Banner Ads - would you like to see them go away?

scotty on 05/12/2007 - 18:15

I know it is a touchy subject. Banner Ads — some people hate them, some don't mind, and very often they are the sole income for many web developers/publishers. I made some cash from placing banner ads on OzBargain (one on the sidebar, and one just below the main post), so

  • I can pay for hosting on a server somewhere.
  • I can pay for the prizes of our weekly competitions.
  • I can pay for other miscellaneous cost to run this site.
  • Hmm. Okay. I also want to pocket some for myself :)

However, I also understand that some of you really can't stand banner ads as though they are the root of all evils on the Internet (I used to think that way many years ago). You have either blocked the ads with some browser extension, or were blind to them and would not click on them anyway. I figured why should I waste your bandwidth (and mine too) when you have no interest in what so ever is in the ads?

There's also statistics gathered last month (November):

  • Visitors are 5 times more likely to click on a banner ads than a registered user.
  • Visitors are generating 20 times more income than a registered user on OzBargain.

What does that imply? I might as well turn off serving banner ads to those registered users because the ads don't serve them nor serve me! So here is one new feature that got rolled out this morning but I did not mention in my previous forum post — Show Me No Ads!!!

  1. Click on "my account"
  2. Click on "edit" tab
  3. Uncheck "Show Advertisement" under "OzBargain Settings", and "Save"!

Look mum, no ads!

Obviously it will only work if you are a registered user on OzBargain (not if you are a lurker/visitor).

So, if you don't want to see Google AdSense or other ugly image banners — login and change your preference! I'll experiment with it for a month or two and see how it impacts me financially :)

Site Discussion

Comments

  • froberts2 on 07/12/2007 - 20:07

    There's banner ads?

    Did I mention how much i love Adblock?

    • scotty on 07/12/2007 - 22:51

      Oh C'mon. You don't know what sort of exciting additions to this site that you have missed out on :)

      • dealman on 15/12/2011 - 16:48

        Good one Scotty,

        I made a donation to Adblock years ago and still enjoying the benefits of ad free internet…

    • Bargain4U on 07/12/2007 - 23:15

      ? scotty

      I've got Adblock as well. It's great!

    • martyn on 30/10/2011 - 12:29

      I very very seldom click banner ads, but I don't object to them if they help keep a site free. A good read: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking…

  • Jonk on 09/12/2007 - 14:47

    Interesting development Scott

    I've always been of the opinion that if someone is willing to use someone else's service for free, they should accept that money will be made… somehow…

    Then again letting users turn off ads is a good way of rewarding those people who are delivering the content that's bringing in those new visitors

    I think you have struck a happy balance

    BTW did you notice you are now #2 on Google for bargains… nice work. It'd be great to see OzBargain and Jonk's up there side by side. Better for searchers than internetbargains.com.au or something like that.

    http://www.jonksbargains.com

    • scotty on 09/12/2007 - 19:42

      @Jonk — well, maybe not "rewarding" people who deliver the content, but why offend them if they have absolutely no interest in ads anyway?

      I am not really concerned at the moment as I don't live on advertisement or running websites (I actually have a proper Mon-Fri job :) but I might start pasting ads all over the place if I get retrenched and have to live on my (tiny) online income :)

  • Duke on 10/12/2007 - 00:39

    Adblocker here….
    But nice sleuthing there Scotty.

  • moo on 11/12/2007 - 10:00

    Personally, I don't mind the ads on this site at all. They are not visually annoying (unlike alot of the flashing ones you will see on many sites). Considering i've gotten so many bargains out of this site, having ads to help towards the hosting cost is perfectly fine.

  • MiCCAS on 18/12/2007 - 10:20

    Keep em, they're not IN YA FACE, they're there and they (hopefully) earn you a bit of revenue.

  • Bretlyn on 07/01/2008 - 20:13

    I would say keep them. I don't have enough time to view all the bargains, let alone the ads as well. I am same as MICCAS and MOO.

  • JeffreyM on 06/06/2008 - 19:02

    How come ads are back even though I click/asked for no ads?

    • scotty on 06/06/2008 - 23:52

      A glitch in the Matrix. Agent Smith has already taken care of it…

      (I was testing some new code from Google).

  • T Man on 05/11/2008 - 17:49

    keep em, so long as u don't use the ones with sound in 'em, i'm happy for the site to make some cash

    • SirCH on 04/11/2009 - 14:07

      Yeah. YourTV.com.au is starting to annoy me because I'll go on the site to check my personal guide and then a minute later once I've switched windows I'll hear an ad for Maltesers and have no idea where it's coming from. GAH!

      Happy to keep ads on. I ocassionally see interesting things. I'm actually one of the people who like companies knowing what I buy or what I do on the Internet. The more interesting ads I get, the better for me! EG: I got an email from Everyday Rewards about 3-4 weeks ago offering me buy one get one free Mother Energy Drink (presumably because I buy a lot of V) - so if I was interested in purchasing it (I'm not) it would have been a very good offer.

  • Natt on 24/07/2009 - 13:26
    • vote for the adds from me

    not because I like them, but I think if you can get $ without impacting on the quality of the site you should!

    After all things cost money, includign site upkeep :P

  • braidN on 06/12/2009 - 20:47

    Keep the ads!!!!

  • Mikinoz on 07/12/2009 - 11:52

    Awesome work Scotty ,thank you for having that option was getting really annoyed at the ads today :)

    • scotty on 09/12/2009 - 00:34
      +1

      I agree that some of the ads are pretty annoying and I am pretty much putting full trust on Google to filter out the dodgy ones.

      Feel free to contact me though if you spot any inappropriate ads and I'll make sure that I block them.

  • djones145 on 23/03/2010 - 15:10
    +1

    all i can say
    if it helps the site remain free
    tell us what to click!

  • zzyss on 01/06/2010 - 09:08

    For what it's worth, I think the ads are unobtrusive, and will not make any attempt to block them.

  • Cripto on 11/06/2010 - 21:48

    There should be a page full of ads that gets you money, which can only be accessed if you really want to. Some people like me are willing to click on all ads every day.. I don't see how it causes any trouble. it's just a few clicks, I only see it as helping you and OzBargain :)

    • scotty on 12/06/2010 - 01:01

      Yup it's helping OzBargain, but due to Google's policy I can only suggest that clicking only on the ads that interest you :)

      • Cripto on 12/06/2010 - 02:33

        Haha Sure ;) So does it count clicks per IP daily? or can you click every few hours. And is it only the ad below the main post and side ad (total 2) that helps?

    • MHLoppy on 03/02/2011 - 17:27

      Now that's an idea :)

  • Damo on 27/07/2010 - 00:48

    The Victoria secret banner was delicious

    • scotty on 02/08/2010 - 23:30

      Hmm. Are they contextual ads? Or are they interest-based ads, i.e. Google trying to figure out what you have visited in the past 24 hours and putting up an ad that matches it :)

      • dealhunt on 28/10/2011 - 21:38

        Amazon adopt the same strategy.
        Once you (registered user) visit a specific product on their web page, be sure that after a couple of days they send you an e-mail with the last offer regarding the item you looked at or a similar one.

  • Zero on 14/11/2011 - 11:12
    -1

    Meh, they're not popups and it pays for (some of) the cost for OzBargain.
    I'll leave them up and I do check out the occasional one from time to time anyway.

    • scotty on 14/11/2011 - 11:46

      Thanks.

      Quite a lot have changed over here at OzBargain since I posted this thread back in 2007. This no longer applies as I have actually been working on OzBargain full-time since April this year (getting too frustrated to work in the financial software sector :). However with the volume of visitors here we are still able to survive from the ads revenue — so feel free to disable ads or run AdBlock if those annoy you.

  • Brick50 on 12/05/2012 - 19:42

    yeah, never knew cause I use adblock, will disable it and look around

  • Postulative on 13/05/2012 - 12:04

    I don't use Adblock or anything similar, for two reasons:

    1. Sometimes I will see an ad for something interesting/amazing/amusing, that I actually want to know about
    2. I know it costs to run a website, and I'd rather see ads than have to pay for the privilege of using Ozbargain and similar sites.

    In some ways I like the idea of Ozbargain without ads, but have you considered whether this will increase the registered user base? That is, if you're offering ad-free pages for registered users only, will the number of people registering go through the roof?

    • Postulative on 13/05/2012 - 12:14

      Ouch. Having just made this comment, I clicked on a thread to find that the advertising was not muted - I got some rubbish Mother's Day ad pushed on me at full volume! Needless to say, I immediately muted the ad and then left the page, failing to note who or what it was advertising.

      Dunno why this was - I don't normally listen to ads but it's possible I changed my own setting for something funny.

    • scotty on 14/05/2012 - 11:16

      Note that the original post was first made over 4 years ago, and a lot of changes have happened at OzBargain since then. However there's no need to worry about the effects of ads/no-ads. If you can't stand ads on a website

      • Turn off ads on your profile, or
      • Use AdBlock.

      If number of people registering go through the roof — well then it's a good thing isn't it? I'll have more engineering issues to worry about but I'm sure I'll enjoy that.

  • [Deactivated] on 12/07/2012 - 17:39

    hey guys with the ads, can you choose which ones appear on the site?

    I saw one for one of those scam auction sites

    64GB iPad 3 - From $150
    Buy the iPad 3 with up to 55% off. Free Shipping throughout Australia!
    <MOD: Removed>

    • Moderatorscotty on 13/07/2012 - 00:40

      That ads has now been blocked.

      • ozb-442 on 03/08/2012 - 14:29

        I wan't to know what supa wrote where it says "Mod: removed" :(

        But yeah, i don't really mind if there are ads as long as they're not really intrusive.

        I don't mind ones with music, but i don't like them either.

        I think i'm using adblock on my home computer.

        • Moderatorscotty on 04/08/2012 - 00:06

          Sorry — can't remember the link either, but it's one of those overseas website that you know sell fake stuff (or might even be fraud).

  • berger on 29/08/2012 - 08:01

    Hi Scotty,

    Regarding add's, can you read this post, and the comments parischad and I made about the Kogan advertising on this site, it's not fair and very wrong

    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/78533#comment-1005659

    • Moots on 31/08/2012 - 23:09

      If you are unhappy with any posts or deals. You can anonymously report this to the site moderators to take further action. To do this under each comment and deal there's a "report" button. This button gives you category options and a field to input any additional information you wish to target.

      In saying that. If you'd like to talk to a mod about anything In-between there is a private forum called "TWAM" which is Talk With A Mod. This again no one else can see besides you and the OzB Mods.

  • tonyjzx on 13/11/2012 - 19:08

    ads is a part of online life so its fine

    i do get a lot of porsche ads for some reason

    i mean, if i could afford a $250k porsche 911 do you reckon i'd be wasting my time visiting ozbargain?

    • scotty on 14/11/2012 - 11:01

      Hehe Porsche ads. How come I never get any of that? I do get quite a lot of REID Cycles ads though. Much prefer a Porsche :)

    • Fancy on 07/01/2013 - 12:04

      For me I see alot of Kogan and Binglee ads

      Yes I am happy to have ads, ads generate money, money keeps ozbargain running

  • sonofa on 08/02/2013 - 17:04

    I was just browsing ozbargain on my phone, and noticed a banner ad which said something about content for HTC phones.
    I clicked on the ad and was taken to a website called mobileactive which said something along the lines of "welcome to the club" and next thing I knew I received an sms saying:

    FreeMsg:Download ur apps now httx://ffun.mobi/…..
    U''ve been billed $15 for ur subscription to MobileActive Appy Club
    $10 /wk Ph 1300886534
    stop 19776600

    I checked my phone credit, and sure enough $15 has gone.

    I was browsing the site on phone A without a sim card, using the portable hotspot from phone B, which had a woolworths mobile sim.
    The SMS came through on phone B, which never even went to the dodgy website.
    They are obviously using some billing system through optus. There was a message on the "welcome" page which said something like "verified as an optus customer". It's amazing it could do this enough though the phone didn't have a sim and was just using optus data from phone B.

    I didn't click on anything once I arrived on the mobileactive site, so I didn't enter into any agreement with them, I simply clicked on the ad on ozbargain.

    Hopefully these ads can be removed from the site so no one else is scammed. Do a google search for mobileactive scam and you'll see a lot of people are confused about why they've been charged by this company.

    • Moderatorscotty on 08/02/2013 - 17:17

      In order to block the sites I'll need to find out the actual URL of the site. Also not exactly sure how it downs that by clicking on a banner would get you a premium SMS.

      Just doing a Google search I found this:

      http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib311868/report_g…

      Also search "MobileActive scam" and quite a few result turned up.

      • sonofa on 08/02/2013 - 17:33

        I'll keep reloading the page to try to get the exact URL.
        I was pretty shocked that clicking the ad led to a premium SMS subscription too. I'm not sure how they do it, but it's probably only a matter of time before they get busted for this too.
        I'm complaining to Optus, so hopefully they'll take a look at their relationship with mobileactive.

      • sonofa on 08/02/2013 - 17:40

        The URL:

        <MOD: URL Removed>

        • Moderatorscotty on 08/02/2013 - 23:05

          Thanks. MobileActive is now blocked.

    • sonofa on 08/02/2013 - 17:27

      A screenshot of the ad:

      http://i49.tinypic.com/11kwdw8.png

      • jack4109 on 11/12/2013 - 00:08

        I got scam $35 by these Appy Club bunch. I thought they were junk sms and ignored it. Next thing that happens…$35 additional charges.

  • outlander on 19/05/2013 - 23:13

    This thread reminded me to add ozbargain to the adblock whitelist.
    tbh I hardly notice most of them. In some ways I think their useful as you can see what recent browsing history their targeting you for. In my case right now it seems to be Deli food, probably because I was searching for Dominos pizza codes a few days ago.

  • [Deactivated] on 21/05/2013 - 14:32

    You have to keep the lights running, no big deal I normally just see ads for sites I just visited especially ozbargain deals :)

    • scotty on 25/08/2013 - 08:36

      Google does ads retargetting. Maybe it has something to do with what you were looking for before? :)

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