Encouraging Rider Safety - Banner Link

[gfloyd2002]

Alex,

We have many new riders who come to the forum looking for information about gear and riding skills. Much of this may be the nature of the ninjette as a well-respected starter bike. And in return, we give some good information here, but we also give some bad information. Sometimes really good, sometimes shockingly bad. Thus is the nature of internet forum discourse.

As the owner of a site that attracts many new riders, I was hoping you might be willing to include a banner link to the MSF website as a standard part of ninjette.org. The MSF site includes riding tips, references to key safety studies and lots of information about rider training courses. Not to be overly dramatic, but we might just be able to keep someone from an accident by doing this, and at the very least, you'd be putting out a clear message to members about the importance of safety - making it clear where ninjette.org stands when sometimes individual posts in the forum advocate less responsible behavior.

Easy-to-insert html can be found here: http://online2.msf-usa.org/msf/banners.aspx. If it were at the bottom, perhaps next to the AdChoices banner, it would't be too intrusive, and I don't think it overly preachy either, if done without comment (though I am admittedly not a great judge of overly preachy, as I repeatedly prove in my posts ). It could look something like the following (and who knows, maybe it will draw more attention to the ads, bringing in revenue):

[cuong-nutz]

I like the idea

[CalvinAmI]

Excellent idea!

[Alex]

@gfloyd2002 - I added the banner tonight. It will show up at the bottom of every thread.

I'll follow it for awhile, and see if it has any significant effect, positive or negative, on the ads that are near it. I have a hunch it will be a non-issue.

[gfloyd2002]

You are awesome. Thought that you may not have liked the idea so I'd let it drop. If it negatively impacts ad cllicking, I'm all for pulling it.

[alex.s]

+like

[Racer x]

safety is #1 Great job

[mrlmd]

Looks good, better than some of the other ads down there. Hopefully people will click on that link.

[Alex]

Google is supposed to post up ads that the particular user viewing the page will like. So if it's putting up ads that you don't like very much, maybe it's just that you don't really know what you like?

[mrlmd]

I really don't need ads that are for internet providers or phone companies or cell phones. There is actually not very much that appeals to most of us I would bet. I don't get many motorcycle-geared ads, and that's why I'm on here. Is Google tracking me from somewhere else or what gets posted on here? How do they know what I might be interested in?

[Alex]

If we knew the ad algorithms, we should put some money together and come up with a competing ad network. The gist of it is that google uses a whole bunch of data to try and provide relevant ads. The more relevant, the more clicks. The more clicks, the more money they (and the site owners) make. The way the ads are chosen is partly due to the other content that is already on that particular page, but also due to profiles that google has on the logged in user. (who is more than likely logged into gmail or any other google service). If someone uses no google services, has never used one, browses with no cookies (or flash, or any other viable tracking method), the ads won't be unique per user, but will still be unique per page.

All that said, there's no additional tracking or any other logic that I use on this site, the way the google ads work is just a tiny piece of code on the page that links to my google adsense account. Their coding on the back end deals with everything else from that point forward.

[mrlmd]

I didn't know the site makes money each time an ad is opened. We should all be encouraged to open at least one ad each time we log in, read what's here, or post a reply. We all have to support this site and that's an easy way to do it.

[Alex]

I appreciate the thought, but there's no requirement to go overboard on it either (i.e. - click an ad on every visit). If an ad is relevant or interesting to you, feel free to click it. If it isn't, don't.

[gfloyd2002]

@Alex, just wondering how the MSF link is affecting ad clicks. More, less or neither? And out of curiosity, are people clicking the MSF link?

[Alex]

Ads are doing just fine, haven't noticed much of a change either positive or negative since adding the new banner. I don't have an easy way to track how many times that banner is clicked; it's just a link to the MSF site.

(The ads are easy to track, as google provides the back-end analytics to support what they plan on paying you).

[Jiggles]

Maybe if you add one of those google short links you can track it? It would please the Floyd

[gfloyd2002]

The Floyd must be appeased.

[Alex]

And then, he sneezed?

[choneofakind]