Due to all of the attention I’ve gotten (good and bad) over my PBS appearance, the people at wordpress.com have identified WUWT as a high traffic blog and have added advertising to the top and to the sidebar.
For example, my WUWT rank today out of millions of wordpress.com blogs is #2
I do get a little revenue when somebody clicks on those ads, but I have my limits.
Unknown to me and against my wishes, yesterday they added a fourth ad The “Content From Sponsors, by Taboola” which was particularly maddening, as it was nothing but schlock of the National Enquirer variety – entertainment/starlet news and such.
I asked them to remove that today, and told them in no uncertain terms that it was a deal killer.
I’ve considered moving to a private server, but after seeing the kinds of DDoS attacks Jo Nova gets on her website I’ve thought better of it since my wordpress.com hosting effortlessly repels such attacks due to it being cloud based – there’s no central point to take down WUWT. Still, I couldn’t tolerate those Taboola ads. Tough choice – I don’t pay for hosting, but get the benefits of a world class hosting and publishing platform.
I’m happy to report they removed the Taboola ads after I complained.
The others remain. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll review it again later.
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#2?
Please don’t ever change the way you are! I think you are #1.
WUWT University rocks!
I personally enjoyed the ad for the National Equirer article: “Climate Scientists launch secret covert guerrilla group to infiltrate skeptical work groups.”
….Besides Anthony….I am ok with ads. I hope they help out with the bandwidth expenses.
number 2 ?
lol, well done AW.
this has been a good week. at last
Can’t we have an auto clicker which also sends the answers into the black hole behind the LED layer of the screen? Or maybe to an additional TAB in the background which can be closed with one click.
I am getting GMC adds at the moment. I wonder if they are funded with tax dollars
You’ve hit the big time, Anthony! You have United Airlines and Hertz car rental paying for ads on your pages!
With Firefox Adblock Plus Add-on keeps all the adds out.
Gerry Parker says:
September 20, 2012 at 11:54 am
I’m seeing a Fluke instrument company advertisement. As an engineer, that is probably the best ad I’ve seen on the web (friom my point of view). A decent company that makes good equipment.
========================
I saw their ad weeks ago and responded to order the printed edition of their “book” on thermal devices. I got a phone call and emails from marketing. No book.
At $2k to $10k per device, I had a serious interest. Not to question their products but their marketing is at a loss, at least from me.
congrats on #2!!!
I checked out your top competitors and am pretty sure I will never visit those blogs again. It must be pretty scary for the alarmists that a skeptic blog is beating out even social celebrity blogs and the alarmist readership has become non-existent..
Quit an accomplishment beating Stupid Housewives! Keep it up!
Don’t sweat the adds, I reached add saturation years ago, actually did not even notice the change and I am a daily lurker.
Anthony, I always click the ads to reward the blogs I read. And I actually like my ads. If anyone’s dissatisfied with the ads, just search what you want to see on google with cookies enabled. Google instantly adjusts. One time a colleague wondered whether everyone on the Internet gets model train ads like him. I assured him that that is not the case.
FF adblockplus addon in use here – I never see ads only people that complain about them. -Paul
Congratulations on your new ranking. I wonder if the warmists realize that it is probably their vehement reaction to the PBS interview, as much as the show itself, that has brought you the increased traffic.
Wordpress have got to make money somehow. It was good of them to comply with your request but instead of suggesting that you might move to a private server you could just point them to all the positive comments you have made about their service, including this one. I’ve considered setting up my own blog (and may still) and WordPress is my first choice because of what I’ve read here. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
No prob with ads here, especially if you get even a small percentage. Just keep up the great effort–you are really #1, but they just don’t want to admit it….
This is the one site that I have no objection to ads. Such is the content that one hardly notices anyway.
Appreciate the change too – I noticed this a day or so ago and it was a pain. I recommend flashblock for, er, flash ads and setting the image_animation_mode setting in Firefox to “none” – everything seems better then.
I would also contribute to a no / fewer ads version – maybe a membership ? I’m sure it would also trigger the SKS “conspiracy of membership” posting too 😉 although I am a lukewarmer
Liked the T Shirt add. Refreshed to see another girl, but got someone in Penn who spreads road salt??? Now it is a LGBT book store. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
To WordPress Management,
The banner ad is, in my opinion, very NEGATIVE advertising for WordPress. They should keep it up only If they want to repel new business.
That WordPress would stomp upon your page design so blatently is reason number one other business owners should not to use WordPress as a blog or publishing platform. WUWT might have too much invested in the WordPress design and database to warrent changing. But everyday the banner remains is a reminder not to choose WordPress for new projects.
I have no problem with the advertizing “below the fold”, below the main post and tags and above the comments.
I just added taboola as s regular filter to AdBlock Plus, and they were gone. But I’m very happy that it’s a deal-breaker to you…if my filter hadn’t worked, I would’ve been here less.
A guest post with Joe Romm? Man!! How we could have some easy fun with that!! But seriously, some of the ads can be entertaining and they are usually easy enough to block. Not going to affect my visitations one whit.
“I do get a little revenue when somebody clicks on those ads”
Click.
Click.
Click.
(close)
(close)
(close)
OK, now back to reading. 🙂
Well I’m happy for any revenue that might accrue to you as a result of those ads.
I don’t know how long the internet has existed; but however long it has been, I have never; as in not ever, clicked on ANY add deliberately. Now when I go to the star to click on that t bring down my favorites list to go to WUWT (or anywhere else) that favorites list comes down on top of those ads, so If I screw up and double click on WUWT, I will end up with the ad site first, and some of those ads agressively won’t let you leave. So whenever any of those ad sites opens, I simply hold down the power on key and turn off the computer, and deal with any lost info that occurs when I reboot. This includes ads for things that might be my most favorite things in life
So notice to advertisers; I know when I want to buy something, and will go and shop for it then. I will never buy anything in response to an ad, especially ads that intrude on what I am doing.