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Post by julianna on Jun 17, 2016 13:40:15 GMT -5
I find too often that the ads on the forum are causing problems for me. My machine will slow down and almost stop until the moving ads have loaded. I have tried to click on them and then close them... and that did work temporarily.
I have come on here many times and get so frustrated with the waiting that I just leave and try again tomorrow. Today there were ads at the bottom of the page and if they are not "moving ads" they are fine... but those that "move" make me crazy.
Just had to blow the steam off.
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Post by cnyguy on Jun 17, 2016 21:00:00 GMT -5
I share your frustration. The ads here on the Forum aren't as troublesome as some I've come up against on other sites, but they do slow things down. Sometimes (like now), I'll type a few words, and ten seconds later, I'll see them come up on the screen. I've been using an ad blocker on some sites, which helps most of the time.
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Post by Caseysmom on Jun 17, 2016 22:50:31 GMT -5
Maybe Ithe ads don't come in on my mini iPad, all I see is a pro boards box that says you should have an ad here... It doesn't move.
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Post by biteybird on Jun 18, 2016 1:32:42 GMT -5
I can see the ads, but they don't seem to slow down my computer(s). I do get an annoying redirection to a games site often when using my iPhone to access the Forum - I have to exit the internet and reload the page when this happens.  |
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Post by easttex on Jun 18, 2016 3:36:24 GMT -5
Has anyone investigated the "click here to remove banner ads" option at the bottom of the main page? It sounds like a good solution for a reasonable price ($8) but I'm confused by the options.
* edit: I just looked at it while logged in, and now the options are different. Instead of a flat fee, it offers a monthly subscription, so it doesn't look quite so reasonable. I'm still confused, though.
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Post by msdani1981 on Jun 19, 2016 0:40:08 GMT -5
ShellyDo you have any suggestions??? Thank you! :-)
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Post by aaron on Jun 20, 2016 10:58:55 GMT -5
I share your frustration. The ads here on the Forum aren't as troublesome as some I've come up against on other sites, but they do slow things down. Sometimes (like now), I'll type a few words, and ten seconds later, I'll see them come up on the screen. I've been using an ad blocker on some sites, which helps most of the time. An ad blocker is a good approach to solving this on an individual basis. Another thing you guys can try is using a different browser. If you're using Internet Explorer, try installing Chrome... but if you aren't using an ad blocker, that's the best place to start. Personally, my computer doesn't have any issues with the ads, so I don't use one at the moment and thus don't have a personal recommendation, but from what I've read, Adblock Plus (https://adblockplus.org/) comes highly recommended. It only works in Chrome/Firefox/Safari however. It looks like the ad removal solution applies for all users of the site, not just the individual that pays for it. It operates on number of page views, so for example, I can donate 50,000 ad-free pageviews to the forum for $8. That means the next 50,000 times the site is hit by anyone, there will be no ads. I don't have a real good sense of the traffic load this site gets, so I'm not sure how far that would go. There might be usage statistics (specifically, number of page views in a given period of time) in the administrative view that msdani1981 has. If we can figure out how much mileage we would get out of those $8 donations, maybe we would decide it is worth it for each of us to donate $8... It's definitely possible that we could get rid of the ads for quite a while that way. I certainly don't mind chipping in. |
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Post by cnyguy on Jun 20, 2016 19:34:40 GMT -5
Adblock Plus (https://adblockplus.org/) comes highly recommended. It only works in Chrome/Firefox/Safari however. That's the one I'm using, and so far, it is helping. Firefox and Safari are the two browsers I use on my Mac Mini. On one of the other parrot forums I visit, there was a video ad at the bottom of each page, and the page view automatically jumped down to the ad whenever it popped up, interrupting both reading and writing of posts. That was about the most annoying ad I've run across so far. So many members complained about it, the forum administrators had no choice but to remove the offending ad. |
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Post by aaron on Jun 20, 2016 19:52:05 GMT -5
Yeah, ads can be very annoying. They seem to get worse and worse. I guess people are getting less and less likely to click on them, so they have to keep making them increasingly intrusive. Hopefully an ad blocker will work for the others as well!
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Post by julianna on Jun 21, 2016 12:19:21 GMT -5
Just glad to hear that I am not the only one running into a few issues. Thanks for your feedback.... and if it would cost us a few dollars to get rid of them altogether... I would definitely chip in.
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Post by aaron on Jun 21, 2016 13:26:12 GMT -5
I just want to know how many page views this site gets a day before I officially suggest that we all chip in... I don't want people to waste their money.
That said, we could make an estimate... At the bottom of the site I see that usually around 250 guest visitors hit the site daily, and around 15 members... If we make the assumption (and this is a big guess) that visitors average 5 page views per visit, and members average 20 page views per visit (could be low), we could say we average 300 page views a day from members and 1250 page views a day from guests... that's 1550 a day total... If $8 gets us 50,000 ad-free page views, then for each $8 donated we would get a little over a month of ad-free usage. Or, if as a monthly subscription, 50,000 page views costs only $6/mo.
It is worth noting that as the site becomes more popular, the costs will rise... although I expect this to happen fairly slowly, at least for now.
It would be more tempting if we had the option to serve ads to guests and not to members... because the vast majority of the ad-free page views will go to people who have not signed up and are lurking... But I'm still willing to chip in. In spite of my estimate, I think we should probably still wait to see if Dani has a way to see site usage statistics as an administrator.
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Post by zim on Jun 21, 2016 15:00:00 GMT -5
I do have to use an ad blocker on this site for the same reasons others here have stated. I always hate giving the advice of using an ad blocker, as I am a website admin/owner myself and rely heavily on ad network revenue to stay in business. But sometimes the ads are just too aggressive.
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Post by aaron on Jun 21, 2016 23:00:50 GMT -5
Zim, I agree. I too have a lot of experience in this arena and have never used an ad blocker largely for this reason. But yes, one does have to admit that some ads have gotten pretty obnoxious.
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Post by aaron on Jun 22, 2016 17:13:07 GMT -5
Alright, I spoke with Dani and learned that I somewhat underestimated the traffic. For this past month, we had slightly over 70k page views, so we would need more than one person to put forth 50,000 page views per month. But for right now, two people to pay $6/mo would be more than enough to keep the site ad-free for quite a while. I'm certainly willing to chip in.
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Post by zim on Jun 22, 2016 22:40:08 GMT -5
Another idea is to have ad-free only for members while logged in. At those numbers, I would be willing to bet that the mass majority of the forums traffic is from guests.
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