Forum Ad Blocking Crisis: What YOU can do about it!
- Thread starter Shawn Gossman
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Can you show us some links to these forums as I'd like to see what they are doing.
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This is one I am aware of, http://www.troublefreepool.com/forum.php no ads, and they make a very good amount with donations.
What does one consider a "good amount" and how did you determine they make a good amount? By my math they've made between about $13,200 and $44,000 over about 8 years. With that model on a forum that size they must be laughing all the way to the
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Even at the top amount it wouldn't pay for one years hosting, never mind the overheads and my wages.
Edit - I got that wrong, I've just checked and 1 years hosting costs $43,248 so I may have a little left over for coffee
Only if the person is getting ripped off on hosting fees. I've operated forums with several million monthly visitors for under $200/month. That pool forum could easily run on a $50/month low end dedicated server.
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Yes it's possible to run a few million on low cost equipment, but you get what you pay for and redundancy is essential as downtime with 15+ million monthly visitors is much more costly.
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I am not in a position to divulge financial info about them, but it is a considerable more amount than that.
That site is not getting 15+ million monthly visitors, not by a long shot. Or a million for that matter. Closer to half a million.
Client of mine had 4 fully redundant servers on a load balancer with an external firewall. Ran about $600 per month. Over an 8 year period this big board no hardware related downtime even with hardware failures. They no longer run as redundant, they determined it's not so mission critical if they go down a few hours (worst case), so now I've got them on two servers for about $190 month at the place they are at now.
$44,000/year for a server with a few million visitors per month, even fully redundant, is a ripoff.
I believe that.
Perhaps with their store income, but I am extremely skeptical about it on membership alone.
If every single active member was a paid member, it would come to just over $60K per year. 100% of active members paying would be beyond exceedingly rare on a site which is otherwise free.
I would never try to interfere with anyone using an adblocker.
I realize I'm not getting the traffic many of the sites on here are getting, but I'm not seeing a problem.
My adserver served around 480,000 rotating ads yesterday in six positions on my forum, with around 82,000 pageviews after filtering for human activity. Seems close enough for me.
Not saying it's not a problem, just saying that I'm not seeing it.
BTW, I sell my own ads only within my forum niche, and don't allow flash or animated ads.
FWIW
I realize I'm not getting the traffic many of the sites on here are getting, but I'm not seeing a problem.
My adserver served around 480,000 rotating ads yesterday in six positions on my forum, with around 82,000 pageviews after filtering for human activity. Seems close enough for me.
Not saying it's not a problem, just saying that I'm not seeing it.
BTW, I sell my own ads only within my forum niche, and don't allow flash or animated ads.
FWIW
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If you only sell your own ads, you won’t see a problem.
My main expense is not the server, it's the health insurance!
My main expense is not the server, it's the health insurance!
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Now if the other forums could do that, especially the flash ones. I have a cousin who has to use an ad-block due to her getting seizures from flashing stuff.
Surprised I hadn't seen this post earlier.
Surprised I hadn't seen this post earlier.
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As somebody else mentioned, AdBlockers became popular because ads became nasty. Ads that automatically play sounds and/or video slow down page loads, ads that take too long to appear so the page is jumping all over the place while you're reading. Ad networks are nice because they make things easier for the administrator - but they've become too complex. If they would go back to the basics there'd be less reason to block...
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I installed an Adblocker in my browser because I felt like the ads were taking over my surfing experience and slowing everything down, not because I dislike ads. There are many ads that I like to see. There are a bunch of ads on the bottom of this forum and my AdBlocker isn't bothering them and those ads are not bothering me. My guess is that many people feel the same way. I think the whole problem will balance out and eventually solve itself.
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Maybe the way is pay for private forums.
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There a few mboard out there that are paid with maybe one sub-forum or limited posts open to all. The Train Orders mboard is like that. Also some boards do have premie areas where a yearly sub gives you access.
I do block ads on my desktop and I do send in donations to the forums I enjoy spending time on sometimes, also I don't have an ad blocker while using my phone or tablet, so I suppose that balances things out.
If a forum adds an annoying notice hovering over the top of every page telling me all the reasons why I should disable my ad blocker, I'll just right click on that area and block that too.
If they figure out a way to box me out completely for using adblock, I'll just abandon that forum completely and participate at another forum. Those forums typically experience a dip in activity after implementing a disable-adblock-or-you-can't-get-in type of thing, so I wonder if it's really worth it for them? If they chase off all the ad-blockers, the ones who don't block ads won't have that many members to interact with and they'll leave too. Then all that's left is a dead forum.
If a forum adds an annoying notice hovering over the top of every page telling me all the reasons why I should disable my ad blocker, I'll just right click on that area and block that too.
If they figure out a way to box me out completely for using adblock, I'll just abandon that forum completely and participate at another forum. Those forums typically experience a dip in activity after implementing a disable-adblock-or-you-can't-get-in type of thing, so I wonder if it's really worth it for them? If they chase off all the ad-blockers, the ones who don't block ads won't have that many members to interact with and they'll leave too. Then all that's left is a dead forum.
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The article is just a rant without a solution.