Forum Moderators: martinibuster
The masses do not know such a simple to install piece of software exists. Eventually good things catch on, and it will spell the end to adsense as we know it.
Again, I may be wrong but I did read somewhere that Google already use scripts to embed text link ads on Google search pages.
That being the case, I guess if these blockers become more popular Google will switch to embedding text links on both content and search until somebody finds a way round that, and then the whole cycle starts again.
I don't see a future without ads. As blockers evolve, so will Google. The blockers might do good by getting rid of the garish flashing pop-ups, but text ads will still be with us.
Just my £0.02 worth :)
I remember when google ads first started appearing I actually /liked/ seeing them on the sites because of their relevance and simplicity.
Google ads to me are much like when you're shopping and you see "people who bought this also bought..." type of associated products.
Back on topic, adblockers will not be the end of Adsense. They will become more popular, but really, is it really annoying to see an ad here and there? Does it really make that big of a difference? Without ADS, a site does not look complete, IMO. Let them invent their adblockers, it will not affect us.
Of course if it comes out of hand, I can see many webmasters filing lawsuits/ blocking people who do not display ads. We can't really do anything about it, so why worry ;)
Hatred of popups and popups forced most people to figure out some way to block them. Same with animated banners to a lesser degree. But I've never encountered any hostility to basic text ads.
As might be expected, if there's any pattern to your ad locations, they can be blocked.
I think the only way to be hard-to-block at the moment is to continually invent new locations on your server for ads to be loaded from, not to load ads from any known ad domain (adbrite, googlesyndication.com etc), and even change the size of your ads from standard sizes (they can even be blocked that way).
But all this is a bit over the top. I think people who really like ad-free web browsing aren't going to be the ones propping up your CTR, even if you force ads on them. As a corollary, perhaps making the ads on your site easy to block is going to help you - you retain good word-of-mouth from the ad-blocking users who are probably pleased with your content.
I don't believe the masses will ever install adblockers en masse - its just not something Jo(e) Public will do.
Unfortunately this is wrong. A recent version of Norton Internet Security came with adblocking installed by default, and this software has been provided out of the box on a lot of new machines. So the use of adblockers is on the rise, even though the general public isn't actively aware of them.
There are lists around of the common folders and ad-sizes that adblockers generally use to identify content to block. My preferred solution is to put all my images in folders labelled in this way. So people who want to block ads will usually get a less interesting experience, and use less bandwidth.
Adsense will eventually have to evolve to counter this threat. Otherwise what is a small annoyance now will eat into its profits in a few years.
I may be wrong here, but it's my understanding that whilst these blockers can remove ads from content sites that have to be invoked by javascript, they can't remove text that is embedded server side as html by .asp and .php.
Keep in mind that the end result whether you use ASP or PHP include pages is still javascript.
Adsense will evolve as soon as more and more people start blocking ads.
Although I am very sensitive to rights and privacy issues of an individual, there are some aspects of the "Ad Blocking" question which go against rights of - publishers.
In the first place is the copyright infringement.
A software that changes the appereance and content of my site, without my consent, is clearly doing something wrong.
Unfortunately, the things are not that simple. What about different browsers, pictures, resolutions, scripts, etc.?
What about pop-ups, adware, spyware?
Where is the line of the author's rights?
I hate to say this, but we need a clear, common sense regulation in this field.
On the sideline, large scale blocking of ads would bring nothing good to the internet.
More and more of nice, free content is possible thanks to ads, just like in any other media. I hope that will be realised by public very soon.
Ironically, many Adsense publishers here consider themselves as more savy by - blocking ads!
A couple of words come to mind, but the "hypocrite" is the winner here.
I stopped using it in the end because those annoying ads seem to be effectively blocked by Firefox, and because the ban on IP addresses was too effective — it also stopped websites that were served from the same IPs being delivered to me.
So long as publishers don't ram ads in visitors' faces, I don't think that the majority will choose to make the effort to block text ads.
I don't believe the masses will ever install adblockers en masse
Perhaps you might want to reflect on these:
"Wah! How can I get around popup blockers?"
[webmasterworld.com...]
"The death of popup ads..."
[webmasterworld.com...]
"Are popup blockers a violation of the advertiser's rights?"
[webmasterworld.com...]
By the way if you have a DIV or something used for showing ads, never name the id or class "ad" or "adv" or "advertisement" etc. ;)
The thing that sucks about AdSense is that it relies on Javascript and many people disable Javascript for reasons other than ad-blocking, like security or to block obnoxious active content on web pages.
I meant that I couldn't see many people going to the trouble of learning how to block by IP address using a firewall configuration file. Maybe some software companies will incorporate such a feature into their software, but I can imagine that triggering a lot of lawsuits.
wait till it comes installed by default in ie version X.
..which will happily show the new MS contextual ads. ;)
No, it wouldn't make any difference. PHP and SSI includes will not help with this in ANY way. The reason is, the page is constructed on the server and THEN sent to the user. Whether you have the javascript directly in the pages code, or use a PHP include to put it there when the page is actually fed to the user they look IDENTICAL.
So even if you used a PHP include to grab the ad from google (Say, include('googleadurl.com/pubid'); ) or whatever the end user would still end up with the same adsense code in their page source.
Of course we'd have to add other meassurements such as non-default ad size, etc. By the way, you also have it wrong there, buddy. The HTML would NOT look the same.
Grab a good JS book and then come back. Also a PHP book.
Wish I could remember what she said but I can't. I can tell you everyone in there popped up with a version of "I hate these blockers, don't you?".
So I tend to lay the blame on so much software from ISP's, virus blockers on down for the problem without a clear explanation on how to turn it off.
The site I was at was non stop ads but not popups except for the game.
Ann
could not get her game to load
to load anyway
It seems to me that the free bingo site is deliberately making the game appear like an advert so that those with blockers will have to turn them off to use the site. I've seen a places where important images are in /ads/ directories and such like.
If that's the case then the ISP is not to blame, it's the site who has decided it doesn't wish to support users with ad blockers.
I just went through two dial ups before sat and believe me they want to take over all your control. One even stated there was nothing they couldn't block. :) Great, eh? Now newbies don't have to do anything but go Duhhhh and punch the keys.
Ann
I believe ad-blockers are somehow illegal. If an user does not want to see ADS, then visit another page. If the user wants to see the page, then he has to see either everything or nothing. That's how the internet should work anyway. Has any suit been filed against Norton, etc?
