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I've removed all ad network code from my blog

troyhunt.com

31–40 of 336 posts

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

no, good solution would be having good IT people with good sales, nothing less

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#32
So as long as you've got a huge enough following, that is willing to pay for anything you give them, it should be no problem. Not realistic for majority of sites.

Reminds me of big musicians, giving their new album away for free. After thirty years of making millions. Very poetic.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#33
post #12

You'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…

Same for me. I make money when people hire me as a consultant or buy my books. I started recently rewriting my sites as simple static content (and wrote about how I do this http://blog.markwatson.com/2016/12/benefits-of-static-web-si...)

I still have JS from bootstrap, and I am looking at bootstrap alternatives that are CSS only.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In terms of profit I'm sure it fine, but if you want a stable and fast ad network, free of malware and viruses then you need the best IT staff money can buy. It may also hurt profits, because you security team would reject some customers.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#35
post #4

Ok, 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?

> How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr Not enough traction? Someone has to start using it, people will adapt...

Patreon seems to be a better model, to be honest. It's about nine million dollars a month in total pledge, which meant over one hundred million in revenue per year if it never grows beyond that.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#36
I don't like the total irrelevancy of much of the ad content. It could be tailored to my browsing habits, but then I'm not overly fond of the tracking.

Not "overly fond of the tracking", but you're using Disqus for commenting.

I've got news for you. Disqus tracks you everywhere you go.

And those ads are not particularly irrelevant, because most are contextual, which means they are generated based on the page content.

What I've done for my site is stopped running AdSense (Google) ads.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#37
post #5

The advertisement he refers to was a plain text bar at the top of the page with no tracking nor any distracting visuals. And when you scroll down into the article it disappears. I dont see any problem with this kind of innocent unobtrusive level of advertising and frankly wish he kept it for his own financial gain and others used it as a model.

He still has this sponsorship message (which I am also totally fine with), but it seems to be blocked by uBlock Origin, if you are using that?

With uBlock Origin I was able to see the sponsorship message by clicking the "Toggle cosmetic filtering for this site" button.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#38
post #4

Ok, 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?

> How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr Not enough traction? Someone has to start using it, people will adapt...

That use case seems to have been entirely superceded by Patreon. The fact that it isn't quite identical, well, that's part of why it has been superceded by Patreon.

But both Flattr and Patreon miss the relatively involuntary nature of ad networks. Certain things can not count on being supported by eager contributors, and need to more-or-less force themselves in to somehow earn revenue. I'm not all that perturbed by saying "then perhaps they shouldn't exist", but I don't have to take a survey to guess I'm in the very minority view on that.

To give a positive example of that where it's not just "clickbait" but is actually a useful thing: My wife and I get a lot of recipes off the internet. But of the several dozen she's pinned on Pinterest, I'd say I've only seen one or two sites repeated. Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. If my use case is the common one, then patronage isn't really a solution. (Including Flattr, which to a first approximation, zero of the people visiting those recipe sites have ever heard of, and low single digits of them would use it if they had.) But ads aren't necessarily working terribly well either; I've seen some recipes so laden down with ads that I got tired of waiting for the recipe to stop jumping around on my phone as it loaded Yet Another Ad into the middle of the text, and went and got my computer, where uMatrix nuked the ads without even trying.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#40
post #2

Kudos 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.

facebook as well...
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