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Post by
Arador
I am VERY sorry if I came off as caustic, or sarcastic, or contemptuous of you guys. I am listening very carefully to the feedback we get here. I admit that the amount of complaints we received surprised me, but I hope I have not given the impression that I am ignoring you, or that I don't care what you think.
I hear constantly that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but it still bothers me when even one user is unhappy. This is the reason why I'm in here, trying to defend my decision when I should have been listening and making notes so we can make more informed decisions in the future. I guess I just got caught off guard by the amount and the vehemence of the complaints, and I got defensive rather than simply taking your feedback into account. I apologize for that.
Let me be clear. I hear you. I didn't realize this was such a sensitive issue, or as Arador says I would have tried to broach the idea in advance. But I have very clearly heard the voice of the people on this one. It seems likely to me that a site skin will run on Wowhead again in the future, and I would ask you guys to understand if and when it does happen. But I will do everything within my power to make sure that any future skins are less aggressive (and ideally better-looking) than this one.
On a more positive note, look at it this way.
You got so much criticism because people cared, and it became a touchy subject because people have come to expect a very high standard from this site. So I'd say you've been doing something very right. :)
Post by
pelf
On a more positive note, look at it this way.
You got so much criticism because people cared, and it became a touchy subject because people have come to expect a very high standard from this site. So I'd say you've been doing something very right. :)
QFMFT
Post by
Gryphon
A lot, I'm sure, are complaints from people with no idea what it takes to monetize such a web service.
Post by
sYs73m
And bitching at people who are bitching at providers of a free service about changes that make the service more financially feasible for them (that's me!) makes me arrogant too - but I'm okay with that. :)
Hahahahahaha! Awesome.
Post by
Malgayne
Personally, I didn't mind the old ads that were simple images/iframes/gifs/etc as they were easily adblock-able, and I didn't find them too intrusive, etc, but this full-screen effect seems to be a proverbial kick in the balls to those of us who do have the sense to adblock, thanks. The new ads are mostly flash-based, making it even harder to adblock them...
I fully understand where you're coming from, and I do appreciate that this kind of thing is annoying. But this is sort of the fundamental problem with providing a free webservice.
If you adblock our ads, we then we actually have a to pay a certain amount of money, however tiny, in order to bring Wowhead to you. As time goes on, more and more people are adblocking websites--and this is a sensible thing to do, since as I mentioned earlier--I think banner ads are sleazy. But you need to understand that IF you adblock our website, we're paying YOU for the opportunity to bring Wowhead to you.
The reason why we have to try and find other methods of advertising is precisely that--because simple images/iframes/gifs/etc are easily adblock-able. I admit the site skin we used might have been too overdramatic a choice, I admit. ;)
I, for one, would be happy to pay for a premium wowhead service that had no ads whatsoever, as I find them extremely annoying - I remember the old wowhead that had no ads, no popups and didn't need any.
The old Wowhead had no ads and didn't need any because it was hosted on IGN's servers, and IGN was happy to do it because we only got a few thousand hits a day. The site was built and maintained by Skosiris and Mystadio in their free time between college classes.
Now maintaining and expanding the site is a full-time job for four people, and a part time job for lots more. We're adding new features--which require more maintenance--all the time, and our traffic and bandwidth costs are
significantly higher
. Our record is just short of 10 million pageviews in a
single day
--more than we would get in months back in the IGN days.
I am
overwhelmed
with gratitude for the tremendous outpouring of generosity and support we get from our users on a daily basis. We are
unbelievably
lucky to have the community we have, and the site growth we've experienced in the 2 years we've been live has been absolutely phenomenal. All we ask is that you bear with us while we continue to find ways to provide our service to you free of charge.
I am definitely planning on giving users the opportunity to pay for a premium Wowhead service, with no ads and with a few additional perks--especially with the upcoming profiler release (which I imagine you guys must be worrying has gone the way of
Duke Nukem Forever
). I'm exceedingly flattered by the number of users who have expressed a desire to donate to the cause, and I'm excited about the future for the site. :)
EDIT
: I misspoke here--Wowhead did not have ads
before
the IGN days. Back then it was hosted on a $20/month hosting service. When we got large enough to move on to IGN as a hosted fansite, they added a large number of intrusive ads to the site, including those interstitial ads that drive me nuts. >.<
Post by
59222
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
161505
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
I don't mean to suggest that we try to avoid banner ads because having banner ads
itself
is sleazy. We use them because it's the only way to generate revenue for a free site like this. The problem is that because it's becoming easier and easier to
purchase
banner ad space in an anonymous, untraceable way, it means that more and more often the ads
themselves
are sleazy.
For example, there's an ad for "smileys" or something that shows up in the top banner spot sometimes and obnoxiously yells "Hello???" on every page load. We don't allow that. When it appears, we notify the ad team and they block it on the ad server level, as well as calling the network that served it and saying "please don't give us this ad anymore--you
know
it's against the rules." The ad network always obligingly blocks it--as well as the entire
category
it belongs to. But 2 weeks later, without fail, the same ad will appear. It won't be labelled in the system as an "ad with sound", so blocking ads with sound doesn't stop it. We've blocked all ads from this company over and over but they create a fake company name every time they buy banner space, so that doesn't solve the problem. We can even block ads by keyword--like "travel" or "alcohol"--but they change the keywords every time, so that doesn't work either.
Basically anyone can buy ad space to sell you anything, and the only consistent method we have of tracking down and removing those ads is
here
--waiting until it actually makes its way onto the site, and waiting for a user to report it--and only if they report it using data that we can actually use to track down the ad manually and remove it. The most frustrating thing is that usually we don't get emails that say "This ad had sound. Here's a screenshot and a URL so you can remove it." We get emails that say "I used to love your website but now that you have ads with sound I'm never coming back" and then don't give me the information I need to get rid of the ad! >.<
The reason why we're trying to find other methods of generating revenue is basically because I don't trust the online advertising industry to do my Quality Control for me, because clearly their standards are not high enough for the standard I intend to hold Wowhead to. I'd rather sell one campaign like the Dinosaur attack one we just ran (where we can hand check everything and approve it) rather than ten gazillion banner ads where I don't have any idea what they're doing or how to check on it, and any time there's a problem I need to spend the next six hours doing diagnostics and refreshing pages hoping to duplicate the issue.
Post by
Arador
I don't know anything about the advertising business, but wouldn't Google ads give you more control over what gets displayed? Plus they are text only. Or are Google as just not profitable?
Post by
Skyfire
I don't know anything about the advertising business, but wouldn't Google ads give you more control over what gets displayed? Plus they are text only. Or are Google as just not profitable?
Text in general isn't as profitable as colorful, moving, and otherwise attention attracting ads. I won't speak for the other question.
Perhaps a helpful article in that regard would be
http://www.poynterextra.org/EYETRACK2004/advertising.htm
Post by
121787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
Google ads are typically a wonderful tool, and are actually often MORE profitable than traditional banners. But they aren't a viable choice for Wowhead for two reasons. One is because the REASON Google ads do so well is because they check the keywords on the page to determine what sort of advertising to run, and as such are sort of automatically targeted based on the content of your page. I know that
I'm
more likely to click on a Google ad than a traditional banner. But unfortunately, the technology that Google uses to index the content of a page to determine the keywords is the same technology that they use for within site searches--and that technology seems to have trouble with text that's embedded in javascript. Unfortunately this includes almost ALL of the text on Wowhead, meaning that basically you would get a random selection of irrelevant Google ads on every page--neutralizing that advantage completely.
The OTHER reason why we don't use Google Adsense is because on a WoW site...what's going to be the number one ad type to appear? If you've ever visited a WoW blog that uses Google Adsense, you'll know--gold selling ads. At one point Thottbot ran Google Adsense for about a month, way back in the day, and they STILL get posts on the official forums saying "I won't use Thottbot because it's
covered
in gold ads." I refuse to let that happen to Wowhead--but the time spent going through and chopping out the gold ads on Google (especially since more are added all the time) mean that it's even more hassle than cutting out the traditional banner ads, with the added risk of losing our fansite status. =/
Post by
121787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Arador
Ah thanks for that input Mal, I didn't think about the problems with gold selling ads. I've used Google ads in other contexts and they were are pretty solid tool.
I think the problems with content embedded in JS could be circumvented with some SEO work - hidden content that describes the page, or having non-JS output for the Google spider. But that is sadly a moot point due to the problems with gold ads. :(
I don't know if
this
new feature would allow blocking Google ads - I'm getting the feeling it doesn't. You can block certain domain as well, but what I think you'd really need is blocking by keywords.
Post by
Malgayne
I don't know if
this
new feature would allow blocking Google ads - I'm getting the feeling it doesn't. You can block certain domain as well, but what I think you'd really need is blocking by keywords.
Exactly. Even that isn't likely to work, since most gold sellers KNOW that a lot of WoW sites block them and as such will try and circumvent keyword restrictions in order to get up on those pages anyway. =/
Post by
159774
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pelf
People are more likely to click ads that are a game. Flash ads are more likely to have a game.
For a second I thought you said "...ads that are
in
a game." and had fevered visions of billboards cropping up all over Azeroth and Outland. I died a little inside and then noticed I misread you.
Post by
159774
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
161505
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
jure12
guys have to make a living and we don't pay a thing for this awesome website.
ppl are so easily spoiled by treating them good...
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