hmm, yes I see… bad comparison indeed.
But in that case, the ads should be available in webshops only.
Also, websites that don’t sell stuff as main purpose of their existance (so only to finance their existance), should need a separate section for their shop, so their ads aren’t visible on their main site.
For journalistic sites, e-zines, e-newspapers, blogs etc… it’s totally unnecessary and annoying to get ads. Certainly because their main purpose is to inform, not to sell.
No. Their main purpose is to make money for their owners. The way they do that is to provide information where someone pays them for doing so. The person paying can be either the person who is going to read it, advertisers who pay to have their ad displayed alongside the information in the hope that a small percentage of the people reading the information will see their ad and act on it, sometimes both (as happens with most newspapers that are not fully paid for by advertisers), or some other mechanism where they get paid to provide the information.
Someone has to pay and if the reader doesn’t want to pay the full cost themselves then they have to allow the publisher to get paid some other way.
With ads the ideal is to display them to the people who are actually interested in what the advertiser has to sell since any ads the advertiser pays for that do not eventually result in a sale are wasted and so where those people who have no interest in their product whatsoever block the ad from displaying everyone benefits.
And how do you think those sites are funded? Just as you have to pay when you buy a printed newspaper or magazine, to cover the production costs and profit margin, there is also a cost to producing a website, particularly one such as a news site that needs to be constantly updated. Articles don’t just write themselves!
While only a small proportion of surfers are blocking adverts, it isn’t too much of a problem. The majority of users are still (actually or potentially) generating revenue, so the site gets its income stream. But there may come a point when that turns. I don’t predict the end of advertising - I predict that other ways to display ads will be found. We’ve already seen that the pop-up ads that were once so pervasive have died out, partly no doubt as a result of the increasing popularity of pop-up blockers. As more people started to use them, the pop-up ads became less and less effective, and have now all but died out and been replaced by on-page ads. When that delivery method in turn becomes ineffective, the advertisers will find a way round it, of that I have no doubt. And let’s just hope that, like Google Ads, it turns out to be a less intrusive and less invasive form of delivery - but I have a horrible feeling it might not be…
The alternative to ads is … what? Some sites would require subscriptions, others would fold completely, and some would carry on as before. Overall, the quality and quantity of the web available for free would be reduced, and that isn’t a good thing.
I block pop-up ads, and I block ads on a site-by-site basis depending on whether they annoy me too much or not. Some sites are infested with lots of Flash ads that slow my browser down and interfere with my use of the sites - they get blocked (it’s nice to have a fully featured browser that can do this). Most ads sit there inoffensively and I just ignore them. If site owners are daft enough to use ads that actively disrupt and degrade my experience of the site then they don’t deserve any revenue from them!
Yes I understand how things go. I did commercial studies and know how it goes in reality,
but that does not mean that I like that reality. That does not mean I can have my own thoughts about capitalism.
But do you know how pathetic it is that (almost) everything is just about Money, MONEY, money and mONEY.
The main purpose of the company is mostly just money in the first place, and after that, it’s their service (read: complaint helpdesk), and as third in line it’s the product they’re selling, and the least important is the customer as fourth, ofcourse.
Today I opened this sitepoint website, first thing I saw was an ad. The first thing I saw on that ad was a price with a dollar sign.
Today I walked the streets to go to work, (yes I work on sundays and holidays aswel, it gets our company rich $$). While walking the street, 3 people tried to stop to beg me for something, guess what? MONEY.
Do I look like a cash machine?
Why aren’t there already ads available on websites with a formfield inside to submit your bank card pin code?
In contrary, they could make the anti-ad plugin only available to install when buying a subscription of 5$ / month.
I can see both sides points.
On one side, the customer would like the most anti-intrusive web experience. On the other, the owner requires the ads to provide income for upkeep of their business.
I think the key is for both sides to understand each other’s interests. If everyone was to block ads, websites that provide some of the biggest value today may not exist. On the other side, owners of websites that display ads should respect their audience and keep any intrusion down to a bare minimum. 
That depends on the purpose of the site ofcourse.
I can understand that a website with articles only, needs an income to pay it’s authors.
But, a website from a company that already sells products as core business and has it’s website for information with their clients as service, does not need to show ads on their website. That company has already revenue without having a website.
For example: a rock band website has some income by their live gigs, selling albums,… they can use that money to pay their website. They don’t need to show extra ads on their website to pretend it’s for paying their website.
“It also saves the visitor money because they too save bandwidth.”
Stephen J Chapman
Neither publishers or advertisers are causing the visitor to use their bandwidth, so why do you criticize them, unless the ads are hidden in the content. It’s the web analytic group that is causing the problems. They are causing users to use up their bandwidth.
So excluding morality issues- LOL, how do we make money from using the vistor’s bandwidth! would a carrier pay an ad network if the ads were in the content and caused it’s customers to use more bandwidth? Is that legal?
Can anyone refer me to info on how much user bandwidth is used per page due to the advertisers as opposed to the web analystic provider. Could an ad network make the web analytics providers pay more based upon the amount of bandwidth they are causing the visitors to the sites.
If web analytics delays a vistors movement on a site, due to delays caused by draining a vistors bandwidth, then the vistors stays on a site longer and we could cash in from the sites!..thoughts?
This might be a new biz model for 2011!!!
Saying adblockers should be illegal is almost the same as saying that whoever flips the tv channel during a commercial break should be prosecuted. The internet is supposed to offer people freedom to choose what should and what should not pop up on there screens. This gives more developers room to be innovative
The ads in a web page are using up bandwidth to be downloaded unless the visitor has blocked the site those ads are served from.
I agree with you that analytics uses up more bandwidth than ads - that’s why I blocked analytics even though I only have one ad provider blocked (because their ads don’t work in my chosen browser but I would be using up the bandwidth to download and run their ad script even though it doesn’t work). Everything else I have blocked is what Spybot has identified as being spyware/adware sources.
Anyway you don’t need an ad blocker to be able to block ads. Windows comes with the ability to block any domains you want blocked without needing any additional software. Downloading an ad blocker is just wasting more bandwidth since it cannot do anything that your Windows installation isn’t already able to do. Also by blocking them using Windows they are still blocked if you decide to swap to a different browser.
I’m a media consultant so I don’t know the technical stuff, but how much bandwidth do the web analytics use on average webpage?
visitors accept that a webpage will have ads and can’t complain about their bandwidth being used, but some of the ad networks I work with seem to write code to send the visitor’s browser around the world!–LOL
I read that the visitor’s browser on average is sent about 7 exchanges. I dont think the web pages know about this and they need to cash in too!
is bandwidth really that much a drain on a visitor? How much bandwidth is sucked up on each of these exchanges? how can u calculate it so we all can cash in when we do the click rates?
anyone know?
Just as one example.
Assume that the web page without the ads is the recommended size for a web page of 30k. The Kontera ad script adds a further 15.4k to that making the download 50% bigger - so 1/3 of the bandwidth to display the page is the ad script. That ad script doesn’t even work in all browsers so for those people using a browser that Kontera decided they wouldn’t bother supporting it means that 1/3 of the bandwidth used to download that page is wasted since they don’t even get to see any ads even if they want to because the script is stuffed. Not only has it used the extra bandwidth, the page has also taken longer to load making it more likely that the person will leave before the page finishes loading even if they would see the ads if they waited long enough.
Of course a lot of web pages are bigger than the 30k ideal size which would make the ad script a smaller percentage of the total for those pages. Also files can be cached by the browser which means that those particular files do not then use any further bandwidth until the cached copy expires.
Of course any image ads and flash ads will use a much greater portion of the bandwidth and in some cases the ads could very well be several times the size of the rest of the page content.
If you assume that the ads are using up 2% of the total bandwidth then someone on a 5Gb per month limit is wasting 100Mb of that on downloading ads so if they are paying $50 for that bandwidth then they are paying 50 cents of it to download ads. While blocking the ads wouldn’t save them the 50 cents it would free up that portion of their bandwidth allowance to download something else instead.
felgall:
great job breaking it down that way. any resources you could refer me to read on this topic?
what i was trying to figure out too though was how to charge the web analytics more money for their use off of my client sites.
lets say a visitor goes to aaa.com site. we know then ads are serve up, but the vistor went to that site willingly so they can’t complain.
vistor does not know though that the ad networks and web analytics are doing their thin behind the scenes. How is the bandwidth affected by the ad networks that redirects browsers to a flash storage or a html mobile storage?
I have seen visitors browsers redirected 5-7 times from within one web page. what then is happening to the vistor bandwidth?
There is also the visible load speed of the page when you block the ads. Most advertising is done via JavaScript such as google adsense, or Flash, and requires additional CPU time to execute and visually render. Google pagespeed and Yahoo’s YSlow projects give a lot of details on what slows the visible load time of a page, and there is even research from Google suggesting that a even a 100 millisec delay is noticeable in retainment of users. ( http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.html). I’ve never measured the visual delay caused by ads, but I’m sure most people notice an observable delay in the time taken for ads to be shown, they are usually the slowest loading aspects of a browser page.
Adverts are most likely not cached by the browser. They need to be dynamic and require a new HTTP request. They are generally on a different domain and require additional DNS lookup (initially). Anything that is setting cookies on each load is dynamic, and advertising requires this for monitoring purposes. Analytics definitely require dynamic processing and writes to persistent storage on the server end thus would be slower then your likely cached page.
So ads are really eating away at users time without their knowledge, and degrade the site the ads are shown on. Especially for 3rd party ads. For all these reasons and others I always have entries in my hosts file to block ads, malware, analytics etc. I’d use adblock if I didn’t have that option. I would switch to lynx browser if ads became illegal to block ads.
At least for those people who do block your ads, they are more likely the more “web savvy” people that will spread the word about your site if it is something important to them and their online networks.
I’d suggest adding a donation box if you really think your content is worth it. I will donate to any software I use and blogs I consider great information and have received the same treatment from users of my open source software - even though it is very little in my case since my site isn’t that popular. I’d assume with good content you should get pretty good donations.
I was talking about using an ad blocker to stop ad networks that tell my clients, and pay my client based upon only one activity,reducing MY FEE!!! , but I know they are doing more tracking of my client’s visitors. I ran across this blog post posted below and it shows a ton of additional activity:
So my clients gets paid only once for the visitors click but look at the average activity on this app! there are 6…after vistor accesses the app there are …6 calls
A)* App start
B) * App close
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail?entry_id=46054#ixzz1
does each of these calls cause the visitor to use their bandwidth? ANy idea how much it costs the visitors.
then I want to charge in the agreement with my client the time alootted to each of the calls based upon the bandwidth the visitor uses!!!..
good idea if i can figure out how the visitor’s bandwidth use…and then know the cost to the visitor…whatever that # is I can then charge back the ad network.
great biz plan for 2011…eh!
anyone want to finance my new venture…LOL
It’s doubtful that the app is making those calls on the client and incurring bandwidth usage. More than likely it is being done on the server where there is more control to ensure that the app completes its mission.
The client bandwidth usage would be dependent on what they end up downloading as a result of those calls which would be dependent on what those calls do.
MY question concerns an adblock for the third party server calls?
ie noted : after vistor accesses the app there are …6 calls
A)* App start
B) * App close
“It’s doubtful that the app is making those calls on the client and incurring bandwidth usage. More than likely it is being done on the server where there is more control to ensure that the app completes its mission.”
So its possible but doubtful. what happens though to the visitor’s bandwidth when they first make contact with an app , ie like above ,that sends out 6 calls. It must slow down the whole process.
visitor’s bandwidth is running no matter what, whether they are sitting on the page looking at the ads/content while the 6 calls are being made.
“Anything that is setting cookies on each load is dynamic, and advertising requires this for monitoring purposes”
So a web page with ads is not stored in visitors cache or adbobe flash media storage or html mobile storage? only the content is stored on visitors device.
So why do ad networks use flash cookies to store stuff on visitors iphones and adobe flash storage?
“The client bandwidth usage would be dependent on what they end up downloading as a result of those calls which would be dependent on what those calls do.”
OK, so now that’s different then the other poster noted. Each of those companies are different in ie above, so they want different things to analyze from visitors iphone/computer,
so is each call pulling visitor ata from the visitors iphone/computer?
is it like the visitors computer/iphone is held hostage/tied up-lol! and the visitors berowser does not get redirected to send message for these calls.
I dont understand who is making the visitors comp/iphone do all those calls. is it the ad network tied to the ads on the webpages?
back to me making a new biz plan for 2011!!!..is the bandwidth of the visitor being used to make those calls or receive them…then how do i figure out how much bandwidth is used and relate it to visitors costs towards their bandwidth limit.
If my clients are paying for an ad network to place ads ON TIME, but now I see that 6 calls are being made to others then i can get my web page clients 6 times the money…LOL…
appreciate help
No - your visitor is only using bandwidth while there is actual information being passed between their browser and the server. The download bandwidth used is the total size of all the files sent from the server to the browser plus the headers that identify what those files are. The upload bandwidth used is the size of the requests that the browser makes in order to initiate the download.
Bandwidth is measured in Mb and Gb and not in time. Some plans count both upload and downloads in the allowance while others only count downloads.
While I am sitting here typing in this response the browser I am typing it in is NOT using bandwidth. It will only use bandwidth when I hit the “Submit Reply” button and the browser actually sends this text to the server and reloads the web page.
Those things done on the server may slow down the loading of the page and therefore reduce the chance that the person will wait for the page to finish loading but they don’t use your visitor’s bandwidth while the processing is only on the server. Any requests passed to other servers may use up bandwidth on your hosting account though the same as the pages your site serves to browsers use up bandwidth on the hosting account.
Think of it as being somewhat like a telephone service where both parties have to pay to talk or listen but where they don’t have to pay for the line being open but with neither person talking.
felgall, thanks for helping me understand these issues. let me make sure i understnad your responses:
iphone pulls udid or gps location from visitor so that uses bandwidth , right? is that what you are taliing about?
so, ad netowrk sends code to visitors adobe media player storage or iphone html storage, so that uses up the bandwidth?
so that would be when ad nework redirects a visitors browser to request or make a call to have content sent
agreed since its a blog. you are not though sitting on a website turning pages with new ads on each page. in that case each page would pull ads and then cause bandwidth use.
vistor accesses the app there are …6 calls
A)* App start
B) * App close
so visitor is on an iphone app and all this is happening. 6 calls are made. visitors gps location is changing as they travel so somebody has to get the new gps location and send it.
access to the visitor’s iphone to obtain the gps must be involved and what is that doing to the visitors bandwidth?
looks like these are different companies all sending and making what appears to be the visitors browser call out.
could it be only the app doing the calls and the visitors browser has no activity?
WEBSITE/IPHONE APPS, need to be able to charge ad networks for all the calls in/out. my clients should not be paid only for one call. if i could have a way to limit the calls then my clinets could charge more to the ad networks,
moneyyyyyyyy for 2011!
Quite frankly, I think it’s a bit ridiculous that the majority of the internet is “powered” by advertisements. People seem to get the idea that they can create a website, get a mediocre amount of visitors, and profit from ads. Good luck. Even a gigantic website like Facebook really doesn’t make that much money considering 1/14 humans is signed up.
Profit from adverts is a terrible business model especially with this whole pay per click nonsense. If Coca-cola advertises on the side banner of your website, do they really care if anyone clicks through? They’re not trying to sell people soda on their website. They are trying to get people to recognize and be more familiar with their brand. So Coca-cola essentially gets a large amount of advertising for free because few people click, but a lot of people look - even for just a fraction of a second.
It’s also not fair to look at TV and say “well that’s powered by ads” because there are really only a few major channels (maybe 100 or less) and many are owned by the same company, eg ESPN and ESPN2. Imagine an internet where only 100 companies would be able to have websites. Advertising would definitely provide more than enough revenue for those sites, just like it powers TV.
I think the internet is going to begin a large transformation in the next decade. You’re going to see that a lot of small online businesses are going to be shut down by major players like Amazon. Conventional advertising is (hopefully) going to diminish in favor of some other, more efficient system of making money, and there won’t be so many blogs about Paris Hilton. 