I completely missed that the sponsor's message was even there until I scrolled back to look at it.
I've removed all ad network code from my blog
21–30 of 336 posts
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#22How about removing that giant self-advertisement at the top of the blog? :)
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#23This is about equivalent to saying, "I've stopped beating my wife." only almost everyone beats their wife in the scenario. It's not that you've done good. You've just stopped being bad.
Why does your personal website need sponsorship at all? Why should people pay you for it? This commercial mindset is very weird to me.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#24Ok, you have a sponsorship model that works because you're probably very famous. That doesn't solve anyone's problem, because almost no one is famous. How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner?
I think charging money (paywall, donations) is the only acceptable way for sites that can't do "big player" ads such as finding sponsors or having native advertising.
Patreon has proven itself to be a good model for a lot of bloggers out there with the right kind of following.
The main issue is that to replace all advertising revenue across the board, everybody would need to pitch in something like $150/month. I like paying for things to get rid of ads, and I'm not even sure I'd make that commitment.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#25Presumably an ad network helps get you to the position where you can negotiate sponsorship. I am most aware of the sponsorship journey that Grey and Brady discuss on their podcast Hello Internet [0] (I can't remember which episode), where they discuss the difficulty of using an ad network for a podcast and their eventual preference of sponsors. Notably they came to the negotiating table with successful youtube channels and their established audiences.
The typical sponsorship model requires a track record, for one-off sites and gambles (whattimeisitinflorida.com ?) it doesn't really work. Maybe there is room for the equivalent of a recruiter but for sponsors?
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#26This is a perfect example of how online advertising should work. Get a sponsor, show their unobtrusive message. Done. Can't find a sponsor? Can't have them trust you, or accept advertising that doesn't track user or show targeted ads? Can't afford the time to chase sponsors and manage the advertising? Then try a paywall. What, no one subscribes? Then take the content off the internet. You have an unsustainable busine…
> You have an unsustainable business model. You have an unsustainable business model given current available technical solutions that meet your ethical criteria. That's quite different.
Well, yes, it's unsustainable in the current about-to-die system of online advertising. I'm pretty sure that the death of online advertising as we know it will take a ton of small time sites down with it. That's sad in many cases, but unavoidable. Once advertising is back to a sustainable model, e.g. one where advertisers will pay reasonable money for displaying non-targeted non-tracking image ads - the possibility to have ad-sponsored content will return. Another future possibiliyt is some kind of successful micropayment network.
But until we have that, there is just no saving a small ad-network funded site.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#27Kudos for removing all 3rd party scripts, not only ad networks. As builders of web systems, we need to be conscious of which 3rd parties are gaining access to private user data. There's no reason in hell any Google or Facebook widget should be embedded in my health care providers website, yet somehow that's a thing. Any other website is usually even worse. I personally use NoScript with whitelisted scripts when I kno…
He hasn't removed all third party scripts.
A quick check shows Google Analytics and Disqus (which uses an iframe), there is also some webfont stuff going on.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#28You'll be surprised how much faster pages feel without ad scripts - I noticed significant improvements after implementing a no-ads premium option on our website. Even with an ad blocker, things just feel snappier if the scripts simply aren't there in the first place. I decided to go one step further with my personal site and eliminate all JS completely. I don't get enough traffic to make any kind of analytics or ad c…
Me too, I used to spend a fair amount of time looking at the tiny amount of traffic I got in GA. But just like you I decided the extra JS wasn't worth it and I'd rather have my website be completely void of JS even if that meant I'd loose visibility from not having GA. Cloudflare's analytics is good enough for me.
As a result of being strict about JS and keeping the CSS down my website is super snappy and tiny.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#29Ok, you have a sponsorship model that works because you're probably very famous. That doesn't solve anyone's problem, because almost no one is famous. How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner?
It also doesn't solve the issues for most advertisers. I can't imagine that a large e-commerce site would want to make thousands of individual deals with sites that may or may not generate the desired traffic. His solution doesn't really scale, for the advertisers, which is why the ad networks exists. My main issue with ad networks is that they simply aren't technically competent enough to run an internet facing busi…
"Most of them seem to be run by good sales people and not so good IT staff."
Sounds like a good solution to me.
Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog
#30It's worth clicking through to the article linked near the bottom, "Ad blockers are part of the problem".[0] What he explains there is why I don't use any of the curated lists such as EasyList, but instead maintain my own personal whitelist. It's more hassle,[1] but fairer.
[0] https://www.troyhunt.com/ad-blockers-are-part-of-the-problem...
[1] Although unfortunately, it defeats the privacy-protecting aspect of using a generic whitelist to the extent that if the FBI finds the whitelist on my computer, they will have some extra info on my browsing habits. But I also don't delete my browsing history, so that doesn't really matter.