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Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#21

Post by georgeott »

lolatu54 wrote: post #16

Ads have many specialized requirements that you wouldn't really want to build yourself. Tracking, tokenization of url parameters, rotating ads to meet impression goals, and typically advertisers have build their ads to be served by major ad networks, so you would have to replicate their systems to support those ad units. Ads are way more complicated than most people realize.

I've heard some Ad networks are asking clients to setup reverse-proxys, so they can make the image APPEAR to come from same origin. It's getting crazy!

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#23

Post by 0x0 »

I guess one of the "benefits" of serving ads from a third party site is that you can cookie the user on the thirdparty domain, and build a profile as the user moves between participant sites. ("Re-targeting"). Serving ads from a first party domain likely loses this information since there won't be a shared cookie? Also it might complicate installation (you'd need to install some server side software that fetches ad content from the ad network, and probably some custom development to integrate it without being caught by a one-line rule in adblock?)

Also! With more and more ads running javascript based animations, you really don't want shady ad-network-provided JS running in the context of your main site. (XSS)

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#24

Post by Retra »

johnward wrote: post #14
jordigh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

That solution doesn't work at all for the massive numbers of people who want content and don't want to pay for it.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#26

Post by johnward »

freehunter wrote: post #19
johnward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

That's like saying "stop downloading F2P games" or "don't support the RIAA/MPAA". There are really just so few sites that aren't ad supported. "It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved." It's literally none of those things. It's not simple, it's not a solution, and it doesn't work for anyone involved.

Leaching content is not much different than the early days of MP3s. So I'm hopeful we'll find a new business model that works without me having to pay for every site on the web I want to browse. I can't remember the last time I pirated an album. The ease of streaming services has made it so convenient that I don't want to manage local files.

Still I don't buy the argument that just because you don't want to pay for the content (by viewing ads) that you should still be able to consume it without ads. From a technical perspective I guess the client can do whatever it wants with the data returned but it's still not "right".

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#27

Post by wvenable »

jordigh wrote: post #8
wvenable wrote: post #3

We do that but Ad-blockers block even those ads. We have our own text-based adds like Google Adsense text ads which are just tags and those get filtered out as well.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

The only reason I know that it blocks these ads is because I also run an ad blocker.

We have a very strict ad policy; we manage all our ads internally, don't do any tracking, and all ads are 100% relevant to the content of the site. I have click-through rates on some ads types that are so far above the industry average you'd think I'm lying. We consider our ads just another service we provide on the site one that benefits us and our visitors.

The content is funded by ads and paying for content on the web to every single click you link isn't feasible. So morality aside, it's tragedy of the commons: People without adblockers effectively fund those that do. If the scales tip too far, the funds dry up and content will just go away.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#28

Post by DanBlake »

jordigh wrote: post #8
wvenable wrote: post #3

We do that but Ad-blockers block even those ads. We have our own text-based adds like Google Adsense text ads which are just tags and those get filtered out as well.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

Its a race that (if the ad industry gets smarter) will be very hard for the ad blockers to match.

Because publishers have control of the website, they can do things like randomize the div name, parameter names, javascript names, javascript functions, sizes of the ad, randomize images for the ad, use dynamic JS positioning, etc..

Basically if a publisher was serving their own ads and didn't want them blocked, you would be extremely hard pressed to counteract it.

As far as building your extension- You cant build it so its automated. No matter what you build, Any publisher could bypass it within minutes. The best you can do is make it so the site doesnt work if ads are showing, but publishers are already fine with this (hence why warnings are put up saying 'disable adblock to continue')

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#29

Post by joosters »

johnward wrote: post #14
jordigh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work hard to block all ads, including those. It's super helpful if you can provide an HTML class to your divs so I can more easily block them, but I will keep on working on blocking all ads by all means possible. I'm thinking of building an ad extension that doesn't show the ads but reports to js that the ad is still there, so that websites think that ad is there. It might also help for some cases to download the a…

Stop browsing ad supported content then. It's a simple solution that works for everyone involved. Everyone says "i'd happily pay" but few put their money where their mouth is. For the HN downvoters why is choosing not to consume the ad supported content so bad?

Could you give some examples of websites where there is some form of ToS that contractually disallows access without viewing the ads?

I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority of websites have no such terms of use, so who are you to tell us how we should be accessing these sites?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't publishers serve ads from their domains to thwart ad-blockers?

#30

Post by dmritard96 »

Counting Impressions.

A different model is needed if the publishers servers have to get the ad first and then give it to the client because the ad server then needs to trust the publisher to report impressions honestly and the publisher has an incentive to inflate that number.

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