We are soon to test allowing adverts here in the forum

[Phil]

Just a heads-up - we are going to try running adverts on this forum.
It's not something that we have ever done before (it's been here 15yrs now!), but we're going to test it out and see whether it's worthwhile.

We'll aim to restrict the advert positions to be as 'not annoying' as possible.
e.g. we have wide unused side bars on most forum pages.

We are going to use Google Adsense to select and place the ads.
There is a complete minefield of options to configure in terms of what we allow, and where we allow adverts to show.
It will take a bit of trial & error to optimise it.
Please bear with ...

 

[Phil]

Just FYI:
It took a little bit of technical setup to get the configuration correct - we wanted adverts to show here in the forum, but not in our webshop.
It actually took surprisingly long for Google to crawl and verify the code was in place and correct (3 or 4 days).
And, a slow/sporadic start - I seemed to have to eyeball and approve a lot of ads.

We/Google have run one 'experiment' so far - about ten days with 'anchor ads' showing at the bottom of each page.
We felt those worked OK and were not detrimental.
We earned about £5 in 7 days.
Not sure it's worth the bother.

Experiment 2 is now running with adverts at the sides ...

 

[JB1970]

@Phil - I take it this has changed again. I'm starting to see full pages blurred out for a small ad in the middle when I click on a post...the ad then has to be closed manually to proceed.

 

[Phil]

Yes, Google is running a new experiment.
I'm not enjoying it - it's quite intrusive!

Currently thinking it is not worth the bother.
We are earning about £11 per week.

Also, there is a special irony in that to run the ads you have to add some Google script/code.
Only for another Google service to then inform you that the code you have added makes your site slow to load - Doh!
https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/...ms-hikvision-49/lbg5ypn1xw?form_factor=mobile

It's not easy to optimise websites to achieve good CWV scores.
Especially ecommerce sites (webshops).
It took a lot of work to achieve all green circle scores for access from mobiles.
The slow ad code on the forum drags the score down to a "fail" for the entire use-ip.co.uk domain

 

[JB1970]

Yes, Google is running a new experiment.
I'm not enjoying it - it's quite intrusive!

Currently thinking it is not worth the bother.
We are earning about £11 per week.

Also, there is a special irony in that to run the ads you have to add some Google script/code.
Only for another Google service to then inform you that the code you have added makes your site slow to load - Doh!
https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/...ms-hikvision-49/lbg5ypn1xw?form_factor=mobile

It's not easy to optimise websites to achieve good CWV scores.
Especially ecommerce sites (webshops).
It took a lot of work to achieve all green circle scores for access from mobiles.
The slow ad code on the forum drags the score down to a "fail" for the entire use-ip.co.uk domain

Yes. I've just clicked on the notification that you replied and clicked to view. I got this full screen:

As a 53 year old male with no children, I found this of little interest and fairly intrusive lol.

I remember back in the 90's when Comcast/NTL brought cable broadband to the North-East. We went from having a dedicated PSTN line with 56K fax modem for internet to a choice of 600 Kilobit or 1 Megabit download broadband. How we marvelled at web pages that loaded so fast that you hadn't finished clicking. Fast forward 25 years, I have 1100 Megabit download/200 Megabit upload on my connection. Over 1000 times the speed yet page loads are slower due to all the unwanted crap thats pushed to our screens. That's progress for you....

 

[cymruchris]

Have any changes been made recently - it feels like we're going advert overload - seeing multiple of the same adverts over and over - the forum screen space is now just a tiny percentage of what are becoming more intrusive adverts for irrelevant stuff. (I know you have to make money somehow to pay the bills - so I understand the need for it - but feels broken or overboard at the moment - see the video here from tonight

Adverts adverts everywhere

 

[JB1970]

Have any changes been made recently - it feels like we're going advert overload - seeing multiple of the same adverts over and over - the forum screen space is now just a tiny percentage of what are becoming more intrusive adverts for irrelevant stuff. (I know you have to make money somehow to pay the bills - so I understand the need for it - but feels broken or overboard at the moment - see the video here from tonight

Adverts adverts everywhere

Adblock works well to keep them at bay

 

[Phil]

Thanks for the feedback.
It wasn't us!

@Dan and @Kyle both flagged it to me yesterday, but it was a busy day and when I took a quick look I could see no problem.

It turns out that Google Adwords had begun an experiment (screenshot attached) and was slapping adverts all over the show!
I have ended their experiment, and blocked them from trying that one again.

Currently, we should only be allowing adverts in the left & right borders, and at the footer.

Apologies for their choice of ads, I seem to see mainly Temu and Etsy, which I have no interest in clicking!
Hopefully, normal (not too disruptive) service has/will soon be restored ...

Please don't hesitate to let us know if you see issues at any time.

FYI the ads earn us about £120 per month.
The server dedicated to the forum costs £1,470pa.
[It's more closely matched than I realised - cost vs. ad revenue].

We ran the forum for over 15yrs without ads nor any other revenue.
It's nice to see the ad revenue contribute to the costs, but it's not what we are here for (and the future of ads here remains 'in the balance').

Happy to hear any suggestions for other options.

Hoping to see a forum software upgrade soon to deliver better performance (have been waiting since November).

 

[cymruchris]

To be fair - having a few ads, if it contributes just a little to your running costs are absolutely fine - I think most of us have gotten used to that on just about every web page we look at. Glad to see it was something that was a bit off, rather than 'the norm'

I am not yet a senior - and have no interest in electriv SUV's