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I've removed all ad network code from my blog

troyhunt.com

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

#191

Post by sgustard »

This is great, and now let's say I want to productize this "sponsored by X" feature so other sites can use it. I can't assume every site owner wants to deal with figuring out who's the sponsor each week, so we'll automate that with some backend that serves the correct sponsor. We'll want to know how many people see the link and how many click on it, because we (and our sponsors) want to know how well these links work.

Haven't I just re-implemented an ad network at this point? Is what I've implemented objectionable now, or only later as other bloatware features are added?

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

#192

Post by Laforet »

cr0sh wrote: post #179
vintageseltzer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…

I kinda agree with you; I run a personal website, it isn't very popular (and I don't update it often - hmm, maybe there's a link there!) - but it is my website, and I've kept the domain active since 1998 or thereabouts. ie - a "labor of love" How do I pay for it? Well, I reach around to my back pocket for my wallet, and... I don't have ads, I don't have a sponsorship, and I don't care - what I have and what I put on…

Seconded. I run two small websites with hundreds and sometimes thousands of PV per day on a server I am already using for other things. The only thing I really pay for is the domain which is a drop in the bucket anyway. I might give a random shoutout to Cloudflare here as well: Not everybody agree with their way of doing.things but from my point of view they've really helped to cut out a lot of work for personal websites.

To my knowledge, most people who make money on their websites are either big enough to monetise with sponsorship/subscription, or they'd run a number of smaller sites of no consequence nor unique content anyway. The latter has no real reason to exist.

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

#193

Post by arjie »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #186
arjie wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit disingenuous to suggest a paywall when the first thing anyone does on this website with a paywalled article is attempt to bypass. Such a bad faith move to say "use a paywall" and then promptly follow it up with "and I'll try to bypass it to access the content".

If a site wishes to implement a paywall that is their right. If they wish to implement a bypass, that is also just fine. They choose to implement this bypass because they wish to be indexed by Google. So why shouldn't we make use of that intentionally implement bypass?

Do whatever you find ethical. I'm just here to ensure that people are well informed about the fact that paywall vs. ads is actually paywall with no search engine access vs. paywall which people won't pay for vs. ads.

I'm all right with the paywall idea succeeding or failing in a well informed marketplace of ideas.

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

#194

Post by StavrosK »

jessaustin wrote: post #171
StavrosK wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only two or three files are served from Cloudfront, and I'm not aware of any analytics software that reads those logs. If there is one, please let me know, I'm interested.

Sorry I don't know much about this sort of thing. It's just something that seemed conceptually possible? It's no mystery why Google would want all the data GA creates, but I've always wondered why e.g. Piwik isn't more popular.

Piwik isn't popular with me just because I don't want to run it myself (and keep it upgraded, etc), and the hosted version is as bad at tracking as GA is.

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

#195

Post by doodpants »

intrasight wrote: post #169

One thing I've always admired about Apple is that they use no third-party scripts. And I thus always think "If that works for Apple, which is arguable the most successful company, why don't other companies follow their successful model?" I still have no good answer to that question. Also, I followed this troyhunt.com post to the "Ad blockers are part of the problem" post - which I found to be an even more interesting…

Arguably, his sponsored links are ads, and ad blockers block ads. Sure, there is a case to be made that only problematic ads should be blocked, but I don't think it's so cut and dry.

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

#196

Post by arjie »

cr0sh wrote: post #179
vintageseltzer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…

I kinda agree with you; I run a personal website, it isn't very popular (and I don't update it often - hmm, maybe there's a link there!) - but it is my website, and I've kept the domain active since 1998 or thereabouts. ie - a "labor of love" How do I pay for it? Well, I reach around to my back pocket for my wallet, and... I don't have ads, I don't have a sponsorship, and I don't care - what I have and what I put on…

> ...if you really love what you're doing, you'd give it away free.

This doesn't make sense. It follows logically that we should all not love what we do for a living. That strikes me as an absurd conclusion.

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

#197

Post by StavrosK »

pmlnr wrote: post #190
StavrosK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get enough traffic to make any kind of analytics or ad code worthwhile. On a related note, does anyone else see GA being wildly inaccurate? My blog was on the HN front page a while ago, and CloudFront got ~600k hits, which should translate to about ~100k uniques (I cache), yet GA only showed 8k uniques. I'm guessing the HN crowd runs uBlock or some other blocker in its vast majority, so JS-based analytics a…

> I'm guessing the HN crowd runs uBlock or some other blocker in its vast majority, so JS-based analytics are completely untrustworthy. Actually, the server based access logs would be more accurate. The "only" things the JS based are giving you are tracking options and user interface data, such as resolution. And yes, due to blocking, JS based will never be the as accurate as the server logs. A long time ago I used a…

What I would like is an analytics service that allows me to give them a CNAME on my own domain, and that uses a tracking pixel, rather than JS (less intrusive and more reliable, plus easier to install than centralized log management).

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

#198

Post by tokenizerrr »

arjie wrote: post #193
tokenizerrr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a site wishes to implement a paywall that is their right. If they wish to implement a bypass, that is also just fine. They choose to implement this bypass because they wish to be indexed by Google. So why shouldn't we make use of that intentionally implement bypass?

Do whatever you find ethical. I'm just here to ensure that people are well informed about the fact that paywall vs. ads is actually paywall with no search engine access vs. paywall which people won't pay for vs. ads. I'm all right with the paywall idea succeeding or failing in a well informed marketplace of ideas.

Some people pay for the paywall. Especially when these people regularly consume your content. People stumbling in from social media (such as HN) are not regular consumers. Big difference, there.

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

#200

Post by mholt »

fiatjaf wrote: 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?

If you have something worth getting money for, sell it. I'd happily pay to read quality content that I'm interested in if it doesn't have ads.
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