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.
Anthony,
I have no problem with the ads at all.
Congratulations on the significantly increased exposure of WUWT!!! You deserve it, and I mean that in the most complimentary way.
Regarding the PBS piece containing your interview, you have benefited from the broader public exposure of WUWT as being reasonable and balanced in direct contrast to the extremes and imbalance of such venues as John Cook’s site.
Most importantly, as a result of the PBS exposure, I think a significant number of the new visitors at WUWT will find the balance more convincing than the alternatives; which will result in more widespread reasoned knowledge of the climate science dialog. One cannot ask for a better result than that if you are an independent thinker.
With regards to the discussion about you staying with WP or not, everyone has only so much energy. I suggest the most important reason for WUWT staying with WP is so you can direct your very valuable energy to the most import things like content and being proactive. With WP you would continue to not need much energy for webhosting processes. Take care.
John
Re: “Is there another bear markety around the corner?” banner.
OK, the picture looks almost like a polar bear, but theydl get more attention if it were swimming for its life, not just standing there on the ice growling!
No 2 out of 55,900,000 blogs! WOW, no ones supposed to read the stuff you publish.
I’ve barely seen any ads in the last several years ANYWHERE on the internet. Certainly not seen any here. AdBlockPlus (for Firefox) is clearly doing a fine job.
Under the “Better to light one candle..” department.
I use IE9.
Goto Tools, Internet Options, Security Tab,
Restricted Sites, click Sites button.
Add this website to the zone:
http://*.googleadservices.com
click Add.
Banner ad is now gone. So is the tolerable ad below the fold.
Google, be sure to thank WordPress for making googleadservices.com personna non grata on my browser. It might not be a permanent solution, but it feels so good!
Stoopid Housewives…they’re probably the ones doing peer review on anything coming out of UEA, UVA, and all the other CAGW fountains of fear-mongering folly….
Anthony, no worries, there was only one objectionable ad I saw…. it had Lewandowsky in red tights trying to portray a climate superhero landing on the moon……
or something like that…..
Basically I agree with Dirk @ur momisugly 12:17; using Google Chrome. Want to see ads for cars – go to a car site. Guitars – visit Gibson. How about a computer – visit tiger direct. And so on.
It is also easy to ignore them. Have you ever lived near train tracks?; got a cuckoo clock? After a few days you don’t hear them – unless you want too.
I have no problem with you making money off of the ads. Besides, the National Inquirer et al have more integrity than the NYT, WaPo, ABC, MSNBC, etc. put together. The National Inquirer is honest about what they are.
Regars,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
The ad just below your article and before the comments at present here in UK is for Rugby League – I bet you don’t know what that is and it is certainly not something I would expect to see on WUWT.
Seriously, I don’t mind the ads at all.
Well done Anthony. Since the targetted ads don’t seem to include lunar landing conspiracy oriented theme’s maybe get Prof. Lewandowsky to check the targetting algorithm’s? They must be wrong, right?
Anthony, it was only when you raised the subject, did I discover that I must have developed a cerebral filter system that somehow constantly filters out ads of no interest to me (most) and occasionally allows one through if suitable. Seriously, they are not a problem and if it helps finance your activities, that’s great.
Make some spare change, Anthony. No need to apologize.
In general, I barely notice them, but now and then one of the targeted ads does catch my eye and I click.
Confession: some of the targeted ads crack me up! Because I’m visiting a climate blog, every now and then there’s an ad for something meant to appeal to the CAGW-WAGTD-acolyte and I just have to giggle when they miss the target so badly. (Anybody else?)
I love the ads, so many of them are deliciously inappropriate for the articles they are attached to. If the advertisers realized what the articles were about, they would have apoplexy over paying for ad views. I even click on the ones that are both appropriate and interesting. Snorg Tees are actually entertaining.
@JabbaTheCat says: September 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Yup. AdBlock the way to go
After years of using the Internet I can just sort of “Ommmm” them out of existence.
You do what you have to do, but I rather think that the absence or presence of ads is unlikely to deter the regular readers of this site.
More traffic is good. As my dear old Dad used to say on the subject: “Every knock is a boost as long as they spell your name right!”
Whatever. I’m filtering ads wholesale anyway. My eyeballs don’t work for free.
I, for one, enjoy clicking on warmest or just general liberal sites. Anthony gets a little$$ and it costs them.
It certainly doesn’t worry me but thanks for letting us know. Now back to the important matters.
Just like free TV, ads are what allows much of the free content on the Internet to exist. So, just like 30 second TV spots, I tune them out. If I were you, I would keep where you are, I think the benefits to you outweigh the aggravation to us. Plus the possible future aggravation from running your own site.
But I really like the fact that you care! That say quite a bit about you!
Personal note…
Five or six years ago it was against blog policy on Climate Audit
to discuss how to go about blocking webhost inserted ads.
Here on WUWT as on ClimateAudit, over the years, all I’ve ever seen
are single line links instead of banners, boxes or things that go “blink”
on the screen.
Stephen Rasey says:
September 20, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Goto Tools, Internet Options, Security Tab,
Restricted Sites, click Sites button.
Add this website to the zone:
http://*.googleadservices.com
click Add.
Steve, you’re giving away some of our best tricks !
Certainly, no apology is needed for success.
Nor the actions of those who glom onto said success.
We know where to find the posts, it ain’t that hard 🙂
george e smith;
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,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wow. Now that’s doing it the hard way. Turn “pop up blocker” on, and 90% of that cr@p goes away. If you hit a web page that won’t “let you go back” just double click the back button instead of single click. In most cases there’s a background script running, so a single click takes you back to the beginning of script while a double click backs you out of the page.
If you still can’t “get away” just close the browser. No need to reboot the whole computer.
I guess this also counts as an answer to all those people who were asking on the other threads whether l’affaire PBS was getting you extra hits. (And reminds me of those other ads “We’re only No.2 … so we try harder” … Move over, Koreanindo!)
Seriously, pretty damn impressive, and well done. Let’s hope a few folk wake up to what’s going on. No, make that a lot of folk.
Well, if the money is rolling in I suppose you could always go out and buy an ark. Solar powered, of course.