Ads Are Back

It is unfortunate that we have to have these ads to pay for the site, but I will do my part and click on them as long as I still come here.

Nice thing is, this time around with the ads, I've actually seen several things of interest to me.

Rei wrote:It is unfortunate that we have to have these ads to pay for the site, but I will do my part and click on them as long as I still come here.

I'm gonna keep them as unobtrusive as possible so just let me know if they're getting in your way. Pretty soon, I'm going to test out having ads after the first and last post of every topic. But those are going to be just text and I'm going to try to implement them in such a way that it's seamless with the rest of the site. However, if they are in the way, just let me know.

In any case, I will never do what writing.com did. I used to really like that site, but I can't stand it now since they have animated ads EVERYWHERE. It's bloody annoying I tells yer. At first I put up with it 'cause I could afford to upgrade my membership to get rid of the ads. But then they went ahead and changed it such that you had to get a "premium" membership, or whatever the bugger was, to get rid of the ads. I've visited writing.com very seldom since then, and I think the site's activity peaked a couple years ago.



David ->> Same here, but I'm afraid most of the ads that are being shown won't appeal to most people on the site. A lot of the ads seem to be picking up on the "powered by phpBB" in the footer and so are displaying ads related to that.

Google's kind of spamming us. The machine or however it works, is posting with nothing but ads as content.

Is it supposed to do that?

MetalHead wrote:Google's kind of spamming us. The machine or however it works, is posting with nothing but ads as content.

Is it supposed to do that?

Do you mean the google ad after the first post? That's not spamming; I added it there. I'm testing out different ad placements right now, and the overall header one was doing terribly, and was pretty annoying to boot. I've changed all the ads around and based on what I find, I'll probably move them around again.

For the after first post ad, that's going to be there for just a few days at the moment, then I'm going to experiment with an after last post ad. If neither do well or both are annoying, I may just get rid of ads in the topic pages and just stick to the main pages.

I was wondering that too, thanks for clearing it up, Nate.

Nate wrote:Do you mean the google ad after the first post?

Yea, that's the one. I was just wondering what's goin on. Now I know, thanks.

Ugh. It's still annoying. I would rather have them in the header.

Snoink wrote:Ugh. It's still annoying. I would rather have them in the header.

They ain't doing well either, so I'm going to be moving them to after the last post either tomorrow or on Sunday. But so that I know to avoid possible problems in the future, why do you find it less annoying than the banner? I'm the opposite way; I barely even notice the one after the first post.

Mostly because, when I look for new posts, the first thing I do is look up and then down, and the Google ad distracts me.

^ Ditto.

The ad distracts me too, I think It probably would be much better after the last post, so I'm glad it's gonna be that way soon.

Strange... at the moment, all I see is placeholder for the ads, but no content. Just red Xs.

I looked at the source, and it looks correct.

David ->> Yep, that happened to me too from time to time.



I've changed the ads around yet again. This time, there is an ad displayed after the last post rather than the first. For me, I like it more.

You'll also notice some Google header links on the index and topic pages. Besides that, I've added a google search to the overall header. Right now, the google search is only on YWS Light, but if enough people use it, I'll put it on the others as well (Bobo sent me the files I will need to do that).

Feedback is welcome, especially on the google search box. Personally, I really like it since I can search the site a whole lot easier with it.

Got rid of the ads within the topic bodies, but only if you're registered on the site (if you are not logged in, the ads will still be visible). They were annoying me 'cause all they ever displayed were "Get phpBB Hosting!" or similar ads. If they offered helpful links, such as the "Our Story" ad on the front page that shows up every now and then, I'd keep them. But, they don't.

Anyways, I'm still experimenting with ad layouts and colors. The one on the front page will stay as it is, although I may decide to change the colors. Other than that, all the other ones I'm still fooling around with.