Leaving ethical discussions aside (since I made my views on that quite clear last time), it is nonetheless true that ad-blocking is a real problem for bloggers and site owners the world over whose only source of income is ad revenue. With that understood, let’s look objectively at some tactics you can use to deal with ad-block users, and the effects those tactics might have.
Don’t Do Anything
It should be considered that things are not so black and white when it comes to ad-blocking. Even though ad-block users are using your server and bandwidth resources, your site might still be able to extract value from them in other less obvious ways. They may share your article or content with friends, for instance, who will in turn visit your site and are perhaps not ad-blocking. The ad-block user may also contribute to the comments, which can have a benefit to the SEO authority of the page if they’re relevant as well as possibly being useful to other readers or the article author. If you think this applies to your site, not doing anything may well be the best approach to take.
On the other hand, ad-block users typically run a myriad of script and cookie blocking plugins that also prevent share buttons from loading (and some script-based commenting systems, analytics counters etc), so it could be argued that these kind of ‘invisible’ users add absolutely zero value to your site and exist solely to leech bandwidth.
Ask Users Politely To Stop
Ad-block users can in fact be detected through the use of ‘fake’ ad-scripts (which if not found on the page, would indicate the presence of ad-block), and a suitable action can be taken. One surprisingly effective method is to politely explain to the user that ad-blocking prevents you from continuing to produce the content you do provide free of charge, and request that the user ‘whitelist’ your site thereby allowing your ads to load. When users are alerted that you’re aware they’re using ad-block and your site is being damaged a result, many will quite happily make an exception for you.
In WordPress, the anti-adblock plugin can be used to do just that. It presents a variety of options such as how many pageviews before a user is shown a message (which can be off-putting to a first time visitor), as well as whether to show a discreet message at the top of the screen or a page-blocking popup.
Here’s an example message that I chose to display to users, feel free to save it and use for your own site.
If you are going to ask your users to specifically whitelist your site, then I would strongly suggest you consider what they’re going to see after enabling ads. Try it on your own site, and if you think it looks considerably better with ads disabled, you should probably make some changes. Personally, I believe that being more selective about ads is the way forward, which brings me onto my next point.
Use A Curated Ads System
On my own iPad boardgames site, I use an advertising system called BuySellAds. Rather than serving up random promotions that Google Adsense pulls from it’s vast library of shockingly bad and deceptive ads, BuySellAds allows me to individually approve each advertiser to ensure they’re relevant to my readers and not trying to scam them into a work from home job, a free iPad, or a random DOWNLOAD NOW button.
Although I rarely see those kinds of ads at all on the BuySellAds network anyway, I have in the past chosen to reject offers because they were related to gambling online – the ad itself wasn’t flashy or particularly offensive, but I felt that it wasn’t something I wanted to support, or see on my sidebar.
I do think that we as site owners and developers should be more responsible with regards to which ads we do choose to display. Advertising may be a necessity, but deliberate deception is not.
Redirect Them
The final and most heavy handed tactic is to simply redirect them elsewhere – thereby blocking them from the intended content – either to a page explaining why you don’t think they deserve to view your content, or for those of you who are particularly malicious, a shock site might be more desirable. This is of course the least recommended approach because it’s going to really, really annoy the ad-block users, and not only will you have lost the revenue from blocked ads, but you’ll lose a potentially loyal user. Some site owners will be happy with this approach, since the ad-block users really have no right to view your content without giving something back in return – especially if what they are refusing to give back is as insignificant as an impression count and 100k of additional page download.
Though there is no specific plugin for WordPress to achieve this (or rather, none that actually works), I have written a small jQuery script that detects the size of your ad container after the page has loaded. If the ad container is 0 pixels, it means the ad hasn’t loaded and some form of blocking has occured. To use the script on your own site, first ensure that one of your ad containers can be set to a specific css ID, or simply surround the ad code with a new set of div tags with that particular ID.
In the example code (pastebin), I’ve used the ID of ‘myAdContainer‘, and set it to redirect them to Disney.com . This script should be placed anywhere in your theme files, but I suggest either the header or footer.
Bonus: Dealing With NoScript Users
Note that any ad-block detection method and whatever action you choose to take on that is going to be dependant upon Javascript or jQuery. If the user has also disabled Javascript, these won’t function. In this case however, we can use a clever meta-refresh hack to redirect them.
Place this code snippet (pastebin) in the section of the page (this will fail validation checks for anything other than HTML5 though, but doesn’t otherwise affect actual functionality).
If you have any suggestions about these methods, or perhaps need help implementing them, then I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Please let’s keep the discussion on the technical side of this though, I think we’ve discussed the ethics of using ad-blockers and indeed blocking ad-blockers quite enough already.
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There’s another way as well. You can bug the living PaJesus out of your readers with anti-ad articles. Maybe some of the readers will finally get tired of the constant whining and white list your site.
Did you actually read this “anti-ad” article? Because it was kind of my way of saying “you know what, you’re right, we need to change the revenue model because the current one isn’t working, regardless of my feelings about Adblock”. I’m sorry you chose to take this article as annoying, because I was trying to be genuinely helpful to any site owners out there seeing their sites destroyed by Adblock. You may not be a site owner, but hundreds of our readers are.
I read your article inside my email client, using the feed delivered by mail that you offer to your readers. So, do your tactics envisage to block my email account?
No, why should it? RSS is a great way to read our articles, and as a service to our readers we offer them in full, not partial feeds like some sites do.
I understand everyone has to eat! If websites whom only motive is to put a few lines of text and fill the rest with ads, they get block! It’s good Makeuseof is talking about this topic but this ad blocking generation was created by bad web administrators.
Anyone who remembers surfing on a 56k modem will tell you the amount of pop-ups and banner ad to no end! I feel it’s up to websites to earn the right to be “white listed”. “Trifecta Of evil”? No, “A God sent”.
True. We’ve come a long way since 56k modems and flashy annoying popups, but gaining that trust back seems impossible right now.
I’ve run so many websites now, it’s tiresome to see people trying to justify the grubby tactics of ad based revenue. It turns out if you actually have anything to say that is worth while, you are published and earn a real salary.
Oh and btw, companies are still willing to billboard style pay for advertising space. It ends up being better for you in earnings and no data is sent to the company. Win win. But you don’t really care about that do you ;)
“you are published and earn a real salary” – paid for by what? An anonymous benefactor? What a redundant point to make.
I do own a site, actually two. No 3rd party ads.
Well, do you mind telling us how you monetize them? Or are they purely operated on a hobby basis?
They are just sites that essentially advertise my business – name, contact info, services offered, etc.
Or simply stop visiting your site :)
Then you should stop visiting the internet because the majority of websites have ads.
As a website owner, I can attest to the level of frustration that adblock plus brings.
Users will whine and complain that we don’t like Adblock plus. But are they writing professional content that could cost hundreds of dollars per article? No. They are just leeching off of it.
Yes flash ads are annoying, I hate them too. But Google ads are fine and most decent websites like this one have no intrusive ads.
To those that say site owners shouldn’t live off of ad revenue – how the hell do you think Google/Facebook/Twitter make money? Ads.
Really, you propose to hi-jack my browser by redirect because I choose not to donate my cookies and other personal data by clicking on an ad on your page, and then block me from viewing your content because of my choice to guard my privacy? Wow. Even television is not so greedy. I, myself, would rather pay a small fee for membership if I needed the information so bad, versus selling my browser’s “everything” data. Quickly and daily I lose my respect for MakeUseOf.com.
Agreed!
Which part of makeuseof.com is redirecting you for being an adblock user, and did we EVER say we would do that? I wrote this for the benefit of other site owners, not for use on this site specifically. And note I presented a selection of methods and reasons – including *dont do anything at all because maybe adblock users aren’t all that bad*.
AnonAnnie, you do realise that blocking ads doesn’t really protect you from anything? Viewing ads doesn’t result in your “personal data” being given away. You are allowed to guard your privacy just as a site owner is allowed to not show you web pages. If you don’t like ads on a website then don’t visit it. Easy.
Sheesh. How about making your blog or whatever so compelling that we want to willingly subscribe, donate, etc.?
Trust me, you start redirecting people, begging or using some other heavy-handed method, you’ll quickly be talking to yourself.
Hey Makeuseof? WTF?
You didn’t actually read the article did you?
How many people on the internet are willingly ready to donate? Maybe .001%? Versus the click through rate of ads – you won’t get anywhere close to how much you’d get if you used ads instead.
And you want people to subscribe? Really? Is that really how you want the internet to be? The internet is free – and I suspect that you want to keep it that way. The internet wouldn’t be what it is today if you have to subscribe every time you need information.
Websites cost money – a lot of money. It costs time – research. Website owners have to make a living too you know? Do scientists do research for free? No – they get grant money from the government or organizations. If they did it for free, they won’t have anything to eat.
Think about it. Stop being an idiot and realize that websites are legit businesses.
Let’s get this right, YOU want ME to read your blog, view YOUR webpage etc yet you’re throwing your toys out the pram for ME not wanting to be bombarded with ads and tracking cookies?
Get over yourself dude…….
And before you make another smartass comment, yes I DID read this page, and yes I DID view it with ABP & NS, would it have said anything different without those tools?
I didn’t particularly want you to read this article, no – it is aimed at site owners who have seen a reduction in their earnings due to adblock. I thought I made that clear in the opening paragraph, but I guess not.
If you did actually read it, I’m a little confused as to why you’re taking so much offence here. I presented 3 different approaches – strongly recommending *against* blocking or redirecting adblock users, and instead curating your ads for a better user experience that doesn’t annoy them with intrusive ads.
Roberto, you act like it’s makeuseof.com’s privilege to have you on this site. You are dreaming dude.
If you are not contributing to the website by viewing ads then you are 100% useless to the website. If you left, the website owner would be pretty happy because you are just costing him bandwidth.
One group of people who usually disable scripts are the visually impaired. Redirecting them seems particularly cruel.
That’s an excellent point, thanks for adding that LD .
I use Ad-Block, no-script and flashblock. If anyone makes it difficult for me to access their site. I simply leave and don’t return. How much ya makin’ from that? When I can visit a site without being assaulted by ads and possibly unwanted software, I will turn them off.
Note that point 1 is “do nothing”.
If a site is destroyed by AdBlock+ and NoScript it has never deserved to exist.
There are enough good, clean and unobtrusive blogs that do not contain any ads and that are being maintained with no intention of getting revenues. In fact these are the better ones.
In fact web developers do not need cheap advices if they have experience and professional skills. This article is not directed towards site owners but towards readers that care about their privacy, trying to make them feel guilty. A poor attempt, really.
It is hight time that I delete MakeUseOf my RSS aggregator.
No, in fact it was directed to site owners. Please don’t presume to tell us (speaking as a developer) what makes a good developer or why sites don’t need revenue.
There are millions of blogs/sites. I can seek out those I think are of interest, but in doing so I have to wade through tons of dross – badly written sites whose popups freeze my browser, bloggers who try to lure me in by using misleading headlines, sites using devious methods to take cash from me – “I can sell you this for small amount of money x, but postage is large amount Y (but I won’t tell you that until the very end ;-) ], sites that steal my hard drive by posting non-expiring cookies, multiple large images, etc.
And all the time this is going on, I am downloading dozens and dozens AND DOZENS of annoying flashy adverts I don’t want nor need. To paraphrase you, I get “…add absolutely zero value” from ” sites which exist solely to leech MY bandwidth”.
You write “bloggers and site owners the world over whose only source of income is ad revenue.” That’s part of the problem right there – if you are relying on writing a blog to feed your family, then
1. Given the size of the competition, that’s really daft, and
2. The temptation is there to beast your readers with more ads and more ads and more ads, because ads = cash. Sadly, a large number of sites now apply that “business model”. Even hotmail loses one third of every page, unless you pay them an ongoing fee. I don’t use an ad-blocker, but every day I come closer to installing one. So every time a site redirects me they simply get added to my list of sites I will never visit again.
I can appreciate why you might feel you needed to write this article, but the sensible parts of this discussion (write quality articles and don’t force people away from your site) are just lost in the annoyance caused by many of your fellow bloggers tricks. So if you write an article offering those idiots suggestions like “Here’s a redirect script you can use”, then you really shouldn’t be surprised that some of that annoyance becomes redirected towards you.
“or for those of you who are particularly malicious, a shock site might be more desirable.” Wow! Absolutely zero kudos for that.
Thanks for the elaborate and well thought out comment Colin, it is a rarity on adblock articles.
First off, I agree. Scam ads, flash ads that kill my browser and whack my fans up to full speed are terrible, and are entirely to blame for the adblock generation of users. I believe we need to curate ads, and that is what I do myself for precisely that reason. I don’t control the revenue streams on this site, but I can assure you I’m being particularly vocal to get things changed, soon.
I don’t agree with your sentiments on blogging for a living though; for some it’s a far more demanding job than your typical 9-5. I don’t earn my living by only blogging, but I know some who do. However, as a site owner there is always the temptation to ad more ads, because as you say it’s an easy way to just up the revenue with a few lines of code. I think Google’s latest ranking updates go some way to address that though, by degrading ranks of sites who have 3 or more adblocks above-the-fold. Plus, if the user experience degrades because of it, then obvious changes are needed~ so it really all balances out and we can continue with blogging for a living.
I did want to present a balanced spectrum of possible responses to adblockers though, and I know some bloggers will want to redirect even if I strongly recommend against it. Ultimately, that will only be good for my own sites though, right? ;)
I appreciate you being vocal about the ads on this site. They are definitely overdone. If you haven’t already mentioned this somewhere (https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads) adblock plus has an acceptable ads list enabled by default. Sites can get themselves added to the list if they prove their site meets the guidelines. Because this list is enabled by default, many adblock users won’t even know it exists.
Trouble is, that list is very restrictive, and simply wouldn’t suffice to generate enough revenue. I appreciate the sentiment, but I think we all need to draw our own lines as web authors. I find the idea that only *text* ads are acceptable to be laughable, honestly. I think static image banners should be acceptable too, for instance. Otherwise the list seems fair.
One emotional problem for some webmasters is that they simply don’t like the idea of an adblock company dictating what ads they may or may not show, though I do applaud adblocks efforts. The creators have explicitly said they never intended the plugin to be used on such a wide scale and actively admit it’s harmful to the open web, which was the motivation for making that list in the first place.
True. I actually hate text ads more than small banners anyway. There are plenty of websites that I’d be willing to support by turning adblock off (including this one). Problem is most of the site’s I’d be willing to disable adblock on are ones I wouldn’t because of the abundance of ads (including this one).
One response that you left out was to simply have a replacement saying if you use adblock, would you mind donating?
In the “don’t do anything” category, I personally prefer seeing one space that ads could be used occasionally to thank the user for not blocking ads. It makes me feel appreciated, and makes me feel more like coming back to the site(I’ve found myself visiting MUO less and less since whitelisting the site, the content is still good, but the ads detract a lot).
Like random kitty pictures on Reddit? Yes, pretty awesome idea, though probabaly not possible when you dont curate your own ads – MUO has no way of approving ads right now, for instance – we can only remove them if we find them offensive after the fact. It’s a bad system, and I want it changed.
I think we are warming to the idea of donations, whereby users could pay/donate to *officially* remove any and all advertising. Either that , or a simple one-off popup asking to donate would be good. It’s difficult getting people to accept we need to change though~
Please stick with us!
Anybody know of a site that uses the kind of meta-refresh hack suggested here?
I’d like to see if I have to alter my browser settings to avoid this or if my current add-ons will handle it on their own.
I haven’t actually seen it in the wild, but no add-ons nor browsers will be able to prevent in theory it because it’s fairly fundamental/core HTML – no scripting involved there.
Interesting.
I was expecting that changing say IE’s “Allow META REFRESH” option to Disabled would – well disable the meta refresh (I’m naive like that).
You’re right, that would work. I guess we have literally nothing we can do about noscript users then ;(
There is also an option in Firefox 11 (don’t know when it was added) under Options->Advanced->General that says “Warn me when websites try to redirecct or reload the page” Having that enabled shows me when a site is attempting a redirect or refresh and allows me to accept or deny it.
I’d be willing to use a whitelist of inoffensive sites or even just blacklist a few sites if that were possible. It’s just generally better to block first since many places use bad code or random or offensive ads. If all ads were tactful and not shoved in the middle of content or other terrible places, I’d not even use adblock.
Can I thank you for whitelisting makeuseof?
I did initially but found out that this is one of the worst offenders of the ads in the middle of content. There are like 3 or 4 throughout the article plus huge ones on the side…
When ads INSIDE content are nearly equal to or greater than the content in the page is why I use adblock in the first place. Talk to the people putting ads in your page and make them unobtrusive and less obnoxious and I’ll consider it. I like makeuseof a lot but the ads are too much.
These articles are getting rather whiny. If ads aren’t cutting it for you or anybody else, find a new way to earn money or find an alternative way to deliver ads.
Like making them an unblockable part of the content? That doesn’t seem like a good alternative.
Hey, James Bruce– Although I do not understand the mechanics of making money with websites, I think that there is another option for websites to maintain a revenue stream and not upset readers.
Instead of ads, have LINKS to sites selling something, and make these links something the readers will WANT to click on. For example, whatsonmypc.wordpress.com/ has a daily link to Amazon’s Gold Box deal of the day. So in addition to checking out what’s new at whatsonmypc, I always check out the daily deal at Amazon.
Although whatsonmypc doesn’t do this, it would be a good idea to have a non-intrusive request close to the link asking the reader to help pay for the site by clicking on the link.
Of course, the site has to be kept interesting so the readers want to come back – something that makeuseof.com is doing a good job at.
Out of curiosity, there are an increasing number of ways to visit websites anonymously. Does this affect the revenue stream?
Keep up the good work.
The links you’re referring to are affiliate programs, and generally do not perform very well at all in my experience. At most, replacing ads with affiliate links for amazon and itunes would bring maybe 5% of the revenue from regular ads. We also feel it would detract from editorial authority – are we highlighting this app because it’s good, or because we get a kickback from a sale? We’ve actually fired authors in the past who placed affiliate links inside their articles.
As for “asking readers to click on links”, that’s against the TOS of all affiliate and ad networks, and would have us banned in no time.
For anonymous users, it depends on the kind of anonymity used. If it blocks analytics, but not ads like built in browser “do not track” functions, then it doesn’t particular harm our revenue – just gives us an inaccurate picture of the number of users. However, if it prevents ads from displaying (such as ghostery plugin) then of course, it has the same effect as adblock. Increasingly we will be moving towards offering registered users (free registration, via social network) benefits over anonymous or adblocking users. Core content will always be available to everyone though.
Perhaps bloggers should consider if ad blockers are the problem or ads? A useful discussion would be “viable revenue models for blogs”.
The days of mindless ad insertion are over, it is time for blog owners to accept this and move on.
The reality is, readers are becoming more discerning and if you don’t adapt you will find your self part of the “way back when machine” anyway.
As for this particular article, the only option worth considering is “Use A Curated Ads System”. The last option of redirecting non cooperating readers is just nuts!
I’m actually nearing completion of a guide about blog monetization and revenue models, but generally it’s not a topic we are allowed to cover on the main blog articles because it’s tends to leak into “how to make money online” type articles.
Anyway, I agree. Curated ads are the best, though you do need to prompt adblock users to take a look with the site whitelisted.
I’m fairly savage with individuals/organisations/sites who implement these sorts of schemes; I block them at a variety of levels, including the DNS provider where appropriate, by making entries in the AV system or the firewall system where appropriate. When I watch television I mute the adverts and do something else until they are over. If the provider found a way to over come this, by diverting me to a test card or something similar, I’d push them off my list permanently.
As a web designer and blog owner, I am a big believer in allowing the user decide how they wish to interact with my sites. Thus the idea of redirecting people or inserting scripts to exempt people goes against what I believe is correct practice.That said the commercial sites I maintain are not reliant on web based revenue to run and my blogs are hobby based from which I have no intention of generating income. That said I do understand that if you have a site with thousands of visitors every hour, there are costs involved. Further, if you want people to write good articles, money does get better results. Thus I believe that blog owners have to look towards a new business model. The ad model is broken. While I understand the point of this article and its intended audience, I do believe we have reached a point where we need to consider the way forward and accept changes need to be made. Further to this, the need for the web community to be accountable for the content they provide is becoming increasingly important. As responsible people we can not say that governments do not have the right to sensor content and at the same time say that content providers need not take responsibility for what they feed the masses. Consider the following: If a misleading ad or an ad that promotes pornography or some other form of degrading content is on your blog, then you are accountable for that content because you agreed to have it on your site. If bloggers accepted that this is their responsibility I seriously believe the need for addons like ad-blocker would cease to exist.
Have you hear about the Acceptable Ads initiative (http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads)? You could just stop using annoying ads and you can get whitelisted by Adblock Plus.
What you are conveniently forgetting is that third party ads may be used to compromise your visitor’s computers, e.g.: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/13/doubleclick_msn_malware_attacks/. Even if a user trusts your website, why they should trust random ads? (obviously this doesn’t apply to the curated ads, that’s the only viable option IMHO)
I’m not conveniently forgetting it, it’s completely off topic. This article is about how web authors can deal with adblockers. Don’t just read “adblock” in the title, and jump straight to the comments, please.
So you say that exposing your website visitors to malware is off-topic? Good to know. And, by the way, I read the article, to quote my comment “(obviously this doesn’t apply to the curated ads, that’s the only viable option IMHO)”… see… I read your article, looked at all options presented them and evaluated them. You didn’t bother reading a short and relevant comment and you are dismissing it as off-topic.
typo, should be “presented there”
If you force me to do anything I don’t want to do, I just go to another more useful website. The purpose of me using the internet is to view and procure free content, I refuse to pay unless really necessary.
Sorry, that’s the reality of the world out there. If your website really delivers real value to me, I would pay, I’m sure. Don’t force me to whitelist your website. Remember, there are millions of good websites out there willing to replace you.
Thats a valid point, but another way to look at it for some webmasters might be “well, if youre not going to support this free site by unblocking our ads, then I dont really want you here, using the bandwidth we have to pay for and reading the articles we paid authors to write”, which is also quite valid. Why should they let you view their content if you’re not contributing? If you don’t think the content is good enough, then by all means go use another site’s bandwidth.
(ps, I’m not saying this is how we think at MakeUseOf, I’m just saying that there are webmasters who think like that, and it’s not unreasonable logic by any means)
Right, for those who just jump straight to comments and start raging about redirects, can you PLEASE keep in mind that the OP is advising AGAINST it, and MUO isnt gonna do it. Period. Secondly, Ads Need to be unobtrusive and IMO Using A Curated Ads System (ensuring ads dont obstruct content) combined with A request for whitelisting (NO, DONT MAKE THAT WHITELIST REQUEST INTO A POPUP!!! sigh) works best. Thirdly, i dont like such kinds of articles simply because they leave a bad taste in my mouth, but since its here anyways, theres another option: remove ads and ask for donations. Believe me, if the content is good enough people do donate.
Thats my two cents.
Thanks for the input PSK, I’m glad you took the time to comment and back me up somewhat here. Removing ads and asking for donations as an alternative is something we will be discussing soon.
Ironically enough, I’ve actually donated before to NoScript development :D.
How about the top things you can do to stop annoying ads on sites?
You mean what addons or plugins can block ads?
You mean you would like an article on that? or you wanna know how to block ads?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/search/?cx=009717636731598800244%3Aqhe4rh7wuxs&cof=FORID%3A11&q=how+to+block+ads&sa=Search
^simple search on MUO. in a nutshell, theres addons like adblock plus, built in options for some browsers, among others.
Trueblock, the Adblock fork, blocks even more ads. Use it instead.
Some people use no-script because they have a disability and cannot handle obnoxious flashing distractions, startling sounds, or information overload. The scripts may also interfere with Accessibility tools they are using. I am one.
I also don’t like offensive material randomly forced in my face, nor do I want my children seeing it. No-script is simply the easiest way to prevent it before it’s exposed.
I appreciate the author’s attempt to simply put the information out there, without encouraging site owner’s to prevent no-script users from viewing their page.
If I really like a site and visit a lot, I go out of my way to click some adds and help them out.
By entering a site I’m asking to view their content, not everybody else’s around the internet from who knows where.
If you ask your readers to allow advertising, then you are asking them to trust the advertising networks. I like the stance that Giorgio Maone (author of NoScript) takes on trust: trust = accountability.
If an advertising network makes a mistake, and a tainted ad downloads a virus onto my machine, is the network going to take responsibility and compensate me for the damage caused? To myself and to anyone else who catches the virus from me, or whose bandwidth is ‘stolen’ to process the spam emails that the virus might send, or whose site might even get taken down by a botnet that I inadvertently join?
How about MUO? You admit that you can’t perfectly vet your ads. So, if I take your recommendation and disable ad-blocking, are you willing to be accountable for whatever gets served up? If my machine were compromised, and had to be reformatted, would you pay me the value of whatever data I lost? Or if a keylogger were installed, and my bank account credentials were stolen, would you compensate me for the amount stolen from my account?
If you really want my trust, then that’s how you can earn it. Until then, sorry, shields are up.
Would you hold Microsoft accountable for making an insecure OS? How about your browser? Or how about if noscript failed to stop a script?
How about this: just use a secure browser than keep sites and scripts sandboxed. Suddenly, malware via javascript isn’t an issue anymore – even in the extremely slim offchance that one snuck into some ad network.
Hmm…you could say that I hold Microsoft accountable for their operating system’s flaws: I use Linux instead :).
If I found that Firefox wasn’t secure enough, I would probably hold it accountable in the same way, jumping to Chrome’s sandbox or IE’s SmartScreen filter. In the meantime, I lock it down with addons, like NoScript and RequestPolicy, that in my opinion make it the safest browser around.
If NoScript failed to stop a script…well, first off, I’d report it to the author and expect a fix (which is a form of accountability), and given his aggressive update schedule, I’m sure he’d quickly sort it out. But without NoScript, *all* scripts would be running – disabling JavaScript is too heavy-handed for me – so NoScript wouldn’t be responsible for that one script executing.
When I use the internet, I accept that there is some risk involved, and that I’m the one wearing it, but I do what I can to lock things down and minimise that risk. Part of that means blocking active content from untrusted parties. If you want my trust, you have to give me confidence that you’re handling the risk for me.
By the way, sandboxes are good, but there’s still a lot of scope for malware to execute inside the sandbox. Cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, keylogging (until you flush the sandbox), sending spam…
Don’t get me wrong, by the way; I’m actually sympathetic – in principle – to your desire to keep your site up, which of course needs a revenue stream. I would like to support that, if I felt that it was safe to do so. But without a guarantee of that safety, I’m opting out.
I think, the ad-blocker plugin is not compatible with wordpress 3.3.2
Most of content-readers don’t even imagine how hard it may be to create content. Nights of writing, creating pictures, videos, etc. The working day is not limited by 9-5, and most of bloggers don’t have weekends. Cause Fri-Sun is just another chuck of traffic from people at home.
Add to this constant idiotic stuff like search engines banning sites, crawl errors, fighting for rank, infridiment suits from copyrosexuals (esp. on Jewtube), hosting problems, etc,etc…
Yes, there is abuse, but that’s mainly on warez and porn sites. Just don’t browse there.
Google adds are usually on quite decent sites, and are limited to 3 per page. Most webmasters place even less. Besides, quite often the ads are really interesting, as they relate to the site’s content. I personally is sometimes curious about the ads, but can’t click own ads by Google agreement. So I gave to google the information in the ad to have a peek.
Don’t see why google ads should be blocked.
And I also do not agree that a good _anyone_…a good doctor, a good punk punk musician, a good blogger… should be broke. He has talent and usually a lot of knowledge, whuch cost him health and time. And all a blogger asks in return is just to enable the ads.
And don’t be ridiculous, it is not _your_ money which pay for the ads.
NoScript has support to bypass these ridiculous “tactics” – “Forbid META redirections inside elements” is a feature in NoScript.
As a site owner, I understand the frustration of those who run websites and are visited by those greedy individuals who steal content without at least being courteous enough to view the ads too.
Here’s a few points to shut you all up from whining against anti-adblock protocols.
1) Every TV channel which airs ads gives you no way to skip them short of using PVRs such as TiVo or Sky+ – why should this be any different when viewing websites??
2) Many websites are run by people wanting to gain a reputation from running a website, but who do not have money to maintain a website indefinitely – presenting google ads and infolinks ads for example provides a decent amount of money to pay for server costs.
3) Viewing websites without the ads when ads are there is considered stealing. If you are so selfish that you cannot spare a few KB extra bandwidth space for a few measly ad impressions then shame on you – you shouldn’t be visiting that website anyway as you are only looking out for you and not that the site may actually be able to continue going
4) as mentioned in 3, you viewing ads gives impressions to the advertisers – this in turn gives revenue to the website, and this in turn makes sure that the site can continue to deliver content to you. Would you honestly be happy if a site came along with no ads, you liked the content and became a regular user but then the site disappeared? NO YOU WOULD NOT!!
5) Ads are a way of delivering content to you without charging you for it. Would you really expect people to sit behind a computer writing content for your entertainment and yet they get nothing from it? Put yourself in the content writers shoes for christs sake! You wouldn’t do it for nothing and neither do we!
Bottom line – shut the hell up and stop whining.
~ The only script I can condone is flashblock because I too know flash ads can be intrusive – especially when they are video ads that autoplay and cause havoc with loading times.
Oh and as an extension to point 1 – any channel that doesn’t show ads charges you for the right to not see ads such as the BBC with the Television Licencing in the United Kingdom.
Unless you want to be charged subscriptions then the alternative of viewing ads seems a lot friendlier to me!
Hi, If you have a script or plugin that lets you know if a user is adblocking, you could make some parts of your posts only available if the user has whitelisted you site. The same as when you land on a site with nice content, but to see the interesting parts you need to be a (paying) suscriber.
For an instance, if you own a cuisine site, you can show the plates pictures, descriptions and ingredients, but the quantities of each ingredient are only visible if to the user if he’s not using any adblockers.
An excellent idea Ivan; I wonder if we could apply that here somehow.
You’re welcome. I just landed in your site yesterday for the first time… it seems like I’ll be coming back regularily…
right, it’s impossible to install greasemonkey and extract function without triggering yourawesomedetector.js
Thank you for your informative explanation of why i shouldn’t use adblock. i placed this on my google chrome just today and i am now very seriously thinking of taking it off. I watch alot of youtube channels and can now understand why me blocking ads would hurt the people i subscribe to. I also like the way you begin to explain why someone might use adblock especially someone like me who didn’t really understand the inns and outs of it before tonight. However there is one point if you have a very good internet connection unlike me you didn’t mention, is that many adverts (not so much on youtube) but other sites you may be looking at such as the ones on fb which you open to show you a funny picture have so many ads that many times the picture never gets to load because your pc is clogged up trying to buffer the ads. I know this is not a valid excuse to keep adblock, but to people who don’t understand what adblock actually does then it does seem like a perfect solution. Again thanks for the knowledge i am going to take ad block off right now.
Thanks for this article. i was directed here from google after questioning if websites still get income when you use ad block (i mean does it give to the site what it needs and just make it appear like the ads aren’t there) or does it completely remove them/and access to the ad software/sites.
i found this blog article useful because it provided me a way to deal with this problem in the future with my website/blog advertising.
i have been on the other side though too: on a perfume website (where they analyse the different scents/ list the smells/ingredients, etc) I sometimes visit they have a 3-article limit before an annoying ‘screen cover’ shows up saying please sign in and or click on a sponsor or something request to keep the contact free, yada yada–i always find it annoying and just clear my cache (it resets the limit).
I do think if I did that I would introduce that “Please sign-in/visit a sponsor/whitelist us” but then allow them to ‘close’ the dialog box. So it basically does both the things you listed: Ask them but then give them an option to ignore it–it will make them hopefully feel guilty but really you will always have “selfish” users who like you mentioned at least will hopefully provide traffic and comments and such to make your content more coveted/popular and thus show up more in Google. Still, by providing them a request but then option to close the ‘request’, you risk not alienating your visitors–this way they also won’t be turn-ed off by your site and go find their needed info for free somewhere else.
Another option could be to have some useful content offered in an ‘ad form’–for instance, I have noticed a lot of flyer websites I go to (legit ones for grocery store chains like Safeway, Saveonfoods, etc), will not show up so you kind of have to white-list them, to see their content. So, maybe you can have some or part of the content as visible but to ‘expand the article’ perhaps you would have to open a flyer-formatted page that the user would have to white-list your website to view it.
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