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A pretty sad and costly announcement for pop up advertisers but a fantastic victory for the regular web surfer!
With it looking pretty grim for advertisers, what will be the next advertising medium to outperform banners 10 to 1?
Mike
Jennifer
jb
Trying to calculate if I'll be a millionaire before it does! 8-)
127.0.0.1 www.webmasterworld.com
whenever you went to www.webmasterworld.com it would ignore looking up the website in a DNS server and bounce back to you.. So if a website tries to load an ad from ads.doubleclick.net and that record was in your HOSTS file, it would try to grab the ad from 127.0.0.1/adsbin?cid=*****&adid=*****, and eDexter would replace the image with a blank gif, so instead of an ad loading, it would popup a blank GIF or JPG, depending on what the page is looking for..
Jennifer
I know that adsense out performs any popup ads for me. When adsense blockers proliferate then its time to find something else. Staying flexible and ontop of the game will keep your site making money.
If I dislike an advert (hint: animated, audible, pop-up, or obstructively large ads), it gets blocked, and that means that I probably won't see or download any advertising content on your site -- which means it's in your interests to keep things simple. If there's an annoying advert that I can't circumvent, I quit using your site -- chances are that there are more sites like it that aren't as irritating.
Webmasters have to understand that people like me aren't philosophically opposed to viewing adverts, even when the advert isn't directly useful. For example, I read the adverts for new sports or luxury cars in the Saturday colour supplement, even though I'd never buy one. I click on interesting looking Flash ads occasionally, but most are animated when idle, which means they get blocked without a second thought -- I don't want something jiggling to get my attention when I'm trying to read the content -- even if it's relevant.
In my opinion, the best ads (and the ones that attract my attention) are small text links that lead me where I might need to go. Microsoft has 'popular MSN topics' on the Hotmail login page, and many stories (such as those on Slashdot) have external links to related documents and stories. In a similar model, if I'm reading a review of a book, I'll want a handy link that takes me to an online store, and if I'm in such a store I'll want links that allow me to compare prices -- if your site is cheapest, you might get the sale, and if it isn't you might get a commission for the recommendation. Or possibly both if I know and trust your site. Always remember that if I visit your site I'm looking for information, not a song-and-dance routine. If you know of a site offering more information than you've got available, say so -- don't be afraid to lead me away, because if the pointer you gave me is useful I will return again -- information portals are invaluable to me.
Okay, enough stuff that probably goes against the grain. But I've told you as a user what I'm looking for, and it's sites that meet my needs that get my business.
I use the Adblock extension [adblock.mozdev.org] (developmental build) with Firebird [mozilla.org], with unrequested pop-ups blocked.
Advertisers are just wasting their time with me as I automatically have banners, pop-ups and other annoying features blocked
I do block pop ups, flash and animated ads. However, advertising pays for many good websites. The reason many have not gone to a paid subscription is that they can serve banner ads, make enough money on those to cover hosting and their time, without having to toss in text link reviews everywhere.
If everyone where to switch to blocking all banner ads, expect to start paying for a lot more content. I agree that ads should be tastfully added to a page, which many don't do, but blocking all banners won't solve problems in the long run, but instead create more.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Brian
