Google "Ad Blockers Throw Out The Baby With The Bathwater"

[engine]

Google has spoken up about the problems associated with ad blocking, and clearly, it's getting concerned about the adoption of ad blocking. If it becomes any more widespread it'll impact its earnings, and perhaps it already is. Only Google will know, and I doubt it'll reveal too much detail of the impact.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is the chosen phrase, and there's truth in that when you think about the impact, not just on Google, but publishers and advertisers. It's probably one way that Google is Google Contributor: New Ways To Fund The Web [webmasterworld.com]

Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s top advertising executive, thinks crappy ad experiences are behind the uptick in ad-blocking tools, and that Google, along with the advertising and publishing industries, is obliged to come up with a fix.

His statements, delivered at Advertising Week in New York, mark the search giant’s first public comments on the practice since Apple opened its Safari mobile browser to content-blocking apps two weeks ago, spurring a wave of new popular ad-blocking apps. Ramaswamy fingered websites that give a “pretty terrible user experience,” citing ads that take over entire sites, for the rise in the trend.

“The real problem is that ad blockers throw out the baby with the bathwater. Google "Ad Blockers Throw Out The Baby With The Bathwater" [recode.net]

Previous stories
Ad Blocking Report - 22 billion in lost revenue [webmasterworld.com]
IAB Closely Monitoring The Effects of Ad Blockers [webmasterworld.com]
Mobile Operator Digicel Will Block Advertising Across Its Network [webmasterworld.com]

[tangor]

It has, for some on this site, now become official that "something is in the wind".

[creeking]

made a quick meme for it.

[i.imgur.com...]

[tangor]

I hope that survives! :)

[MrSavage]

Ask this question. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Were the crappy irritating ads in response to sites getting desperate as their revenues have been falling (in part to the uptick of adblockers) or were the adblockers in response to the irritating ads? There is irony involved. People complain about video ads and more BS advertising varieties but at the same time condone the use and adaption of ad blockers. When you go to an article and there is a video as part of that article? When videos autoplay into the next video? It's all about getting more desperate in finding ways to monetize a shrinking business model. So are your favorite sites begin to suck more with goofy new advertising or in your face crud, ask yourself if you've contributed to what you're seeing. They never had ads in movie theaters. They do now. I think that's called trying to regain lost revenue. Websites will be no different. Pop up ads were cool too at one point.

[blend27]

You've lost me until the Movie theater quote... but,

Once every 2 month a bunch of us(7-9 couples, kids stay home) go out for a dinner, then head strait to a Movie Theater. Always arrive 10 minutes past the stated start time. For this Movie theater tickets cost $2 more per person than in our state, plus $2.75 each way per person for a train ticket, each way? = theater is not in our state, but in downtown Manhattan - Financial District - Lovely place. We usually get there just before the show starts. No Ads.

...? It's all about getting more desperate in finding ways to monetize a shrinking business model....

From my understanding Current and Popular biz model, at least in SV(Silicon Valley) is to offer a good service, gain eyeballs, get funding, then flip the switch and plaster ADS all over your service offering. It has been like this since Goooooooog was invented. So there you go.

[tangor]

It's all about getting more desperate in finding ways to monetize a shrinking business model.

I'm not going to address everything in MrSavage's commentary, but yes... there were ads in movie theaters back in the (at least because I was there) 1950s. That said....

I took a potty break and came back and read this yet again. A Potty Break is a Reality Reminder...

It's G recognizing that ADS have become a problem for users and a meme of "baby and bathwater" has been developed to support the ad model AS IT CURRENTLY EXISTS. Scrolled back to the top of thread to make sure that was the topic. It is.

baby and bathwater

Despite what others might think of my comments in various threads, I do support advertising as a method of generating income for a site. Did so even before there was a google. G was not the first, and those of us who have been around long enough remember that.

Where we are, AT THIS MOMENT, is a heads up that a real world conundrum of mountain and force butting heads is occurring. Advertisers push costs to users. Publishers push costs to users. Provider networks eat those costs initially and then push them to users... and guess what?

The users are done with the increased costs. (see my other commentary here there and everywhere).

I have no doubt that 70% of those on this forum use script killers or adblockers. Why? The freakin' noise and expense (yes, expense!) of abusive advertising or inability to find or view the content sought!

The baby is not being tossed out with the bathwater, kiddies, The baby HAS BEEN DROWNED by the bathwater. What I seek, and hope is possible, is that Publishers, Ad Servers, and Users can find a happy ground. That's what I hope. Meanwhile Users will protect themselves from abuse in dollars and data transfer. That is a given.

Even G recognizes they will have to deal with that.

[MrSavage]

Bigger picture. People using more alternative to Adsense = resulting in more annoying, off the wall, crud advertising. People weren't whining about irritating ads a few years ago. It's somewhat comical to use the argument now that the ad blocker is the savior to the problems we've had with websites for years and years and years. Things were calm. Google provided/provides reasonable ads via Adsense. As people branch out, then you get into the DS on the sidewalk types of ads that people want to block. Is Google to blame for people looking at alternative ads? I suppose so. However if I just run Google ads then out of the box, no ad blocker, legit one anyways, should be blocking my ads. Throwing me under the bus for running strictly Google ads is complete BS.

[tangor]

Look for an invoice for a new monitor, U made me spew coffee.

alternative to Adsense = resulting in more annoying, off the wall, crud advertising

Just want to make sure we are on the same planet. :)

This thread is about G recognizing there is a problem... and they have not yet provided a solution.

[MrSavage]

I think the "baby out with the bathwater" is simply the situation where Google Adsense was and is fine. I would think it's not Google creating or allowing the annoying ads that apparently caused such an adblocking movement. However, they are suffering the consequences. Google started paying less and thus creating demand for alternative ad solutions for webmasters. I think in a nutshell, this is the deal with what's happened. Google indirectly created this. As long as people were making enough money via Adsense, there wasn't a reason for a lot of us to look elsewhere. When Adsense was by and far the top monetization method (aside from affiliate programs) I don't recall seeing wide spread crying about resource heavy ads or annoying ads. All this when you might get 100MB data plans. Correct? Oh sure, now when 1GB data plans are the norm and we're into 4G in most places, suddenly ads are an issue? If Google was the problem then this would have been the movement years ago. Bad ads! Resource draining ads! Ads slowing down my 3G speed!

As a case in point, I wouldn't need to run other ad networks like I do now if Adsense was anything close to what it was 2 or 3 years ago.

[blend27]

The Brand of "Ads By Google" was created by Google, well, they thought the Idea and it stuck. Us, Small Webmasters/Publishers reacted in several ways based on which side of / one was. Left were the sites who's content was being scraped and plastered with "Ads By Google", right were the "White Hats" who published original content with "Ads By Google" supporting their sites "income".

Oh sure, now when 1GB data plans are the norm and we're into 4G in most places, suddenly ads are an issue?

1GB are not the Issue, but first 1GB at 4G LTE ARE!

If you ever get your hands on mobile statistics data for a Train that is heading towards 35 minutes of underground route till the next WiFI/Mobile Data Acc3ss point...

4 minutes before the train departs. 40 seconds to the dead zone inside the tunnel. People are going nuts for downloading next 20, or so, minutes worth of reading.

Large Globe, isn't it?.... But very Sad, I am feeling like going and hugging a Tree,

Love those!

[dstiles]

Something no one has mentioned: ads CAN be a vector to a virus. Click on an advert and it can a) download a virus or infect a brwser or b) send you to a site that serves viruses and other infectsions. These ads are served up by G as well as by others.

Adverts can also trail behind them cross-site cookies, another thing to avoid.

Ad-blockers are not just a way to filter out adverts: they are a way to filter out viruses.

[MrSavage]

Do you wear a helmet when you go outside or in the shower?

[dstiles]

There was another report on advert viruses today. It's your call on your machines. I run linux, which is pretty much immune to viruses (but not entirely!). If I ran windows browsers online I would panic.

[EditorialGuy]

Pop up ads were cool too at one point.

They're back, and in a big way, though they're mostly used for house ads these days.

[PCInk]

Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s top advertising executive, thinks crappy ad experiences are behind the uptick in ad-blocking tools...

He is correct. The worst advertising experience I have ever had online belongs to a website called YouTube. They play 30-second adverts that cannot be skipped for a 20-second clip and then shove an advert over the video which is a shockingly bad experience if the video has subtitles on it since it covers them.

Google needs to look closer to home to the reasons why people install an ad-blocker in the first place.

[graeme_p]

@dstiles, not that the web is a application platform, not just a document one, it conveniently provides a platform for cross platform malware - [blog.mozilla.org ]

The described in that link is particularly worrying for webmasters, because it tries to steal things like ssh keys and FTP logins.

[dstiles]

Thanks for the link, Graeme. Interesting bit about hitting linux!

I'll keep my ad-blocker in place, along with cross-site blockers. :)

[Dymero]

The only ads I really have a problem with are those that autoplay at the bottom of the page. And not only do they autoplay, but they play some time after the page load, so it's completely unexpected. Ok, so you finally find them and pause the ad (if it can be paused)? Well, sometimes they begin playing again later on, or a second video ad plays.

[blend27]

I've been using 2 browsers on my Android tablet for the past couple of month side by side.

1. FireFox Mobile with Ghostery & uBlock Origin
2. AdblockPlus browser.

On some of the sites that I visit daily I am starting to see that AdblockPlus Browser is starting to fail in Ad Blocking/Scripts, .

For example, one site was nice a clean a month ago, and now Ads are all over the place again, scrolling to fast redirects to another page, Video Ads are starting to Autoplay again whooshing over an entire screen, etc.

Where Ghostery & uBlock Origin together do an excellent job.

So I opened the site in a #3. Stock Android browser.

Slow. waiting till the home page was done loading, scrolled all the way down(tons of Ads.), clicked on one link, loaded, scrolled down a clicked on another link. Slow...

So the second link from from the homepage just loaded: third of the screen, horizontally, is covered by an Ad that has nothing to with the page contents:

I see the title of the page and 2 lines of text, article contents. I started reading and by the time I got to the 7th word - wooooshhhhhhhh, popup(rest of the screen goes dark): "You have read 2 Free Articles out of 10 per month, stay in the know, sign up or sign in". -

No I have not read 2 articles. So far I SPENT 1 MINUTE WAITING THE HOME PAGE LOADS. 1 MINUTE TILL THE FIRST PAGE AFTER HOME PAGE LOADS, AND READ 7 WORDS ON THE PAGE I AM NOT ON

So I X out of the popup(overlay), does not work from the first 2 taps on the X, but it went away. So I started scrolling to see what the Second article IS about. 1 slide up- - wooooshhhhhhhh!

Security Certificate Warnin: Site Name does not match certificate name.
Issue to: *.atemda
Organization: Admeta Akiebolag
Address: https: // admaym.com/UserMatch.ashx?bidderid......kjhdfkshiudfsdfsdf

So now I have 2 Choices presented to me on the screen: Go Back or Continue. I hit Go Back from the choices given and whoooooosshhhhhhh, I am redirected back to the first article page.. and I see 2 more Ads on top of the page.

What have I learned?