Rant What kind of sorcery is this?!

[White Haus]

It's been a little while since I've been around, and now I come back and there's ads and links spreading through this site like the plague.....?

Those blue buttons are scattered all over the place and every other word (sign, in this example) is hyperlinked to Amazon?

Wtf is going on here, and how do I block these things? Talk about compromising UX.

 

[Boudica]

I brought those up in another thread. They suddenly started showing up a couple of weeks ago. The consensus is that they are some form of Google ads, but they just go to a list of Google search results.

 

[Boudica]

...It's weird, but not as bad as this (and a dozen other ads I'd rather not see):

 

[balstestrat]

It's a forum "downgrade" made on purpose.

 

[JBurton]

I now get a popup asking me to disable my ad blocker... at least for now it says 'no thanks' as an option. I tried for about 5 pages to disable, but its just so crowded/busy without it. I'll just have to consider my adblocker to be a prescription for my adhd...

 

[Pauly]

This place is getting worse day by day. I love the community. but how this forum is ran is pathetic. it's all for money.
I helped a friend start a signs forum a few years back, but he lost interested and didn't bother with it. now I've been more and more tempted to host my own just for the community and not blast adds everywhere.
Sure ads and subscriptions help keep the forum going, but this is just getting out of hand unfortunately.

 

[Black Star]

This place is getting worse day by day. I love the community. but how this forum is ran is pathetic. it's all for money.
I helped a friend start a signs forum a few years back, but he lost interested and didn't bother with it. now I've been more and more tempted to host my own just for the community and not blast adds everywhere.
Sure ads and subscriptions help keep the forum going, but this is just getting out of hand unfortunately.

I highly doubt these ads are making the forum owner rich. Running a sign forum isn't a money making venture and probably isn't worth the stress.

 

[Pauly]

I highly doubt these ads are making the forum owner rich. Running a sign forum isn't a money making venture and probably isn't worth the stress.

Yes it is.
Basically you pay for an add-on for zenforo (the forum platform) and you can run ads where ever you want. Banner, pages, side bar, popups etc. You can choose between google and custom or both. This forum you get both as you'll see some for site sponsors like firesprint and google ads.

With enough traffic, forums can net profit.

Go to ***********.com. See how their ads are layed out. Same forum platform....

 

[mfatty500]

I now get a popup asking me to disable my ad blocker... at least for now it says 'no thanks' as an option. I tried for about 5 pages to disable, but its just so crowded/busy without it. I'll just have to consider my adblocker to be a prescription for my adhd...

I started getting them Monday as well, I'm using Firefox as my browser for S 101, because Chrome was always filled with ads and a bunch of shit while trying to read the forum.

 

[Black Star]

Yes it is.
Basically you pay for an add-on for zenforo (the forum platform) and you can run ads where ever you want. Banner, pages, side bar, popups etc. You can choose between google and custom or both. This forum you get both as you'll see some for site sponsors like firesprint and google ads.

With enough traffic, forums can net profit.

Go to ***********.com. See how their ads are layed out. Same forum platform....

I'm only looking at the Home Page of each site. Signs101 has 10 different individual ads. At ***********.com, I count 13 different individual ads. Ads are a little different in the layout.

If this website makes the owner rich, good for them. No one is making anyone visit this site.

 

[Johnny Best]

The owner will come on and tell you he needs the money from ads to run the place. So don’t question the ads, get use to it.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

I'll take a forum over a facebook group any day of the week.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

They joys of a DNS sinkhole (for those on Win, a down and dirty could be the host file). Don't see any of this. Just yet another vector for getting viruses for those on the two more popular OSs.

 

[Saturn]

'uBlock Origin Lite' does a pretty good job keeping ads down for me, in Chrome. Free, not sketchy.

 

[crashaffinity]

don't bother me, forum has to be paid for and it's a great central repository. forum owners don't get enough credit.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

I just pay up when I want to sell stuff in classifieds. I figure $10 is about a year worth of ad revenue from one user.

 

[ikarasu]

I never minded ads on mobile, but these little blue ones constantly appear in random spots and I end up accidently clicking on them... i'm guessing thats their intended purpose though.

I just went back and re-blacklisted the site on my adblockers though...so no adds. You can even ad block out the "please dont use an adblocker" ad!

Phones are a bit more difficult... but still doable.

S101 doesn't get much traffic... I imagine the money made from ads doesnt even buy 1 lunch a month. Now the annoy everyone so they purchase a premium sub for $10 a month to get rid of ads...I'm sure all this annoying adds only helps move people over to the pay tier.

Would be interesting to know how much money the site makes from ads... Or even overall... I feel like in the beginning the owner was a lot more present, and now it's not even an afterthought... I'm guessing S101 isn't worth the effort so it just gets put on the back burner, hopefully one day it doesn't just disappear.

 

[Pauly]

I never minded ads on mobile, but these little blue ones constantly appear in random spots and I end up accidently clicking on them... i'm guessing thats their intended purpose though.

I just went back and re-blacklisted the site on my adblockers though...so no adds. You can even ad block out the "please dont use an adblocker" ad!

Phones are a bit more difficult... but still doable.

S101 doesn't get much traffic... I imagine the money made from ads doesnt even buy 1 lunch a month. Now the annoy everyone so they purchase a premium sub for $10 a month to get rid of ads...I'm sure all this annoying adds only helps move people over to the pay tier.

Would be interesting to know how much money the site makes from ads... Or even overall... I feel like in the beginning the owner was a lot more present, and now it's not even an afterthought... I'm guessing S101 isn't worth the effort so it just gets put on the back burner, hopefully one day it doesn't just disappear.

usually forum owners are more present in the community. It's done for the community. not done for a profit.

 

[Signs101Admin]

This place is getting worse day by day. I love the community. but how this forum is ran is pathetic. it's all for money.
I helped a friend start a signs forum a few years back, but he lost interested and didn't bother with it. now I've been more and more tempted to host my own just for the community and not blast adds everywhere.
Sure ads and subscriptions help keep the forum going, but this is just getting out of hand unfortunately.

It costs money to run this site, and you can use it for free. I offer a membership that removes all the ads, and you can use an ad blocker. FYI, nothing has changed about ads or ad placement for the last 5+ years, so the notion that it's getting worse and worse each day is a fallacy......

 

[Signs101Admin]

I never minded ads on mobile, but these little blue ones constantly appear in random spots and I end up accidently clicking on them... i'm guessing thats their intended purpose though.

I just went back and re-blacklisted the site on my adblockers though...so no adds. You can even ad block out the "please dont use an adblocker" ad!

Phones are a bit more difficult... but still doable.

S101 doesn't get much traffic... I imagine the money made from ads doesnt even buy 1 lunch a month. Now the annoy everyone so they purchase a premium sub for $10 a month to get rid of ads...I'm sure all this annoying adds only helps move people over to the pay tier.

Would be interesting to know how much money the site makes from ads... Or even overall... I feel like in the beginning the owner was a lot more present, and now it's not even an afterthought... I'm guessing S101 isn't worth the effort so it just gets put on the back burner, hopefully one day it doesn't just disappear.

I'm on the site every single day, and manually approve every single membership, which is 25-80 a day. Since Google changed how websites earn money, this site lost 50-75% of its revenue. So at this point, it's a CHARITY I keep the site open,. YOUR WELCOME