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Stopping adblockers...
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:18 pm
by Mightywayne
It has come to my attention scumware is getting pretty popular. A more specific scumware would be "Ad Block Plus".
I'm not sure if this is PHP coding or PHP theory, sorry. I'd post in theory, but every time I do, I'm wrong and it's coding.
So! I'm wondering how I could put up a protection against people who block the ads that I put on my website. I'm *completely* stumped.
Any suggestions?
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:31 pm
by superdezign
Don't put up annoying ads. No one really minds text link ads or small images, but the animated gifs and flash ads get annoying.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:56 pm
by Mightywayne
I won't be choosing annoying ads, in fact I have personally called Clicksor to ensure they don't put up ones with sound or flashes.
My worry is about the people that will just block every single ad regardless. And punish them. (:
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:01 pm
by superdezign
Mightywayne wrote:I won't be choosing annoying ads, in fact I have personally called Clicksor to ensure they don't put up ones with sound or flashes.
My worry is about the people that will just block every single ad regardless. And punish them. (:
Really...? What for? I'm sure your website isn't powerful enough that they'd turn off their ad blocker just for you.

Television stations don't punish people who change the channel during the commercials. Those people can still enjoy the television show. The television station just knows that
if the viewers like the shows, then they'll likely talk about it to other people and increase the audience.
Every potential customer isn't a buying customer, but store owners should still treat them with respect. An angry customer is the worst kind.

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:40 pm
by thewebdrivers
Every user has a right to his privacy, its upto them if they want to see ads or not, so its better that you keep your website clean.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:56 pm
by Mightywayne
Because, Super, I'm running a game. The product to sell is fun. The game is completely driven off ads, however there is a VIP option that will remove ads and do lots of spectacular things.
My website doesn't have to be "powerful" enough for them to right click and hit "allow" for it.
I don't see how your TV analogy fits... you don't have to install anything into the TV to make it do that. I believe even the TiVo takes commercials. Whether people fast forward (in the website's case, ignore) through is not the TiVo's fault.
That's as far as I could get with your analogy.
Oh, btw, hi, I'm here to learn how to stop users from blocking my ads, not be convinced to throw my business model out the window.
Edit: Which, might I add, has very high numbers in it. Otherwise I wouldn't have even picked up PHP.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:59 pm
by superdezign
Mightywayne wrote: don't see how your TV analogy fits... you don't have to install anything into the TV to make it do that. I believe even the TiVo takes commercials. Whether people fast forward (in the website's case, ignore) through is not the TiVo's fault.
That's as far as I could get with your analogy.
User's choose to use ad blockers.. I don't see how you can't follow the analogy.
Mightywayne wrote:Oh, btw, hi, I'm here to learn how to stop users from blocking my ads, not be convinced to throw my business model out the window.
Good luck finding a way to detect an ad blocker, then.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:16 pm
by Mightywayne
But it's not like by changing the channel on a commercial, you're a thief. Even if you walk away from the TV, the idea is that you'll atleast take note of the commercial sub-conciously. Same with banners, except, if you block them, it's not in your sub-concious.
And as for the ad-blocker, all I know is it's easier than one would think. I once used AdBlock, and then a website wouldn't allow me to go to it. They explained why, and it does make sense. Oh waah, I don't want to view ads, big baby wants to get an ad blocker now. I uninstalled because thievery is not part of my agreement to the Greater Humanity (I wouldn't do it anyway) and I've been seeing these *so incredibly annoying* ads since.
So yeah, thanks, I'm hoping someone will read this and atleast point me in the right direction.

I'd rather not buy the blocker for 30 bucks.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:17 pm
by Camedo
Being a game designer myself, I can understand his perspective. While I hate seeing ads and personally run an adblocker myself, I can understand the perspective of the website designer too. You don't want to spend all of your time constructing a entertaining, fun game for the public and not get anything in return. Advertising is the easiest way to offset the cost of design and hosting, while at the same time introducing the smallest burden to your consumers. In most cases, they merely have to allow their browser to render the ad - with pay-per-impression, they don't even have to click it. The designers get rewarded, and the consumers get a fun game.
The only suggestion I have for detecting adblockers off the top of my head would be to handle the advertisement serving yourself. IE: Create a script for serving ads, and link that into your page. Not only would it serve the ad, but it could modify a session variable to include that the client successfully called the script to retrieve the ad. Then your main website code could check the session values and determine if the client has been fetching ads. I use a similar system with hidden gifs to determine if a site is being 'crawled' by a client that isn't pulling any images, namely some form of web bot.
It isn't a perfect solution since a lot of ad publishers won't allow you to handle it that way, but it's the best I can think of right now.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:19 pm
by hawleyjr
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:38 pm
by mikesmith76
I've seem a number of posts similar to this lately (between forums) and I can't for the life of me understand why. Firefox is still very much the minority browser (unfortunately), and I would guess an even smaller percentage of firefox users can actually be bothered to (or understand how to) use add ons etc.
Just seems like a lot of upset and wasted effort for such a small number of blocked adverts.
Also just noticed from the links above that they are checking user agents to identify the firefox browser. Very reliable, we couldn't possibly change user supplied data, could we?
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:42 pm
by Mightywayne
Camedo wrote:Being a game designer myself, I can understand his perspective. While I hate seeing ads and personally run an adblocker myself, I can understand the perspective of the website designer too. You don't want to spend all of your time constructing a entertaining, fun game for the public and not get anything in return. Advertising is the easiest way to offset the cost of design and hosting, while at the same time introducing the smallest burden to your consumers. In most cases, they merely have to allow their browser to render the ad - with pay-per-impression, they don't even have to click it. The designers get rewarded, and the consumers get a fun game.
The only suggestion I have for detecting adblockers off the top of my head would be to handle the advertisement serving yourself. IE: Create a script for serving ads, and link that into your page. Not only would it serve the ad, but it could modify a session variable to include that the client successfully called the script to retrieve the ad. Then your main website code could check the session values and determine if the client has been fetching ads. I use a similar system with hidden gifs to determine if a site is being 'crawled' by a client that isn't pulling any images, namely some form of web bot.
It isn't a perfect solution since a lot of ad publishers won't allow you to handle it that way, but it's the best I can think of right now.
I absolutely love that, thanks. I'll write it in a notepad file for when I do get an advertisement service.
And yeah hawley, seriously, that's a bit extreme. xD I mean it's not like mozilla's the only one with add-ons. Although it does encourage the ad-blocker, which I do not agree with.

It'd be something if only like 5% of people used it, but when a regular user goes to the front page and see's that, and thinks "Oh cool!" and downloads, the percentage rises higher each day.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:56 pm
by onion2k
At the end of the day you have to realise one thing: a user who is bothered by adverts enough to block them is not going to click them even if you think up a way of displaying them. You are not losing revenue from people who block ads because there is no potential revenue to be had.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:59 pm
by hawleyjr
I actually intentionally clicked on an ad for the first time in probably 2 years. It was on Pandora for some Nike Vintage running shoes....they are pimp.
http://www.nikevintage.com too bad they don't have my size

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:34 pm
by Camedo
onion2k wrote:At the end of the day you have to realise one thing: a user who is bothered by adverts enough to block them is not going to click them even if you think up a way of displaying them. You are not losing revenue from people who block ads because there is no potential revenue to be had.
There's three primary forms of advertising revenue though. The first is Pay Per Sale, where you get a commission from a sale, like Amazon.com uses. The second is Per Per Click, which is what you're referring to mostly with your comment. But the third is Per Per Impression, where you earn money simply for displaying the ad. It's the lowest payout, but the most reliable if you have a very high traffic site. It doesn't matter if the consumer even pays attention to it - As long as it's displayed.