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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

#211

Post by andreygrehov »

bazillion wrote: post #150
bazillion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built what I believe to be the most sane way to "advertise" something: Let people buy directly from an image. This solves the problem of people not interested in the content, because of its unobtrusive nature -- if they don't hover over an item within the image, it's as if the "advertisement" isn't there. Check out my demo (desktop only) at http://www.worldlifestyle.com/testpost My website which you can sign up for…

Oops guys! It looks like the publisher temporarily removed the PLEENQ script tag from that page. Go to https://www.theskinnyconfidential.com/2016/10/28/thehangover... for a better example. This is actually a real client's page, and shows how some websites use PLEENQ.

That's pretty cool. How do you detect product edges?

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

#212

Post by dwaltrip »

arjie wrote: post #209
dwaltrip wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't make money from it, then it's not an absurd conclusion at all. Of course, it means one needs a day job, but such is life.

Specifically, the day job shouldn't be too enjoyable if you're making money from it. Once it is, you should start doing it for free and find a job you find less enjoyable. That just follows in a straightforward way. Now, this may not seem absurd to you, but I dare say it will to most people.

I think that is reading into the quote too much, but I can see where you are coming from. I agree with you that such reasoning is a bit absurd.

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

#213

Post by jrnichols »

imagist wrote: post #43
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?

Almost no one makes money off ads either. Sure, a lot of the people you can think of with websites make their money off ads, but that works because they're probably very famous.

That's in part because every "How to make money at home" blog lists "Start a blog, put ads on it" as one of their tips.

I tried that a few years ago. In a year, I made about $1.75 from ad revenue. I'm an awful blogger. There are a lot of awful blogs out there too, though.

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

#214

Post by newscracker »

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?

> 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.

He's famous, creates courses for Pluralsight, is a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP who travels the world speaking at events and training technology professionals (paraphrased from the page). He also runs haveibeenpwned.com, a site that focuses on security breaches. One would think that such a person would probably not want to run any kind of ads with any ad networks in the first place.

And he argues against ad blockers in another article because someone updated EasyList with references to his ad code and states that this back-and-forth war between publishers and ad-blockers is not healthy, which is a good point. But as long as publishers use ad networks that don't care a damn about tracking, malware and other issues, I'm glad we have ad blockers and people who keep things like EasyList updated regularly. Personally, I don't like the large image on his pages right at the top stretching all the way down, with almost no readable content without scrolling down (this depends on the screen size and the browser window size).

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

#215

Post by hillz »

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…

Yeah, that's fair. I'm doing the same thing with recipestasher.com. I lose about $400/yr on it, but I really like using it and so do a few other people. No ads, no clickbait crap. But, I realize that I'm quite privileged to be able to do it.

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

#216

Post by jknoepfler »

sgustard wrote: post #191

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…

The author believes that personal curation of ads is an essential part of his relationship with his readers. He believes in his own value as a voice for products that he finds useful or interesting to his readers. It is very difficult to productize the trust of a specialist community, because smart people value authenticity and despise shills.

If the author were to productize his model, which isn't impossible, it would require a great deal of effort to not lose trust, and his relationships with his customers would have to look a lot like his relationships with his sponsors (tightly coupled, personalized, most control left up to the consumer).

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

#217

Post by djrogers »

sgustard wrote: post #191

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…

> I can't assume every site owner wants to deal with figuring out who's the sponsor each week

Here's where you've broken the model - long before you get around to re0implementing an ad network.

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

#218

Post by newscracker »

dbg31415 wrote: post #45
ambirex wrote: post #10

Except that he is still using Disqus, which is free to use because they have moved to ad supported model (for the most part). Even if he isn't running the ads, they are using the script to track users across sites and then feeding that into ad networks.

An alternative to Disqus. * Discourse || https://www.discourse.org/ * Embedding Discourse Comments via Javascript - howto - Discourse Meta || https://meta.discourse.org/t/embedding-discourse-comments-vi... EDIT: Love the instant downvotes without any comments on why. Downvotes are totally helpful and not the least bit petty and stupid. I have 2 client using Discourse on their production sites and it works great.

"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." [1]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#220

Post by user5994461 »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
r1ch wrote: 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…

> 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…

It's typical for a page to require 5-50 requests. For starter, one should understand the difference between HTTP requests, page views and unique users.

600k HTTP requests => 60k page views (if 10 requests per page).

Bots may generate lots of requests but won't hit GA.

60% of users (typical HN audience) will view pages but block GA (adblocks).

Your numbers are not surprising.

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