Open Discussion: Website Ads

[Legend]

Website ads help pay for eGO's various expenses. They help keep our servers running, and website online. For those players who want to subscribe, we have Dedicated Supporter that will remove the ads and still contribute to help pay for eGO's expenses.

What are your opinions on the website ads. Do you not mind them? Would you prefer we cut back on some of the ad locations? Do you have other ideas / an alternative to running the ads?

Give your thoughts.

 

[Maserati]

I have DS and ad-blocker.

 

[EternalGriever]

Before I had DS I didn't mind them at all, now I don't even see them.

 

[C7R35]

Same. I have Dedicated Supporter and an ad-blocker device that hooks up to my router. Blocks every ad on every page lol.

You guys continue doing what you need to do. eGO has to earn money somehow!

 

[Soupy]

Unfortuantely most of the advertisements are from my competitors. But I understand the use of affiliation advertisement. So the more the merrier. And like the above have posted if you are a Dedicated Supporter you never see them anyways.

 

[Darth]

I keep forgetting to post this but when I'm on the site on my phone I get popups saying things like "Your phone is INFECTED", please INSTALL to continue" and others of a very similar style.

 

[Spectre GT]

Website ads help pay for eGO's various expenses. They help keep our servers running, and website online. For those players who want to subscribe, we have Dedicated Supporter that will remove the ads and still contribute to help pay for eGO's expenses.

What are your opinions on the website ads. Do you not mind them? Would you prefer we cut back on some of the ad locations? Do you have other ideas / an alternative to running the ads?

Give your thoughts.

Often, I feel as though I have to "run away" from pages on this site because the video ads (with sound) are "autostart=true" and they have very imposing sound enabled; and for me - the sound just can't be disabled (no visible button options). And I feel that muting my sound isn't something that I should have to do just to be able to avoid it.

Adsense studies show that the most effective ads are the ones you see on the sidebars that don't make any noise, and aren't as "flashy", and are geared to a more specific audience with advertisement subjects that better relates to the overall focus of your website.
I believe ads are good to have and I believe that we should keep the "quiet ones on the sidebars".

My suggestions:

1. Ditch the two bottom ad sections, possibly replace these with a single horizontal banner ad there.
2. Ditch the very top ad section (this ad placement looks very intrusive and abnormal on the website template).
3. Keep the vertical banner ads on the left and right sidebars.

 

[Bladed]

I'll be honest and say that I use chrome w/ ad-blocker so I never seen ads on any websites I go to.

I wish I had other ideas I could throw out there to replace the ad system, but I really don't. I do understand we need money on a monthly basis for the various expenses, but I use the ad blocker for all websites just for my own sanity.

Not sure if members of the community would be interested, but maybe we could do some kind of affiliate program/system using web links, signatures, and other resources?

I'm sure we have members that go around to other forums or websites with some form of community that they would be able to share these resources without it creating a conflict of interest.

It's just a thought.

 

[shifty]

I'm a DS so I don't see ads anymore but I would definitely get rid of the add that's triple volume. That is definitely making people navigate away.

 

[Spitfire'd]

Sp3ctre we aren't supposed to have video ads (unless that changed somewhere in the last 5 years) so if you see one it really helps if you post about it in the dropbox. A screenshot of the ad and the source are all you need to report. I've done this several times (several ad sites are very sneaky in getting them in) and leadership is always able to take care of it. The last time I saw one and reported it was June of 2012, haven't seen one since.

The ads have never bothered me and I love that they can help fund eGO. If it's not broke, don't fix it.

 

[Scortch]

I use an adblocker, so I don't see ads on any site. I've used it for years and wasn't even aware there were ads on this site until it was brought up in a post.

I know that there's ad services that you can get involved in where you get incentives for volunteering to watch ads. It's popular with browser based games and mobile games. I don't know what they're called or exactly how they work, and I'm sure that somebody can elaborate for us. When I've seen them is when I'm playing a free game where you can buy items or buy gold or whatever and you have the option to watch an advertisement in exchange for a small amount of gold/points/whatever. I'm assuming that the game company is giving you this option because they are getting paid for every person that views these ads. If you implemented a program like this and just asked people to watch an ad here or there I'm sure that many in this community would do so. I know that I would pop on and let an ad run a couple times a week if it helped eGO. You could even come up with an incentive to do this, such as so many views a month gets you Dedicated Supporter for the month. Other than that I don't have any new ideas for you.

 

[Beard of Katarn]

I dont mind the normal ads on either side but lately i've been getting a slide-in one that i have to close every minute or so. Slightly irritating if i'm reading something

 

[Jawneh]

I've been okay with ads. A few times I've had to block ads thanks to some rogue ones that were bugging me and either it took a while to have them removed or they were just something I found annoying and didn't want to deal with.