Advertising

I hate advertising, in fact it bothers me so much that I use Firefox and run the adblock plus extension which allows you to not only block popup adverts but it also has the ability to actually remove advert elements from in the content of the page. To improve on this it sports a subscription for the filters so you don't even need to manually block adverts, the subscription is managed by a community of people who contribute to the filter rules meaning it constantly improves over time.

It seems a little hypocritical to block adverts and then build a site which contains them, which is why this site will never have adverts, they're distracting, they use up screen space which could be used for helpful content and most of all only a handful of people ever use them, even targeted adverts have low click through rates.

Currently the website is hosted out of my own pocket, and why shouldn't it be? The internet was never designed to be self funding, if you want to host some content online it costs you money, that rule applies even if your content is useful for other people. Sure you can make money back on adverts but that's at the expense of your readers, adverts lower the quality and tone of the website, the fact that nearly every other website has ads doesn't make it any better in my opinion.

While I'm ranting about adverts I might as well throw in another moan. Most of you so far have probably found this website through gaming related forums because I've spent a fair bit of time trying to put the site out there in a natural way that PC gamers are used to. It's been mentioned in lots of game and PC hardware enthusiast forums and it has been well accepted across the board with the single exception of Guru3d, the owner was a bit grumpy and decided to have the thread removed from their forums for advertising, I didn't argue with them but I do have to wonder exactly what product/service am I advertising? If another member was to mention the website as a recommendation for other gamers, would it also be removed?

Anyway this is a perfect example of how advertising makes you bias to what content you put on your website, and how you deal with your viewers, despite gamers finding this site helpful it's removed for advertising, which makes you wonder what else has been removed from Guru3d that might have been of benefit to other gamers, anything that has diverted traffic from their servers, I've posted mirrors there in the past for downloads which were very slow and they've been removed by moderators also. All I can do is recommend other websites and forums which are a little more honest, try www.hardocp.com , www.anandtech.com, www.nvnews.net and www.rage3d.com.

Finally, how would you prefer websites to cover their hosting costs? Maybe advertising doesn't bother you at all, maybe affiliate links to games stores is acceptable, or a site powered by donations? Luckily I don't have to worry about these things now or even in the near future but I'm still interested in your feedback, leave a comment below.

-Princess_Frosty

Frosty's Blog.

A gaming blog by Sam "Frosty" Pickering, ranting about games since 1792.

Current rig: C2Q Q9450@3.6Ghz, 4Gb RAM, 2 4870s in crossfire, Velociraptor 300Gb Primary HDD, 3Tb Archive HDDs, Asus D2X Xonar, 30" WFP-HC Monitor, Antec1200 case, Lachesis Mouse & Exactmat, Lycosa Keyboard.



Comments for: Advertising
Posted by: PrincessFrosty on 13/10/2009 21:45:18
You're right it could dictate the future of this site, which is why the website is built fairly low bandwidth to help deal with that, and the target audience is small meaning the total hosting costs even once it's grown are going to be managable. Someone like youtube who hosts lots of data make a choice to host content and pay for that hosting, they can make money from their users but it's not a legally enforceable system, they have no right to expect to make money in this way, it just happens to work...that may not always be the case though.
Posted by: Chufty on 10/10/2009 11:18:13
You ought to face up to the reality of advertising. It makes the world go round. If you let this unconditional hatred of advertising dictate your business decisions, the website will stay small-time. My advice is to remove your AdBlock plugin. If you insulate yourself from the advertising culture then you're never going to be able to accept it.
Posted by: Smurfy on 08/10/2009 16:19:16
I don't see how you can expect big websites with dedicated server racks to survive without advertising. Google for example gets 99% of its revenue from advertising (and that's the figure, I'm not just saying 99% as in "almost all").
Posted by: PrincessFrosty on 05/10/2009 16:35:16
Well I'll be 100% transparent here...the hosting is £5 a month for 10Gb of transfer allowance, to double to 20Gb is £8 a month. I don't see me hitting 10Gb per month for a very long time, much less 20Gb, the site has a very small footprint. I can easily afford £8 a month in fact I have no real issues with upto about £20-30 a month, only beyond that does it become significant enough for me to worry about, at that point we're probably talking 100's of Gb per month. I just don't see it ever being a problem, the site will never be high bandwidth like that, I have no intention to start hosting patches or demos or large videos or anything like that, it can all be streamed from other sites.
Posted by: Alias on 05/10/2009 11:00:45
Adverts are annoying, but I can see that funding could be useful. I'd prefer to donate to a site that has helped me in some way. Even if only a few people donate a small amount, it would still help towards hosting costs etc.
Posted by: PrincessFrosty on 01/10/2009 14:41:08
Yeah I need to sort paragraphs, I've put it on my ever increasing to-do list :)
Posted by: Android1 on 01/10/2009 14:26:21
Hmm . . . Princess_Frosty, is there a way that the blog comments could be made more paragraph-friendly, hehe?
Posted by: Android1 on 01/10/2009 14:24:44
Greetings from Rage3D! Thanks for the good word. I personally do not have an issue with people making money off their web sites, but I definitely hear what you are saying about the ads. Some of them, especially the whole-page ones you see on various sites these days, are just plain tacky. However, if the site merely uses a couple of well-placed ads, like Rage3D does, I have no issue with them. This is a nice project. Keep up the good work!
Posted by: JohnnyMaverik on 01/10/2009 01:20:38
stance on advertising* can't type today -_- my bad...
Posted by: JohnnyMaverik on 01/10/2009 01:19:56
Early days but it's looking nice. As for the stance advertising, I respect and admire your descision, but if in the end you need a source of income as the site grows (as joepjens pointed out) it may be nessesary.
Posted by: joepjens on 30/09/2009 20:54:24
As a site grows, a new way for funding is needed. Unfortunatly this does often means a website needs advertising. Myself, I don't mind advertising aslong as it is not overdone and preferably to sites related to your subject. Pop ups are awful, a few ads incorporated into the website so they dont hinder useability are fine. On that note using adblocker directly hurts the website you are browsing, since a lot of ads already pay if people see them. With adblocker I am not sure if they load and if they register as seen. Donations is another way of funding, however this is often not reliable. However if you get enough every month to support the hosting it is the more gracefull solution.

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