Please stop the page-covering ads

[mrtraver]

I understand the need for advertising on a free-to-consumer site, and that advertisers need to try new and different things to get our attention. But I cannot stand the near-full page ad that pops up sometimes when I click on an article link. It obscures everything until I click something to reduce it. I honestly don't even know what it is advertising - when I see it, I swear and immediately reduce it. If I ever do look long enough to see who/what it is, I will know to avoid it. The ad is almost as annoying as those ads that pop up in the middle of a page and stay in the same screen position when you try to scroll past them (thankfully I have not seen those on Techspot.).

Thank you.

 

[SNGX1275]

I noticed an HP one yesterday on the front page.

 

[mrtraver]

I finally stopped to look at one; it was for Best Buy. I am definitely boycotting them now.

 

[sadman3]

This site needs to commercilize. so no need for complaints on adverts

 

[mrtraver]

As I stated in my original post, I understand the need for ads in general, since we do not pay for a subscription. My complaint was about one particularly intrusive ad. And the advertiser has the right to know that I am avoiding purchasing from them because of that ad, which is pretty much opposite the effect they were looking for with it.

 

[Julio Franco]

I'll be honest, I don't love the full page ads and we continue to avoid most types of intrusive ads (welcome ads, interstitials, or even worse, download installers!!). But when a high profile advertiser brings their interest for a big campaign that is relevant to our core audience, and a portion of that campaign is dedicated to the larger ad formats, we can't keep saying no. We'd lose the entirety of the campaign.

Now, user experience is very important, too. I've made clear to our agency that all large ad formats must be capped at 1 ad per user every 24 hours. We've had two instances this year where the campaign wasn't set up correctly and the ads kept showing on every page view. If you see this (before we do), please report it so we can reach out to the ad agency and bring a halt to it.

 

[mrtraver]

Thank you for the response! Not being in the business, I obviously don't see the whole picture, such as these being just part of an ad campaign. Knowing that, I can live with it once a day.

I have not seen it happening more than once per day in quite a while.

 

[learninmypc]

@mrtraver, do you by chance have adblock plus installed on your browser? If not, you might try it.

 

[mrtraver]

I will give it a try! I don't mind banner ads on any sites, but I don't like the disruptive ads that cover a page or that play sound/video.

 

[Julio Franco]

We obviously don't encourage to enable Adblock on TechSpot (or if you install the add-on, whitelist us) otherwise we don't make money, if we don't make money we can't pay writers or cover other expenses incurred in running the site.

 

[mrtraver]

That's actually the main reason I have not used an ad blocker - I know someone needs to pay the bills, and I don't want to have to pay subscription fees for every site I visit.

 

[mrtraver]

And this is why I started using an ad blocker, and am boycotting Best Buy. In case you can't see it, it's a Best Buy ad that covers most of the page, and I cannot scroll past it or see anything else on the page until I click the X to close it. Even this just makes it smaller, like a banner ad across the bottom of the screen.

 

[Julio Franco]

Not proper behavior. Emailing the ad guys to take it down. We don't do welcome ads/pops/truly intrusive formats for a reason. But this is killing us for sure.

 

[mrtraver]

Thank you! I do actually keep Techspot whitelisted, because I visit every day and really enjoy the content. It is the advertiser who irritates me.

 

[Julio Franco]

I really appreciate that @mrtraver

I can confirm, since this morning the campaign is gone. As it turns out this was being classified as a type of ad we accepted, but no longer. Honestly the ad guys do a pretty good job of filtering intrusive campaigns we don't want on TechSpot most of the time, and we try to steer clear of annoying ads as much as possible in favor of our readers' experience on-site.

That said, our business is to run ads along content, so we appreciate it when you whitelist us while we try to keep a good balance of great tech content and high quality ads and advertisers.

 

[SNGX1275]

Its not full page, but its still a bit big:

 

[Julio Franco]

We are allowing "billboards" (970x250) and have been running them for quite some time. We are still opposed to any kind of overlays, stickies, pops or page covering ads however. Must strike a balance somewhere

 

[SNGX1275]

I'm not terribly concerned about that size, but that it covers up the Reports and Moderation notifications.

Safari 9.0.2 on OS X 10.11

Edit 2: Just tried on Chrome in OS X with same result.

 

[Julio Franco]

Ok, I'll fix that.

 

[Julio Franco]

Should be fixed.

 

[learninmypc]

We obviously don't encourage to enable Adblock on TechSpot (or if you install the add-on, whitelist us) otherwise we don't make money, if we don't make money we can't pay writers or cover other expenses incurred in running the site.

Julio, can you tell me (us) how to whitelist in beginner words? I've heard that word many times & have tried to do such but it never worked, thank you.

 

[Julio Franco]

This should help:
http://support.getadblock.com/kb/ba...dblock-not-to-run-completely-on-certain-pages

 

[Kibaruk]

I got a message to whitelist in ABP which I did but had the main one using 1/4-1/5th of the page up top, then I run into another one half way through the comments and another on bottom, plus one on the side. It's very off-putting I have to admit.
Edit: It was half the size of the most hot topics, plus 2 auto play videos on the side.

 

[Julio Franco]

Today we've started a campaign to drive people to whitelist TechSpot, as explained here.
I'd ask to read that to get our full take of the situation.

To address your message... talking about the relative space an ad takes is well, relative, based on the window size and screen resolution. We only show "regular" ads to logged in users, that means leaderboards that are 728x90 and up to 970x250 pixels on top. And 300x250 and 300x600 ads on the sides. Up to 4-5 ads per page as you scroll down.

In a modern desktop, the ads are not huge, except perhaps for the top one which is on the big side.
We don't show autoplay video (let alone audio) or other truly intrusive formats.

 

[mrtraver]

I usually don't run my browser in full-screen on my 1920x1080 desktop, so sometimes the ads look relatively big. But nothing offensively obtrusive like the ads I originally reported here.