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The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

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Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#11

Post by junto »

cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads.

I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#12

Post by rewqfdsa »

jfoutz wrote: post #4
sunni2sunni wrote: post #2

well nkurz pull the plug before it is too late. ads suck, no one ever wants to look at them.

Eh, a better approach is probably to just detect adblock and put up a "please don't use adblock/donate here button". Maybe lightbox you from time to time asking for the same.

> detect adblock

One does not simply "detect adblock". Browsers are user agents. They run code in an environment optimized for user safety and convenience. These environments will always be able to tell your site's server- and client-side code exactly what it wants to hear while showing something different to the user. You can't stop it. The client will always win.

We may eventually get to the point where clients use various computer vision techniques to recognize ads. If I can clearly distinguish jiggling, improbably large elf anatomy below a flashing yellow "PLAY THIS ONLINE RPG" from content I want to see, so can an algorithm, at least to within an acceptable error rate.

Advertisements that are so borderline that they can't be detected as advertisements are ones I probably don't mind seeing anyway.

Spammers have already tried all available countermeasures and they've completely lost. Spam is so completely ineffective that it's actually dipped below half of email traffic.

No, the client will always win in the end.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#13

Post by cm2187 »

junto wrote: post #11
cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

Me too. And there is no point to access the last two years of someone's browsing history to know that someone visiting a video game website is interested in video games or technology.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#15

Post by DrScump »

Are you sure that ad blockers are the only variable in play here?

"(October 2014) we had nearly 4.5 million hits (read) on our articles. This year (October 2015) we are at 4.4 million hits... Where a year ago we served 375~400K pageviews per day, we now register just over 200K pageviews a day."

Is pageviews the actual metric, or is ads served the metric? Given the recent discoveries in how many "ad views" were actually never presented to the reader and were just phony revenue ticks, could it not be that you are also "suffering" from an ongoing reduction in phony ad presentations as the trickery is discovered and addressed?

I block ads primarily to limit tracking and bogus traffic, not to dodge advertising per se. I heartily endorse jfoutz's suggestions here. If you continue to serve quality content, it's the more sustainable business model long-term anyway.

Years before the modern ad-network paradigm, many media sites were subscription from the outset (e.g. WSJ, mercurynews). Some later went free, using ad networks to pay the way. Now, the trend is moving back to a subscription model. Those sites that do the punitive block-ads-and-we-block-you (e.g. washingtonpost) will find that people just go elsewhere for those stories.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#16

Post by doguozkan »

cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

It seems like by "targeted ads" they mean ads relevant to the site, not the reader.

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#17

Post by sputr »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #12
jfoutz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, a better approach is probably to just detect adblock and put up a "please don't use adblock/donate here button". Maybe lightbox you from time to time asking for the same.

> detect adblock One does not simply "detect adblock". Browsers are user agents. They run code in an environment optimized for user safety and convenience. These environments will always be able to tell your site's server- and client-side code exactly what it wants to hear while showing something different to the user. You can't stop it. The client will always win. We may eventually get to the point where clients use…

Actually, it can (and is routinely) done. https://github.com/brockwhittaker/Detect-Adblockers

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#18

Post by rewqfdsa »

cm2187 wrote: post #13
junto wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

Me too. And there is no point to access the last two years of someone's browsing history to know that someone visiting a video game website is interested in video games or technology.

But what kinds of science and technology? Maybe our user has a bit of disposable income and wouldn't mind ads for high-end hardware he didn't happen to know about. Maybe she's interested in DLC for games she's passionate about, as measured for frequently of forum visits. Maybe our user runs a lab and would be very interested in high-end PCR machines.

You can do much better than "interested in video games or technology" if you know a bit about your users. This tracking makes advertising much less annoying (occasionally veering into useful).

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#19

Post by rewqfdsa »

sputr wrote: post #17
rewqfdsa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> detect adblock One does not simply "detect adblock". Browsers are user agents. They run code in an environment optimized for user safety and convenience. These environments will always be able to tell your site's server- and client-side code exactly what it wants to hear while showing something different to the user. You can't stop it. The client will always win. We may eventually get to the point where clients use…

Actually, it can (and is routinely) done. https://github.com/brockwhittaker/Detect-Adblockers

It's an arms race. Advertisers may be able to detect ad blockers in the short term, but eventually they will lose. That's because users control their machines and advertisers don't. Widespread use of adblock-blockers will only hasten this inevitable defeat.

The techniques used by the project to which you've linked can be trivially worked around by detecting the script itself and either not running it or telling it what it wants to hear. (Come on: an iframe? You really don't think a browser extension could lie about that? I expected at least some kind of server-client traffic correlation for a serious ad-blocker-blocker attempt.)

Re: The Devastating Effect of Ad-Blockers for Guru3D.com

#20

Post by elorant »

cm2187 wrote: post #7

I am amazed that their response to adblockers is more targetted ads. My main reason for using an adblocker isn't to block ads, which don't bother me that much. It is to block tracking accross websites. Telling me that they will do more tracking in response isn't really going to change my mind...

Well there is site-specific tracking and web tracking. I don’t mind for the former. If sites could build in-house mechanisms and work more closely with their advertisers to serve me ads specific to my interests that’s fine with me-as long as those interests correlate with the content of the site. It’s when tracking becomes pervasive to the whole damn web that becomes annoying.
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