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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
So that’s what Richard Black was twittering on about! He noticed before the rest of us.
I didn’t know Black was a WUWT “fanboy” as the warmist say
How do i embed an image?
I have Ghostery and TrackMeNot, which together block all ads, trackers, and adware/spybots. So your page looks normal to me.
Anthony, you could have your site protected from DoS by way of CloudFlare ( http://www.cloudflare.com) – just a suggestion.
Regards
Kevin.
I was amused to see a Stat Oil advert across the top yesterday.
The ads aren’t intrusive for me. Interesting articles and interesting comments make them fade into the background.
I don’t mind the advertisements, they’re an amusing game to see what kind of peer group the advertisers think we are.
I don’t think i saw the taboola ads, since i am portuguese i get targeted by portuguese ads here.
@prjingigo
The adverts are probably targetted by the use of cookies, so the chances are you are receiving ads related to your internet habits. In the EU users have to agree to these cookies or opt out, which screws the target ads.
If your receiving ads for battery operated “rabbits” 😉 it’s not the groups fault, you need to avoid certain sites (j/k)
hmmmm, I seem to be getting ads for gimp masks ……
Oh, that’s why there are references to NoScript. With Javascript enabled I see the ads, with it disabled, I don’t see the new ones. I generally view WUWT from my main computer with Javascript disabled because my ancient Firefox loads WUWT pages much faster that way.
I use an add-on called QuickJava that adds a couple buttons in the lower right that toggle Java and Javascript on and off. See http://quickjavaplugin.blogspot.com/
I dynamic ads so Flashblock is a critically important add-on too, see https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock/
I’m not familiar with NoScript, but I stumbled on it at http://noscript.net/ , it looks like it’s the way to go. Maybe I’ll try it on my laptop.
I had hoped to build and move to a new computer this summer, but never got past step 1 (Clean the office). Sigh.
Now that we’re finally getting cool weather in New England, fall is worth a couple months of outdoors activities, so maybe November.
I must confess that I am so use to ads (on any website), that I had not really noticed them until others mentioned them. Needless to say, you are not earning any money from me as I never click them.
The price of success I guess. But fortunately, as long as they do not “fly over” the content, they are easily ignored.
Mama taught me to ignore advertisements when I was very young. I totally tune them out whether they are on the screen, tv, radio, or billboard. Just don’t notice them anymore. It’s a wonderful skill to cultivate.
Well handled. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with others that you should have a “tip jar”.
There is a tip jar, on the right side bar –
connertown says:
September 21, 2012 at 7:11 am
Well handled. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with others that you should have a “tip jar”.
Anthony Watts says:
September 21, 2012 at 7:17 am
There is a tip jar, on the right side bar –
==================================================
It doesn’t say “Tip Jar”. It’s an oval yellow button around the word “Donate”.
Perhaps Anthony should add the words “Tip Jar” in the area for those used to seeing that?
http://www.keithsketchley.com/crestlad.pdf is an example of marketing people not thinking. That’s an ad that showed up on WUWT.
It shows what some people will recognize as a particular USB stick from Kingston, it or equivalents are readily available in retail stores like Best Buy. But you can’t buy a few from Crestline, they want to sell you 50 or more customized with your organization’s logo/name.
A silly aspect is that they have versions that aren’t in most retail stores, with a key ring for example. But they don’t put their best forward in the ad. Even the words are obscure – what is “Solved”?
So the ad will get clicks from many people who want only a few, yet won’t get clicks from the buyers they want because it does not communicate what the real offering is. (Products with your name on them that people will use in a way that they see your name frequently.)
Don’t worry for the adds, good if they bring in some sponsoring money. I miss the climate adds, at least that would be a right redirection…
@ur momisugly R.S.Brown says: Sept 20 at 2:56 pm
RE: “against blog policy …. to discuss how to go about blocking webhost inserted ads. ”
True. Ads pay the bills. Until now I never went to the bother of blocking ads, much less tell others how to do it. I plead “Justifiable Addicide”. WordPress got greedy and needed to be taught a lesson. If WordPress gets a call from GoogleAdServices, so much the better.
I believe that for every action, there is an opposite reaction, not necessarily of equal magnitude.