) without a bunch of them not even giving any of the adverts a chance.
I think you're right, I'll get a real job starting my new "UNBLOCK YOUR BLOCKER" product line for webmasters. Probably won't sell as well as the ad blockers, but it will be rewarding.
It's really just a balancing act... how compelling is your site and what are visitors willing to do in order to view it?
[Bill] does not hate freeloaders - he just does not want to do business with them.
Speaking of freeloaders, it sounds like you and Bill are still intending to chase that free search engine traffic. You may just discover that Google don't hate cloaking and other deceptive techniques, they just choose not to index sites that use them. Even if you don't use a technique likely to get caught by a Google audit, doing this will probably generate a number of search quality complaints from people who hit a brick wall when trying to access your sites.
[edited by: jomaxx at 4:01 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2005]
The freeloaders are like people that stop in at your restaurant and bring their own food yet use your napkins, condiments and toilet. They will NEVER see what I have to sell as they will NEVER turn on their ads!
Why not take this discussion to the Supporters Forum? :-)
I see this the same as blocking junk mail from my letter box, and blocking telemarketers from my phone.
Remember back just after the dot com crash there were predictions that news sites would become subscription only, some tried (salon.com?) and died, and there are a few, but they are very minor in the scheme of things and nothing much changed.
Then when the popup blockers came around there was a fuss over that with advertisers crying foul and making all sorts of threats. Nothng came of that either.
This is round 3 of the consumer war on the internet. I suspect advertisers will roll over and die here as well.
Certianly you have the right to block people from your site, but its a doomed effort, there are too many sources of information on the web. Your unique content is merely 6 months ahead of the next wave of websites, scrapers, and clones.
The best way to combat falling or stagant revenue is to build a better site.
Besides the people who are using the blockers are the nerd end of the spectrum, the mom and pop web surfers probably have never even heard of the tools. The nerd end are also, I suspect, the LEAST likely to click your adverts as they know what the want and where to find it.
Speaking of freeloaders, it sounds like you and Bill are still intending to chase that free search engine traffic. You may just discover that Google don't hate cloaking and other deceptive techniques, they just choose not to index sites that use them. Even if you don't use a technique likely to get caught by a Google audit, doing this will probably generate a number of search quality complaints from people who hit a brick wall when trying to access your sites.
So what are you exactly suggesting? Are you suggesting that we are cheaters who use deceptive techniques, cloaking, blah blah blah blah blah? If so, then please, don't waste your time for accussations that have no basis in reality (at least, when you are talking about me).
Sorry, not the same thing. You are visiting the publisher's website in this case, not the other way around.
An old man running a news stand to make a living has to run off those who would stand around reading the newspapers and magazines without any intention of buying.
The old man goes bankrupt and the news stand closes. Those who bought from him for years on their way to work now are not able to save themselves a few minutes of time to use reading their morning paper......good guys 0, bad guys 100...Freeloaders strike again.
Ann
Solution? I don't have a clue.
I see this the same as blocking junk mail from my letter box, and blocking telemarketers from my phone.
It's not SPAM as YOU came to ME, I didn't send you annoying email nor did I call you.
This is like the magazine or newspaper medium, it's paid and supported by the adverts.
In my case I only show you things that *MAY* be of service so when you come to my site looking for widgets all get are widgets in content, ads, etc.
It's the widget capital of the world!
However, if you block me from showing you all the widgets I have gathered you MAY be missing out on the widgets you truly want. It's a double edged sword as blockers can block themselves from seeing what they truly wanted in the first place.
IF you take this beyond the point of a mere intellectual exercise and actually start to get content indexed in Google that isn't available for everyone to access, then Google may not appreciate that.
Google indexes FLASH and PDF which not everyone has installed.
Google also indexes pages that require specific browser versions like IE 6.x or above with no problems.
Nice try.
NEXT!
We are developing a solution.
Firstly, we are building a credit card platform to start offerng an "ad free" version of the site - paid annually or monthly.
We are then going to develop an ad blocker detector (its not that difficult) and impliment policies.
a) If a single visitor - let them access the content, the potential opportunity to capture the person as a regular reader is worth the loss.
b) If a regular reader of a page ot two per day - let them access the site as they evidently use us as a filler to another site they use more often. If we block them, then they will just stop using us.
c) If a regular reader pulling more than two pages per day, then we are their primary news source, and they are more likely to pull out their credit card.
...the "blocking page" will explain why we need to charge for access, and payment can be by either viewing adverts, or using a credit card.
Other than that, I can't think of a way to get people to see ads when they are blocked or to not see your site at all.
TBH, I don't think its as bigger problem as you think. And I am sure G will stay on top of the problem.
I'm interested in seeing the figures.
Also, and sorry to go a little OT, do these Ad blockers really block out affilliate ads? How about if you disguise the URL via a redirect?
TJ
