I came across this article at Ars Technica, that talks about ad blocking, and how it affects them. As someone who has been running this website to make a living for nearly 10 years now, it really hits home for me. What I didn’t comprehend at first was just how many people are blocking ads without really considering the consequences. It’s easy to just download a quick browser plugin, turn the thing on, and forget about it. It’s probably even easier to justify than pirating games.
For the huge blogging networks that are taking over the internet, or Facebook, you probably aren’t making too much of a dent. But for sites like this one, which doesn’t have tens of millions of people coming back every day, every single person who blocks our ads is contributing to quite a loss for me and my family. I try to make the ads as non-invasive as possible, completely disallowing popups, pop-unders, blinking ads, ads with sound, expanding ads, auto-playing video ads, etc. Most of our ads are just simple banners, some with basic Flash animation.
All I am asking is that you read the article linked above, and consider whitelisting us in your blocking software if you haven’t already. If you really feel that we don’t deserve to make money by providing content to you, you can still help us out in other ways:
- Spread the word about our articles – share them on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc. There are links at the bottom of every page that make this very easy.
- Leave a comment here and there, contributing to our community. We have several conversations going through the site, and have a forum you can check out as well.
- Link to our reviews on your favourite vendor sites. Many PC and Video Game sites have comment and review sections, and it would be great if you could help spread the word by sharing our reviews with them.
- Use us as a source on Yahoo Answers. If you know a lot about the topics we cover, you may be interested in helping out on Yahoo Answers. If so, consider using us as a source!
- Recommend us to friends, coworkers, etc. Help spread the word! If you have friends who may not have come across our site, let them know about it! If you know of a vendor or manufacturer who might want to work with us, feel free to tell them!
Thanks for keeping us in mind.
You are joking right?
Comparing ad-blocking with piracy is just daft.
My ad-blocker is on and staying on.
lol
Well clearly you know you are doing something wrong, as you are too chicken-shit to use your real name ;)
How does ad payment work? Do sites get paid for ad views, or only click-throughs? And would running an ad “hider” versus ad blocker make a difference in the former case?
Thanks for the article; this is something I think about. I run ad-blockers because some legitimate sites with good information still allow obtrusive ads, so I block all ads a consequence. But HCW is now whitelisted for me!
It really depends on the ad. Some are paid based on views, some on clicks, and some only pay when a purchase is made. We run all three types here, which allows us to avoid overly aggressive ads. And in any case, it affects the bottom line if they are blocked by a lot of readers.
Thanks for your consideration! Please consider sharing the article with your friends as well :)
I liked the article! I have a site and run into the same sort of thing and have similar arguments with people about ads. I do my best to keep them as unobtrusive as possible, but still know a high percentage of people block them. Most frustrating was to find out that paid contributors to the site were blocking ads. I don’t know where they thought the money was coming from, but they didn’t believe blocking ads and asking to be paid was a big deal.
After reading the article, I realize most people aren’t malicious about it (with the exceptions like the cretin who commented here earlier). I just hope that when they do learn more about how important ads are to the sites they like, they will be courteous and responsible like Peter here.
LL i totally understand it is about the bottom line. without the ad revenue this site could close. and one less place for people to not only receive reviews of new products but to socialize. Most people never have to worry about the bottom line of the company they work for. All they do is their job and expect a paycheck. They do not understand without a black positive line there is no company and no paycheck. People always want something for free. what is in it for them. well what is in it for them to allow ad and to click every now and then is a website that has been around for several years. Where people have come to be friends and socialize. Most importantly they do not understand this is not just a website but your business and your families lively hood. It takes five seconds a day to help you and your site. I hope more people will come and help.
rockos
Well, used to have flash on all the time but since the latest versions of flash started crashing like crazy on linux I have to use flashblock in order to avoid firefox crashing or chrome from displaying sour faces… No response from Adobe so now I use flash blocking on other OSes as well. No adblocking per se, but all flash is blocked, and if an ad uses flash it would be blocked by default.
I totally agree with you. I feel people should give a website a chance. I also see the other side of the fence too, in that there are some websites that pound you with so many ads you can’t even see the website you are trying to visit.
There should be a happy medium where webmasters and visitors can agree on the number of pop-ups/unders and the more static google ads to make a persons browsing experience better and at the same time create a revenue stream for the webmaster.
Being a Lensmaster myself, I can see your point.
Hi,
Sorry about it – actually I just came to your website the first time and I use an ad blocker. The reason is: I usually have a lot of browser windows open … each having several open tabs. It’s just my habit. Using a single core CPU it’s just too fatal if somehow some non-optimized flash banner sucks up memory or CPU time. I have to kill my browser and start again looking for (a few examples) that board post I wanted to write a reply to later … the point I was at the text from my university news section etc..
Before the first flash banners came up I never even cared about blocking ads. That being said: Should I come to like your site I ‘would’ consider whitelisting it. I’ve whitelisted some sites before – no big ones, but specifically useful information portals of which I know they run on a low budget … even if they use flash banners.
What I ‘would’ like to state however: I do not feel like I’m doing anything ‘wrong’ blocking ads. And considering the viewing of ad-blocking as ‘wrong’ or ‘not wrong’ seems to be an issue I’d like to drop a few lines regarding this topic, too:
Basically services supported by ads are not new. If you view it like a contract … for example: “You pay for my service by watching the ads we set up” it might be considered wrong to completely circumvent the payment. After all you can’t go into a shop and say: “Oh, I don’t like the idea of having less money than before … but, I’m taking that cookie anyway so I’m taking it .. goodbye.”.
However: There have been changes in the last few years regarding this matter. On the net there are flash banners. I’d like to start an easier comparison: TV programs. Many just exist from TV advertizing. However: You grow used to the program over the years. Watching the regular programs could be considered to be some kind of “subscription”. Of course: This is no contract at all … it is just a matter of habits and availability. The downside is, that this habitual exchange is experiencing one-sided changes: TV channels / content providers try to enforce things like blocking fast forward in recordings, preventing recordings entirely or partially even denying channel switching during commercials. Inversive banners get put over the running program etc..
What is the consequence of this slow change? This is how I feel about it: “I use the services the same way I always did. They are one-sidedly increasing the ‘price’ for these services.” (user prohibitions, animated half-screen banners during my favorite programs) IMHO these changes have lead to a decrease in acceptance for commericals – or to turn it around: Circumventing commercials is like taking back something inside the virtual ‘pay by watching ads’-contract that has been one-sidedly shifted by the other side of the contract.
To get back to the topic regarding banners on your site: It’s not fair, but IMHO the overall shift to “more inversive” advertizing is as much to blame as users utilizing ad blockers.
And as mentioned: Should I become a regular visitor and feel like I want to use your page in the future I’d be glad to whitelist it in my ad blocker. It’s just that I, as most users, have our reasons not to do it the other way around: Generally allow browser ads and disable them one by one. It would just kill my workflow on my comp. ;)
Nice article. I think the problem is the majority of the users who use the internet dont even realise why these ads pop up, they just block at will because they are a nuisance for them.
Your reviews are extremely informative and neutral. It helped me dropped off the idea to purchase Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty based on your knowledgeable review (the fact Vista OS has put all decoders on the same field and Realtek on-board chip has catchup), it’s excellent you can review a product through both hardware and software perspective, unlike some other sites I came across only did it with pure hardware perspective and came to a false ‘Buy’ conclusion.
All in all, your site deserve white-listed! Keep up the good work!
Ad Blocking isn’t going away and responsible marketers and publishers should consider ensuring that the reason for ad blocking is dealt with. It’s obviously no longer the bandwidth the ad uses as most people connect via some sort of broadband service so it must be something else.
I block ads on sites which feature interstitial ads, ads which make annoying and loud sounds and ad which drop down to cover most of the page. I would guess most people block ads for this reason or a similar one (remember pop-ups?). If I see one it’s one click to block all ads forever on that site I don’t by default do this but sadly it does happen even on decent sites.
Another reason to block ads is that it lowers your chances of being hit by an irresponsible marketer or agency serving nonsense ads or malware self installers, you don’t get the ad, you don’t get the payload. Security Tool anyone?
I can’t talk to your agency or those marketers only you can and publishers like you.
I don’t mind ads at all but if I have to block all ads on a site to ensure I don’t get the anti-social ones I will.
I don’t allow ads, havent since the major players (adsense, doubleclick, google ads, ect) started just pasting whatever code their client sent them into their banner. (just so happens that google adds regularly causes IE to freeze and crash when one of their client’s poorly coded ads comes up in flash).
When the webmasters, and the advertising companies quit putting up ads that break my browser, and give up on all the “you have won” and other scams I may think about removing my ad-blockers
(By the way, your own ad banners are full of scammers, like big brandspromotions.com claims that “I won an Ipad” – so back on the ad-blocker your site goes – sorry, my security over your wallet.)
Nice BIG ass blinking ad you got there. Funny that you say you block these sorts of ads, but right when I get here, the first thing I see is a blinking ad screaming at me that I am a “winner”
If you want folks to not block your ads, they should not be invasive.
I totally agree. I just white-listed this site as well, and the first thing I see is an ad that looks like one of those iPod-winning scams, complete with animated stars trying to give me a seizure.
I am far less inclined to block ads that are tasteful, so while I think that your approach to asking users in the ad space to not block ads is very good, you should also work on improving your quality of ads.
It is a totally valid point and not just for this site(my first time running into ur world) but to sites that provide resurces that I use. I dont go crazy with ad blocking, it is just part of the internet, but I do some at times and it knever dawned on me how it really could work against me in the long run as it becomes too much of a pain for many people to maintain a site as a hobby or their primary income and dont bother. I am a user that donates to opensource projects i use and i appreciate the idea that there is no free lunch, even if i am not picking up the tab. I am glad you pointed this out. I suppose there is a need for a whitelist of sites that are not abusive with advertising and have a legitimate operation but depend on ad $ for survivial.
I just got here first time, when finding your PS3 controller in 64bit Windows article from Google, and then finding link to this post in your front page.
I admit too blocking your sites add and never before even thought about anyones income doing so. My defense just is that i really really hate Flash banners… and pop-ups. So i use Opera and block individually every Flash banner and blinking adds when visiting new site.
And like someone say before here, sites and add industry scammers can also blame themselfs for users doing this because of their previous practices (pop-ups, blinking adds, flash etc..) what has forced many regular users to use blockers.
It’s shame honest site owners like you seem to be also be affected by this.
But maybe site owners like yourself should more advertise to your readers that you need their support (via adds) and telling them that you do your best
to ensure that adds here are “non-invasive” type.
Over the years this one is only second site i read where site admin tells users that their add policy is no pop-ups and other annoying add tactics…
First one was Bluesnews years ago and that gave me lot of respect to him and i have been loyal reader/user to that site pretty much at least once a week ever since.
If advertising revenue from this website is your sole source of income, you need to get a job, especially since you claim that the money lost is affecting “your family”.
This IS my job, that’s my whole point. If someone went to your job, and took 15% off every paycheck and threw it in the toilet, you would have a better understanding the situation.