I blocked Ad-Blockers.

Running a test

[eek2121]

I recently decided to block ad-blockers from accessing content on my site. I was initially worried that users were going to bounce off my site, but so far the results have been VERY encouraging. Nearly all of the users turned off their ad-blocker to view my content. I've also received no negative feedback thus far. That being said, I will monitor over the next week or so and let everyone know how it turns out.

[tangor]

This is an adsense thread. :)

[ken_b]

And not all publishers who use AdSense rely exclusively on that program.

[londrum]

The web is advertised as free. Has been free from the get go

That has never been the case, since the web was invented -- we have always had to pay to surf the web. In the old days it was all put on our phone bill, or we paid two quid for thirty minutes at a web cafe, These days we pay a broadband bill instead, or a mobile phone bill. Has there ever been a time when you could surf the web for free? Not that i am aware of.

The difference these days is that users have been empowered to believe that they have a right to download only those parts of the page that they actually need... as if they have a giant pair of scissors and can chop up the magazines before they read them.

Thats what is happening... users are marching around our houses (our websites) brandishing their sharpened scissors. We need to disarm them! Stop everyone carrying scissors from entering our websites. I think of it as a spaghetti western movie. The users have got their six shooters (their ad blockers) hanging from a belt around their waist, and they try and sneak them past my sign saying 'no guns in old boot town'. I am the sheriff and i have to disarm them before they manage to sneak into my saloon for free (ie. read all my good content for nothing)

[IanCP]

I'm somewhat amazed that we are still having this discussion. For better or worse, we all have our own set points of view so the question needs to be asked?

What will we learn that is new on the topic? Preferably information which is mutually helpful?

For myself AdBlockers are a reality, a reality over which I have no control for my sites. Informational sites which were never created to make money in the first place, and affiliate income still covers the costs so I am still no longer out of pocket.

[MrSavage]

Free to participate, read or not read. Conversation can sometimes be therapeutic. Personally I'm waiting for someone to dispute my claim that using an adblocker condones the very website behavior that caused you to use an adblocker in the first place.

[trebuchet]

I think it's clear we all have different views on the adblocking issue, chiefly because we come from different places, operate in different markets/niches and have different sites/content/audiences. I enjoy the different contributions and I have used them to develop my own response and strategy. It's only the gross generalisations and holier than thou lecturing that I don't like.

Personally I'm waiting for someone to dispute my claim that using an adblocker condones the very website behavior that caused you to use an adblocker in the first place.

What do you mean by that, Mr S? I don't follow.

[jrs79]

The PUBLISHER (or broadcaster) is responsible for obtaining the content AND the advertising and for that effort to reap the profit. The web might look the same but is inherently flawed in that the publisher is actually removed from the incentive chain by plug and play advertising over which they have no control.

This is by far the biggest difference that I see as well. These ads are also not reliant on clicks or a set number of impressions before the publisher is paid.

[MrSavage]

People love their adblockers because it apparently solves the problem of intrusive, data sucking, speed sucking ads from websites. We agree on that sediment right? Most people trumpet that perspective at the very least.

So the use of said adblocker now lets said user visits (and indirectly or directly) support the very websites that conduct the behavior that caused them to install an adblocker in the first place. So you use your adblocker to make the abusive websites more tolerable and that support in visits/traffic/affiliate link clicks/etc all benefit the websites that apparently you despise.

Some people don't care about ethics, honesty and credibility. To stand up and denounce something, yet on the other hand to support that "something"? I don't need to fill in the blanks on that. I mean many a person has advocated for workers rights, minimum wage, etc yet purchase and support products from the very companies and organizations that they fight against. Lots of idiocy exists and I can't change that.

However, I'm happy to hear a counter argument if one does exist.

[londrum]

The PUBLISHER (or broadcaster) is responsible for obtaining the content AND the advertising and for that effort to reap the profit. The web might look the same but is inherently flawed in that the publisher is actually removed from the incentive chain by plug and play advertising over which they have no control.

that's just a discussion that webmasters have
the actual users don't care how the ads are sourced, or who pays for them. all they see is an advert. even if every webmaster in the world switched over to direct ads tomorrow, they would still block them regardless. the user's wouldn't even know.
you might feel like a proper businessman by having those ads, but they won't save you from the adblockers.

people turn on their adblockers because of OTHER sites behaviour, not ours (assuming that we all have good sites). and then -- KAPOW! -- every single site they visit afterwards suffers

[tangor]

actual users don't care how the ads are sourced, or who pays for them. all they see is an advert. even if we every webmaster in the world switched over to direct ads tomorrow, they would still block them regardless. the user's wouldn't even know!

The user will know, if the publisher TELLS them. As the OP noted in the initial post, taking that step has not been a failure. Direct ads, at the moment, aren't targeted by ad blockers---and should never be as that WOULD be an assault against both the publisher and the advertiser.

Users aren't stupid ... and publishers shouldn't be either. There is a balance out there, one just needs to find it.

[londrum]

Actually that reminds me of something i saw on an app a while ago...

Like a lot of apps, they let you pay 99p to remove the ads... except i didnt notice it said 99p to remove 'third party ads'. So as you can imagine i was bit surprised to find that there will still adverts all over the app even after i tried to remove them -- except they had transformed into the publishers own ads, advertising their own games (EA).

That is basically what you are saying... you are suggesting that i shouldnt have minded, because they were the app's own ads. Well i did mind, and im guessing that everyone else minded as well. If a user wants to remove the ads then he doesnt care where they came from -- he just wants them gone

[ken_b]

except i didnt notice it said 99p to remove 'third party ads'.

Was that info hidden, or did you simply misread the "delete ads" instructions?

If the former, shame on the site!

If the latter, how is that the sites fault, shouldn't you just be upset with yourself for not reading more carefully?

But you're a webmaster and you still missed this detail, which leads me to wonder how many ordinary surfers would even know the difference between 3rd party ads and any other ads or know the significance of that detail?

[ Note: I don't use or block adblockers. In extreme cases I'll just switch off JS. And that only if I can't find the info elsewhere. Usually if faced with crazy ads I just use my back button. ]

.

[londrum]

it did actually say third party ads, but i suppose i didnt expect it to say that, so i didn't notice --
but that is what people who install adblockers think when they come to a site and still see a load of ads. they dont understand the reason why they are still there. they dont know the difference between ad networks and directly sold ads

im just making the point that if people think selling ads directly is going to make them immune from ad blockers then it wont. that's the next thing they'll do: everyone wants to make their adblocker better.
all they'll need is one of their users to highlight an ad showing on your site (and hence highlighting the URL), and it will filter down to all of their other users in the blink of an eye... a bit like those IP lists you can subscribe to, to block dodgy scrappers

[jrs79]

In highlighting what I did, I was pointing out the potential differences between the mindset of a publisher who is selling their ad space directly versus the mindset of publishers that uses ad networks to sell his ad space. In my limited experience those selling first party ads vet their advertisers for their users very well. Sometimes they even show ads that users really want to see. Ad networks are not nearly as concerned.

I was also pointing out that ad blockers do not target first party ads at this time. It would be a challenge for them to do so, but I know that this day could come.

I am not saying that webmasters that use ad networks do not think of their audience and user experience, but they do relinquish some control by depending using them. I apologize for getting further off topic.

[trebuchet]

The point about direct advertising raised by @londrum and @jrs79 is the same point I have been making for almost two years now. It is ridiculous to assume that users think the same way webmasters do. The average web user does not differentiate between third party advertising and direct ads. To Joe Blow, an ad is an ad is an ad. If you convince users that they are entitled to block ads, they will expect all ads to be blocked.

The argument that publishers using direct ads (a) will adhere to better relevance/standards, and (b) will be totally impervious to adblockers, I consider a nonsense. It's the behaviour of greedy publishers and bean counters and advertising departments that got us into this mess to start with. I very much doubt that all/most publishers will create a direct advertising utopia, where ads are used in an engaging but relevant and responsible way. And if the demand to remove them is there then adblockers will evolve to block server-side ads, probably through crowd-sourcing ad positions/links on visited sites.

Once public attitudes to display advertising are poisoned, I'm not sure it's realistic to expect users to sit back and merrily accept some ads but not others. It's quite possible that the direct ad baby will get tossed out with the Adsense bathwater. In my experience, the quality of the content will be paramount (as it has aways been). Users will tolerate advertising if it is used sparingly and responsibly alongside good original content.

[blend27]

... and now this: [webmasterworld.com...]

This is why I and many many others block Ads.

[IanCP]

I was thinking the very same.

"Self inflicted wound" was my most immediate thought followed by...

"Killing the Golden Goose"

Meanwhile, small to medium publishers are the collateral damage.

[netmeg]

I'm holding steady at about 6-8% ads blocked on each of my sites. That's a lot better than I was afraid it was going to be.

[graeme_p]

Exactly.Except (as I have said before), what I use does not even call itself an ad-blocker and its main purpose is to block trackers. People like me are likely to be more stubborn about it than people who just block ads because they are ads

People who block/whitelist Javascript also effectively block ads. Another stubborn group, I think.

People using ISPs who use ad blockers also effectively block ads. They may not be able to do anything about it.

[eek2121]

If you block javascript on my page, you get no content. The content is loaded AFTER the page assets are loaded (I can get away with this because my site is minimal and loads super fast). I have had 0 complaints from users thus far, and have enjoyed a nice revenue boost as a result. I am regularly hitting record numbers right now.

Edit: I just pulled the stats from adsense, to provide some numbers to give you an idea of my increase: 60% of all users were using an adblocker. When I blocked ad-blockers, I started seeing an 80% boost in ad revenue.

[keyplyr]

This morning I went to my usual info site and received a message (obscuring the entire page) that I was using an ad-blocker. It then listed 3 choices: 1. Turn off the ad blocker and continue 2. Use Paypal to purchase ad-free membership, or 3. Leave the site (not quite sure why this third choice was there.)

Trouble is... I *do not* use an ad-blocker. (I checked just to make sure.) I don't believe in them. I support the rights of webmasters not to have their content edited without permission.

Had a similar experience a couple weeks ago.

[IanCP]

This morning I went to my usual info site

As it would appear to be a site of value to you, perhaps you could do the site owner a service by alerting them to the facts.

[keyplyr]

They've taken down the ad-blocker blocker now. Guess they saw the failure. This is a big player with probably several million daily users.

[graeme_p]

I ad block for privacy, security, and protection reasons.

Me too. I do not even use an ad blocker as such. I use a privacy plugin that blocks the loading of third party content that poses privacy issues. Use ads that do not have privacy issues, and I will see them.

Religion, politics, and ad blockers = three things you should never discuss, because there's no persuading the other side

I have radically changed by religious and political views over the years :) Rational people are always open to persuasion. If I think I will make significantly more money by blocking ad-blockers I will do it. I will white list sites with high value (to me) content that block ad blockers - but there are very few of those. Personally, I think the future lies in moving away from ads directly served by ad networks, which are easy to block AND pose the privacy and security problems.

[eek2121]

Until you realize that the whole privacy argument is #*$!. People block ads because they don't want to see ads. Somebody could create plain old HTML 5 ads with no Javascript, Flash, or cookies and users would still try and block them from existence. Hell, people blocked my site's INTERNAL ads (which are a static image.) There is actually a filter out there just to block this image. It's an IMAGE with a HYPERLINK.

[IanCP]

Until you realize that the whole privacy argument is #*$!. People block ads because they don't want to see ads

If you are referring to mainstream people then I must strongly disagree. Yes a small percentage of people don't like ads, those very same people also claim that it is OK to steal copyright material, and that the whole internet is FREE!

They are a minority. There will always be people like them.

Across a great number of different forums, for well over a decade, I cannot ever recall people complaining about ads - most people recognised their favourite sites relied upon advertisements and affiliate links to pay for the sites. I have loyal followers who will do their Amazon, and other affiliate shopping through unrelated links on my sites. They are the people who fund the survival of my sites which they use as a reference library.

In more recent years, we have had the greedy come along - thrust ads in peoples faces, animated ads, ad networks with miles of infernal javascript, tracking scripts - everything to annoy people.

That is why so many people are now fighting back, with very good reason.

I can compare the source code of news articles I saved, say 10 years ago, with the source code from the same news site today. The bloat is now astronomical - and having absolutely nothing to do with the actual news content being presented.

The greedy have ruined it for many people.

If you follow news sites as I do, it is ironic that many are closing down their print versions, to find their digital versions [the so called future] are now attracting less, and less advertising $$$$. News sites I have accessed online for 20 years are now finding it hard to survive, even with subscriptions/donations.

[graeme_p]

Until you realize that the whole privacy argument is #*$!.

That is demonstrably false: people write privacy protection software, and people install it. WHy do we use it instead of ad blockers? It is more hassle if it is just a way of blocking ads.

those very same people also claim that it is OK to steal copyright materia

I do not think it is the same people (except insofar that both are majorities of people, so there must be a significant overlap).

[trebuchet]

I do not think it is the same people (except insofar that both are majorities of people, so there must be a significant overlap).

In my experience the pirates, scrapers and copyright thieves are a smaller subset of the adblock-everything brigade. Some people block ads for sincere and legitimate reasons, and that's fine. But some who do it are just a******s who believe that everything online belongs to them, without payment, permission or restriction.

[graeme_p]

You are lumping some very different groups of people together there - just about everyone breaches copyright of something at some point - including a the people who call other people thieves when their copyright is breached.....

[trebuchet]

No I wasn't. When I wrote "pirates, scrapers and copyright thieves" I was clearly referring to a specific group. There's a stark difference between failing to spot copyright, or not understanding it, than intentionally ignoring copyright to harvest content for your own gain.