View Full Version : How to Enable/Disable Advertising on Ninjette.org


Alex
April 5th, 2009, 11:56 PM
Hi all -

Like most internet users, I've not been a huge fan of web advertising, when it interrupts the flow of a site or even just overwhelms the page with more ads than content. I think we all understand that it's necessary, especially for sites like this that charge no user fees and have zero desire to start charging fees of any kind. So what I did here awhile back on ninjette.org is put a toggle switch right in your user options (http://www.ninjette.org/forums/profile.php?do=editoptions), where you can enable/disable advertising with a click. The advertising, if enabled, shows up in the header, footer, and in a few places in the portal page.

What I've noticed over the past month or two is that more and more people are choosing "No" to view this advertising when they sign up for the site. Early on it was 75%+ Yes, but now it's closer to 75% No. These stats are just for new user signups, so it's more than likely that the new users haven't spent much time on the site yet to decide if the advertising is useful/useless, relevant/irrelevant, subtle/annoying etc. My hunch is that if people do see what the ads are on this site (RaceBikeRentals, Becky's seats, Zartan's exhaust hangars, etc), they will have less of an urge to disable them. And I know that those ninjette-specific advertisers do want a chance to show you what they have to offer.

So I've implemented a new process on the site. Once per month, on the 1st, the setting for "view advertising" for all users will be automatically reset to Yes. If someone does prefer to view the site without ads, it takes 3 clicks to immediately turn them back off, and they stay off for a month. Just go to that Edit Options (http://www.ninjette.org/forums/profile.php?do=editoptions) link, right from the Quick Links menu, scroll all the way down to the advertising setting, click "no", then save settings. No muss, no fuss, and certainly no fee to do so. My hunch is that over time less and less folks will see the need to do this, but I plan to always leave that option there. Folks that are quite opposed to the advertising wouldn't be likely to click on any ads anyway, so I continue to believe it's a good idea to leave that toggle switch available.

Please shoot me a PM or post up in this thread if there are any questions/comments/suggestions about this.

zartan
April 6th, 2009, 12:06 AM
Thank you for the information Alex!

Honestly they are not too invasive. Yes, I advertise on google ads but am always excited to see a new product pop up and can check it out. So it does not bother me. It is like shopping at home :)

Sound Wave
April 6th, 2009, 01:27 AM
i don't find these ads intrusive at all. pretty interesting stuff. i think i have clicked on all but one so far....

paterick4o8
April 6th, 2009, 01:35 AM
ads? what ads?

haha I never even knew. I use Firefox with Ad Blocker Plus, guess it does the job.

athimmel
April 6th, 2009, 08:25 AM
Not invasive, and if it helps to defer costs or give the mods a little extra cash, so be it.

BlueTyke
April 6th, 2009, 12:04 PM
I have no problems with them. Besides if anything catches the eye it might be a good deal/idea.

Snake
April 6th, 2009, 02:23 PM
I don't have any problems with them either. We are fortunate to have a host that works with his members like Alex does.

Good job Alex!!! We all appreciate it.

SpyderGirl
April 6th, 2009, 03:01 PM
They don't bother me at all. I have found some cool stuff by clicking on them.

HKr1
April 7th, 2009, 04:14 PM
Well, if somebody pays for advertising...... Do you think there should be an option to turn it off? It's not really getting your money's worth is it :boink:

Not that I love ads or anything :)

Alex
April 7th, 2009, 11:17 PM
Hi Kerry -

None of the advertisers pay this site directly, they are all working through Google. Google takes their money, and in return places their ads on sites all over the internet. The advertisers can choose specific sites that they definitely want their ads on, and that makes sure that their ads get to appropriate sites. The advertisers are charged in two ways, by the click (mostly) and in some cases, by the amount of page views that their ad shows up on.

So on this site, if someone has the ads turned off, it's a non-issue. The ads don't show, nobody clicks, there are zero page views (as the ad was never loaded from google servers), so it doesn't count in any way. The advertisers aren't charged anything, ninjette.org isn't charged anything, it's just a lost opportunity, if anything. My thinking on that is if someone has gone out of their way to disable or block the ads, they are highly unlikely to be clicking on these ads anyway if they were shown, so there really isn't much of a lost opportunity for the advertiser anyway.