Thoughts on Users Blocking Ads

Is it even worth worrying about?

[maxgoldie]

From my stats, I see that a fairly consistent 10% of them have javascript disabled. Their motivation for disabling js would most likely be that they don't want to see ads.

My question is, is this even worth worrying about?

And if it is worth consideration, then:
What would the consequences be in designing a menu system, for eg, that needed javascript enabled in order to navigate the site, or even redirecting that sort of traffic?

(this is kind of bugging me, it feels like these visitors are freeloading -- kind of like spending the day in my store, taking up aisle space(bandwidth) without the intention of buying anything... As if we publishers/webmasters just get out of bed in the morning to give them their entitled free stuff..)

[Thez]

I would never design a site's nav with JS. There's too much issues involved, Ie. many people have it disabled, old browsers might not support it or give errors, it can cause slowness and not all bots understand or are able to follow the links in your scripts.

And JS menus are annoying, that's what I think :)

[victor]

Their motivation for disabling js would most likely be that they don't want to see ads.

I'd like to see the market research behind that assertion.

My motivation for having JS off 99% of the time is that US-CERT recommend it:

JavaScript and other forms of active content are not always dangerous, but they are common tools for attackers. You can prevent active content from running in most browsers, but realize that the added security may limit functionality and break features of some sites you visit. Before clicking on a link to a web site that you are not familiar with or do not trust, take the precaution of disabling active content.

[us-cert.gov...]

What active initiatives are you prepared to take so that I would, on looking at your website, feel safe to turn JS on?

[maxgoldie]

That is a good point victor:
sometimes the cure is even worse than the illness.

[LeChuck]

I reckon that the people who block ads aren't clickers anyway. I disable ads myself except when I'm googling for "please click our ads", looking at what ads I'm getting on my sites or checking out the competition.

I have clicked 1 google ad since adsense launched.

People who block are techies and don't click ads. I don't show ads to people with referer strings from well-known tech sites at all.

[incrediBILL]

We had a long thread about it here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Place some other ads on the page to replace AdSense when javascript is disabled.

Just make your HTML look like this:

<script>
... Google AdSense Code....
</script>
<noscript>
.... some affiliate code here....
</noscript>

Now if the affiliate code is being blocked by Norton Firewall or something else then you have to get more creative to embed ads directly in your pages, like via product feeds, but this is a good first step in shoving ads down everyones throat regardless.

[larryhatch]

I think you should worry about it a lot.
It may cost you some sleep, but you still clock in more worry time. -Larry

[maxgoldie]

Thanks for that link Bill, I searched for that sort of thing, but couldn't find it. Good stuff in there...

The only thing with noscript, is if they are running a browser script to nuke all of your on-page scripts.

(note-to-self: an interesting list to make -- top ten things for a publisher to worry about...)

[Leosghost]

They are probably running n*rt*n and dont even know they have javascript turned off or what it is anyway ..

And if you explain how to turn it one and what it is they'll think you are going to hack their boxes ..

The solution would be for.
a) n*rt*n to not default to "interfere"
b) microsoft to tighten up destructivex so that slightly unusual javascript can't be written to trigger exploits in their OS ..

I won't be holding my breath ..

[maxgoldie]

or another solution would be (one that was mentioned in the thread that Bill referenced) for the advertisers to implement some sort of server-side code.

[garyr_h]

Server side code is not a good altenative for a lot of Googles publishers - bloggers. Many bloggers don't know PHP or even have access to it (blogger.com amongst others..).

[danny]

People who block are techies and don't click ads.

Indeed! I've had pages Slashdotted many times, and 10,000 referrals from Slashdot seems to produce no AdSense income - it pushes the channel CTR and eCPM way, way down, with no obvious change in the resulting income.

[incrediBILL]

People who block are techies and don't click ads

That's one theory - the other is it's naive computer novices that install things like Norton to get anti-virus that have the Norton Firewall with banner and ad blocking enabled by default.

[david_uk]

If they have disabled javascript, there is nothing you can do about ads showing. I'd like to see text ads being formatted as html using asp or php, but apparently there are huge security problems with doing that.

I'd say that about 1% of my visitors have it turned off, so I don't lose sleep over it.

I do have a js menu. Most people expect to have a smart, user freindly menu and I can't see any other way of doing this other than some form of js / flash applet (and I don't like flash myself). I have a link below the menu to take visitors to a js free version of the page that will allow them to navigate the site if they have it turned off.

Works well for me.

[jetteroheller]

I would never design a site's nav with JS

There is a trick to use just normal <a href=....>
All screen layout is based on

<div style=top:50;left:100>

The general

BODY,DIV { position:absolute>

is in the CSS.

But if I would set "position:absolute" only by Javascript,
a user with disabled Javascript would see a page without layout.

[incrediBILL]

If they have disabled javascript, there is nothing you can do about ads showing.

Well, nothing you can do about AdSense as we currently have it.

As we discussed in a previous thread if they gave us ads in XML we could embed them in the page server side and everyone would always see them.

However, most of the people running AdSense are barely capable of making a web site let alone installing anything that would embed ads on the server side so that's not likely to happen any time soon.

[LeChuck]

They should give us the option though.

[maxgoldie]

However, most of the people running AdSense are barely capable of making a web site let alone installing anything that would embed ads on the server side so that's not likely to happen any time soon.

But, then again, Google did release its "Google Sitemaps" program, despite that same majority of folks who are barely capable of making a web site. I wonder how many Adsense users overall used Google Sitemaps.

The idea of giving it to us in an XML, flat or CSV file would be a cool idea!