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How Ad Blockers hurt your favorite Web sites
By Jim DalrympleMarch 7, 2010, 8:19 pm PT
Ars Technica posted a great article on how ad blocking is affecting its business. While we’re not quite as big as Ars, the same principles apply. We are trying to bring readers interesting content everyday — the way we make money is through advertising. If everyone used an ad blocker, we wouldn’t have jobs.
The Loop isn’t a hobby for me — this is how I make my living. I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and have been through a lot of ups and downs in the industry. If you use an ad blocker, take a minute to think about how it affects the sites you are using it on.
Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love [Ars Technica]
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41 Responses to “How Ad Blockers hurt your favorite Web sites”
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How Ad Blockers hurt your favorite Web sites
By Jim DalrympleMarch 7, 2010, 8:19 pm PT
Ars Technica posted a great article on how ad blocking is affecting its business. While we’re not quite as big as Ars, the same principles apply. We are trying to bring readers interesting content everyday — the way we make money is through advertising. If everyone used an ad blocker, we wouldn’t have jobs.
The Loop isn’t a hobby for me — this is how I make my living. I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and have been through a lot of ups and downs in the industry. If you use an ad blocker, take a minute to think about how it affects the sites you are using it on.
Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love [Ars Technica]
Please take a minute to Tweet, Like, or Share this post with your friends.
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Discussion 41 comments so far
41 Responses to “How Ad Blockers hurt your favorite Web sites”
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while I can appreciate the hard work and high server costs etc, those tromp across the screen/pop up window/etc ads are annoying as hell. there are a few sites I refuse to visit because it's that horrid to deal with.
Yeah, I agree with that. I don't have much patience for that stuff either. I've tried to keep the ads respectful on The Loop so they don't annoy you or me
I don't use ad blockers for that very reason.
Let us know if you need to go with a subscription model. I'll be glad to send a sympathy card.
LOL — always good to see you Eric!!
Find some other way to make money. Advertising is toxic to society.
That's easily said, but difficult to do.
Jim, it's hard, but take it from one who had to bite the bullet and morph his career from electrical linesman into photographer / illustrator.
Two brutal truths: Anything is possible and I hate ads.
Anything is most certainly not possible. you're not going to grow wings in the next five minutes
How precisely is it "toxic" for people who own businesses to let people know what their business is and does?
I am with you Obi, we all sell something, be it goods or services, but we all survive by selling something.
How? exactly how the hell do you pay for costs without either advertising revenues or charging you to read the site?
Are you going to PAY to read the loop? No, no you are not. You know this. We know this. As soon as the Loop instituted a paywall, you're gone.
So tell us, exactly what is this miraculous business model you have for the Loop to make money? Surely you have one, right?
Secondly, without advertising, exactly, how, pray tell, does a company tell people what it has for sale?
“Find some other way to make money. Advertising is toxic to society.”
Seriously? You don’t think that statement is even a *little* naive?
Can you fathom how much advertising provides for us, directly and indirectly? Think about it tonight as you watch “Big Bang Theory” on CBS. Think about the ads that pay for that show directly so *you* don’t have to.
Think about your local newspaper that costs 50 cents. Would you buy it if it cost $10/day? Because that’s what would happen if it were ad free. Or your TIME magazine subscription or the radio you listen to or any number of other ad driven things you seem to take for granted.
Yeah – advertising is annoying and there’s *way* too much of it. But the facile “find some other way to make money” statement is just sticking your head in the sand,
Those of us out here trying to make a living informing our listeners and readers can’t afford to do that.
Jim could put the site behind a Pay Wall which means we would get less and probably pay more for the content. I would quite happily pay as I do for John Gruber's content via a PayPal fee which then gave me access to the full RSS feed instead of just summaries and to be honest for the kind of news this site provides me with I would be happy to pay for that feature here as well. It may not be for everyone but I do like that model personally.
I don't block ads, but I DO block Flash. There are definitely a lot of ads I don't see because of it, but that's not an issue I'm willing to budge on.
Same here. I can deal with ads if they're not hogging my processor or bandwidth, or being placed as though they're part of the article I'm reading. If Ars Technica wants me to see their advertisers, they should take a cue from The Loop and reconsider replacing Flash with more standards-based, static ads.
I have Click2Flash installed but I do not use an ad blocker. I use Click2Flash for the reason stated above the ads themselves hog my processor and bandwidth.
I have actually bought things through clicking links here but they seem relevant as opposed to being served up ads for penis pills and some woman who wants to hook up this evening located only a few kilometres from my home.
I can understand that. I do appreciate you not blocking the ads though.
I've got ads on my site as well. While I don't rely on them for my income, it does make you see them in a different light.
As long as you lay off the Flash ads, you get no complaints or blocks from me. The things that bug me are annoying flash ads, flash ads that install flash cookies and non-flash ads that load javascript that try to enable cross-site scripting. I don’t mind being advertised at, but I take great umbrage at sacrificing my computers’ security to do so.
I can understand that.
Do you get money just from displaying them or only if someone clicks on them?
I charge a flat rate per month. Obviously, the advertisers are happy when they are viewed a lot and when the ads are clicked through, but I don't make any more either way.
I didn't start blocking ads until content providers started plastering 60% of my screen space with moving flashing ads and loud autostart video.
As for the fate of Conde Nast and others, boo freakin' hoo- drown in your own greed. If you go out of business, someone else will be stupid enough to try the same unworkable business model.
I don't bother to block ads unless they move and distract me from being able to read what I came to the page to see – but I do my damnedest to block distracting ads.
Is there anything distracting here?
Jim,
Serve up your own ads.
I only block 3rd-party ad delivery systems.
Amazing what one single filter of *doubleclick* blocks.
,dave
That's always an option, but hosting my own ads also means a lot of extra overhead. Does your doubleclick filter cut out the ads here too?
No.
You don't use DoubleClick.
I am blocking *buysellads.com*, *quantserve.com*, *google-analytics.com*
And, I have to turn off AdBlock Plus in order to comment here.
fyi, at buysellads.com we don't collect any behavioral data when we serve up the ads. we just track the impressions, unique visitors, and clicks. so, it's not much different from Jim serving up the ads on his own
And, with the new ad code from buysellads, the content of the page loads first, so if there is a hold-up, the reader isn't penalized. The content is always there.
I have no problem at all with ads, I just HATE blinking, moving IN MY FACE ads. Content is king. If a site has responsible ads that don't distract, they can actually enhance a site. I WILL click on those ads from time to time if they interest me. I simply will NEVER click on a rude ad.
I think the missing element may be the balance of ads vs. content. This page is a prime example. A two paragraph post, essentially just a link to an Ars article, yet there are still 15 ads + the Bodega "thing" that is exceedingly annoying. I don't have any problem with people monetizing their website, but I do think that the ratio of ads to content should be brought back to reality. If you run a website, take a minute to think about how the ads affects the experience of your readers.
http://www.loopinsight.com/ads/ – "We provide 8 popular non-rotating ad spots which run on each website page." Looks like 12 to me.
I am tired of websites that think they have to use every java script and other things that suck up bandwith and many time have caused my browser to lock up. I use a ad blocker because of the endless popups that some sites use. I wish I did not have to just like antivirus software. Both suck up processer time. I just wish I could block the annoying mortgage ads.
I understand thouroghly the need for advertising revenue. Simple ads good, bouncing bs ads are simply annoying.
I only block Flash. The use of Flash for animated advertisements is an abomination. I will not subject myself to it no matter how much a website wants the revenue.
For other blinking distractions like animated GIFs I use this: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
I assume that doesn't hurt the site's ad impressions because it only works after the initial site is up by clicking on a bookmarklet.
I block ads because they are becoming increasingly more invasive. I move my mouse over an ad on the way to the "close window" button, suddenly I have "Party Poker" opening up a new window, or some ad expands to fill most of the window and start playing a video about some incredibly wonderful product which I don't care to learn about.
John Gruber does things "the right way" on his blog: no banner ads, but he does post "Thanks to this week's sponsor…". From memory, I bought "TouchPad" and "Instapaper" iPhone apps due to being mentioned on Daring Fireball.
I also try to use affiliate links for blog sites that I enjoy reading.
I run an ad blocker – I tend not to block too much except
doubleclick.net, pointroll.com eyewonder.com and a few
site specific urls.
If the ads inhibit the site coming up when I view it. i.e.
the browser presents a blank page waiting from some crap
from an ad site, I tend to kill it.
I also tend to have javascript blocked as well
Custom CSS stylesheets can be an effective ad concealer – ads are not blocked, the website thinks the ad had displayed, but your browser hides it. Here's a good one:
http://code.google.com/p/adsubtract/
I just run Click2Flash and check the pop-up block in Safari. People have to get funds to run these sites, so I don't mind most ads unless they are tying up/crashing my browser (or redirecting me like a Google ad at another site was doing to me the other day). And occasionally I am in the market for something and an ad fits the bill. As long as they stay around the content rather than getting in my face by obscuring the content, then I'll keep coming to the site and probably clicking through and occasionally buying. These quickest way to make me not revisit a site is to put something over the text I'm trying to read and making me click it away… Argh.
Like others here, I block Flash, not ads. As long as your ads aren't Flash — as long as they are static and not slowing my system while making it hard to read anything — then I'll look at them and even click on them from time to time. As long as they don't take all day to serve up…
Hey, I love ads. They generally represent a lot of effort in visual design and might also represent a good product. Ads are a valid method for presenting information. I click on ads regularly. But moving, zipping, audio ads are block-worthy.