[NSC] Pop-up ads at bottom of page

chickens · Mar 7, 2023

Couldn't Be Hyypia said:
Would anyone pay say £1/month to go ad free? Or £5?

Definitely I’d chip in a couple of quid a month for ad-free, but since that chap whose posts were worth billions left, only Bozza knows how many he’d need to sell to recoup the lost advertising revenue.

It doesn’t sound like the ad revenue is hugely lucrative though.

LamieRobertson · Mar 7, 2023

Prefer not

upthealbion1970 · Mar 7, 2023

Really annoying when you’ve got dark mode on, banner is predominantly white.

Happily pay monthly or yearly do no ads

Chicken Run · Mar 7, 2023

Mmm I was only half jesting about my suggestion of an ad free subscription, it seems one or two would be behind it!!

Greg Bobkin · Mar 7, 2023

"I wish to complain about this free service you're providing..."

OzMike · Mar 7, 2023

Still getting it, it should be an option.
Why do you think we all use pop up blockers Bozz.

OzMike · Mar 7, 2023

Logging out and my log in periods will continue to shorten if this keeps on.

Bozza · Mar 7, 2023

OzMike said:
Still getting it, it should be an option.
Why do you think we all use pop up blockers Bozz.

A pop-up blocker won't block it as it's not a pop-up.

Ad-blockers will block all ads on the site. If everyone did that, there wouldn't be a site. A site like NSC costs a fair bit to run. Servers are power-intensive and electricity has become quite expensive of late. The migration to Xenforo cost four-figures and I now also pay quite a lot for a 24/7 security monitoring service, to help protect the data NSCers have entrusted the site with.

All of which is why I'll be blocking the whole site from those who use ad-blockers in the near future.

I keep ads on NSC, for logged-in users, to an intentionally unobtrusive level. If I wanted to squeeze every penny out of the site there would be pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials (ads between each page load) and video takeovers. I don't. There are a series of banners, placed so there is generally no more than one in view at any time - the bottom of a page can be a bit messy and I'm looking at that.

The new banner is a test. I don't expect to keep it, but that's what tests are for. Simply, if something on here pisses me off - I have exactly the same ads as everyone else - then I'll take it away.

Bozza · Mar 7, 2023

chickens said:
Definitely I’d chip in a couple of quid a month for ad-free, but since that chap whose posts were worth billions left, only Bozza knows how many he’d need to sell to recoup the lost advertising revenue.

It doesn’t sound like the ad revenue is hugely lucrative though.

It's not. Ad revenue, per 1,000 page views is lower than it's ever been, whilst site running costs are higher than they've ever been. This may be because I've not chased the more lucrative ad formats, primarily because lucrative tends to mean annoying.

I will be adding a voluntary paid option as, over the years, numerous people have asked if they can contribute, but....

1. It will absolutely be voluntary.
2. No-one will receive scaled-back functionality in any way.
3. ...but if donations enable some bells and whistles to be added to the site, they will be made available to donators either first or absolutely.
4. ...and donators will have a choice of ad-free templates.

jcdenton08 · Mar 7, 2023

Bozza said:
It's not. Ad revenue, per 1,000 page views is lower than it's ever been, whilst site running costs are higher than they've ever been. This may be because I've not chased the more lucrative ad formats, primarily because lucrative tends to mean annoying.

I will be adding a voluntary paid option as, over the years, numerous people have asked if they can contribute, but....

1. It will absolutely be voluntary.
2. No-one will receive scaled-back functionality in any way.
3. ...but if donations enable some bells and whistles to be added to the site, they will be made available to donators either first or absolutely.
4. ...and donators will have a choice of ad-free templates.

Will gladly donate.

GingerBeerMan · Mar 8, 2023

What a horrible addition.

Pevenseagull · Mar 8, 2023

For the record I find the new thing in the bottom a right pain U.N. the arse.

Coldeanseagull · Mar 8, 2023

Can't even post my discontent without it saying disable my ad blocker(which I had to do to post this)
Just counted eleven ads on this page...nope, twelve
Adblocker back on
bye

HastingsSeagull · Mar 8, 2023

I’m not only getting the ads at the bottom but one at the top, a few between posts and another below last post/above reply box. If it was just the pop up banner at the bottom I’d probably get used to it but so many new ones makes it very annoying. See how things go but yeh.

I also know it doesn’t matter but I can’t read vast majority of them as in Japanese or Tagalog. You’d think that would make them less annoying but it feels even more so.

HastingsSeagull · Mar 8, 2023

Just took a screenshot where I have THREE Ads on the screen and ONE post

Klaas · Mar 8, 2023

I keep getting a pop up telling me to disable my ad blocker. Can't use the site.
I don't have an ad blocker on.

Algernon · Mar 8, 2023

Things are going wonky. Site is unusable. Chucks some of these up on each page load.

Scappa · Mar 8, 2023

Even more aggravating than the ads is seeing this privacy notice every single page if you click reject: (edit: hadn't seen Algernon's post above)

Screenshot_20230308-005733_Samsung Internet.jpg

Zeberdi · Mar 8, 2023

Site is rendered completely unusable/invisible on mobile phone unless you sign in.

If you do sign in, impossible to scroll down to see posts in thread properly on mobile phone ( some of us don’t use laptops or a PC!) because you get this screen with 80% taken up with moving flashing ads

I don’t feel comfortable removing all my browsing protection from this website - I don’t care ‘how safe’ admin say it is.
Because this is the only option now if I want to access NSC on my mobile devices ( the only ones I have)

Sorry but this amount of risk is not acceptable and even if I accept cookies I still get the page covered with requests to shut off all browsing protection - conversely, signing in and allowing cookies but not disabling all content blockers results in a page impossible to read properly - I have never seen so much of a page taken up with static and moving ads except on the gaming sites my buff streams sometimes hits. I couldn’t even post a reply without repeatedly scrolling backwards and forwards to avoid ads covering up reply box.

Horrible internet experience all round.

kentgully · Mar 8, 2023

Bozza said:
I'm surprised the dissent took this long - I turned it on around 3:30!

It's just an experiment which I knew would be unpopular.

Ads now pay primarily on viewability so the regular banners deployed on the site are relatively poor payers are they aren't on screen often/for very long - c57%. In contrast the sticky bottom banner, which has been used for non-logged in users for a while, gets seen 88% of the time.

I thought it would be less intrusive on mobile, rather than desktop, but I wonder if the opposite is true.

That style of ad is used on a lot of sites, but maybe it's the way it appears, instead of being there when the page renders, which makes it more jarring.

What language is this...

Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊

[NSC] Pop-up ads at bottom of page

Intending to survive this time of asset strippers

Not awoke

bring on the trumpets....

Member Since Jul 2003

Silver Seagull

Well-known member

Well-known member

You can change this

You can change this

Enemy of the People

3-0

Anti-greed coalition

Opinionated

Well-known member

Well-known member

Attachments

I've changed this

Well-known member

Well-known member

Brighton born & bred

Well-known member

Share this page