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[Necro] Pop-unders on Wowhead
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Post by
Malgayne
I agree about the appalling nature of the advertisements. I would like to point out, though, that according to our demographics 82% of our visitors are over 18. This is well over the legal limit of 75% (I think?), and considerably older than even the Partypoker website that's being advertised.
I'm not trying to defend the advertisements aggressive behavior of course. I'm just saying that using the most accurate scales we have available, advertising on Wowhead seems to be roughly the same as advertising on The Sopranos.
Post by
17744
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
Honestly? I have no idea. I use analytics as provided to me by companies like Google, ComScore, and Quantcast. But how they gather demographic data? I really don't know. I've always wondered myself.
Post by
Lockslap
I couldn't imagine the amount of bandwidth that Wowhead eats up in a day, and without even so much as a hiccup in the system. I would gladly donate money to help ease the operating costs.
Without Wowhead's tooltip system and powered.js I wouldn't have anything to do on my computer while not playing WoW.
Post by
Mike
I still occasionally get emails from misguided Google searchers who think we are a retail store, selling Iron Ore and Bronze Tubes. I usually ask them if they're interested in our supplies of Thorium Widgets.
sorry, but i lol'ed at that >.<
Post by
Aurlon
I hate pop-up ads. Banners on a webpage don't bother me in the slighest, infact I removed adblock because I realised as much, but pop-up ads are a totally different story. With that said, if it's that or lose this site, i'll take the ads anyday. I do have a couple of problems with them though:
As said by another poster, the Wowhead icon in my bookmarks menu is being replaced by the PartyPoker icon.
I am getting pop-unders
much
more frequently than you suggest. No, i'm not switching browsers, changing IP's or computers. Cookies are enabled and do not delete. Sometimes I get a new pop-up on every click-through (Firefox 3.0.6).
If the current problems persist, i'm going to have to reinvest in some ad-blocking software, it's not tolerable in the current situation. I would much rather pay a small subscription fee however.
Post by
Razmortis
Very shortly we have planned to release a small donation/subscription system, which will remove all the ads for users who are signed up (as well as including a few bonus perks).
want2nded - but I do not like the idea of "including a few bonus perks", but of course it depends on what you mean.
If it's bonus perks like pretty color on your text while posting on forums or pretty colored nick name under your avatar then sure, that would be kind of cool - but I would not like the idea if things like gear comparision and such becomes a "gold member only"-tool.
I would gladly donate a few bucks a month or so to you guys to be able to get rid of the banners and pop-unders completely, since I read and post on these forms daily.
Thumbs up for a great site, even with banners! ^^~
Post by
239559
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
vaad
The main problem I have with with the ads is the ones on the item pages themselves, to the left of the info-boxes.
When you're looking at an item's page, and typing something into the search box at the top-right, the drop-down autocomplete thing goes UNDER the ad below it, so you can't read it.
Post by
Ophilil
Honestly? I have no idea. I use analytics as provided to me by companies like Google, ComScore, and Quantcast. But how they gather demographic data? I really don't know. I've always wondered myself.
Internet service provider can give out little stuff like that sometimes. They don't do it too openly, but they do if the age out and you can figure anyones location out through their IP. But, like if the internet is owned by someone over 18 or whatever age there is no way of you knowing the age of the people actually accessing the stuff, only that of the person who own the internet hook-up that they are using. Like i use my dads internet, cuz im not old enough to live on my own, so unless I'm wrong, your demographics or whatever would think I'm 45+.
As for the adds themselves, they get annoying, but if it's helping out I'm ok with it. I always get the Party Poker one, and it comes up multiple times a day, only cuz i don't let third-party companies and adds save cookies. I don't mind, can't wait for subscription/donation thing. Could be better topics for wowhead, but I'm really good at Alt+F4 outta them right away ;)
Post by
Skyfire
The main problem I have with with the ads is the ones on the item pages themselves, to the left of the info-boxes.
When you're looking at an item's page, and typing something into the search box at the top-right, the drop-down autocomplete thing goes UNDER the ad below it, so you can't read it.
Hmm, I think we need to check the z-indexing on that, as ideal behavior should obviously be auto complete > advertisement.
Post by
ArgentSun
I am by no means an expert (in fact, I am really far away from being one), but right now we have ~3 ads per page - one on top, on to the right, and on on the bottom of the page. Isn't it possible to make the top and right one slightly smaller, and fit an extra two adds there? So instead of having:
|----------------------|
| |
| |
|----------------------|
we have something like:
|-----------|----------|
| | |
| | |
|-----------|----------|
Two smaller adds instead of one? I guess it doesn't work that way, but I had to ask...
EDIT: On a similar note, how does an Ad Page sound? A page or two dedicated solely to ads (besides the ones we already have), where gracious users could just go and spam click ads, to generate clicks/visits/moneyz.
Post by
Wildhorn
http://financestoc.com/?sid=aff0052
It is one of the pop-up. And it is not on the same 1 hour timer than poker (aka both of them will pop with in an hour)
Post by
Gryphon
The main problem I have with with the ads is the ones on the item pages themselves, to the left of the info-boxes.
When you're looking at an item's page, and typing something into the search box at the top-right, the drop-down autocomplete thing goes UNDER the ad below it, so you can't read it.
Hmm, I think we need to check the z-indexing on that, as ideal behavior should obviously be auto complete > advertisement.
Flash objects are rendered above all other layers in most/all browsers. You need to be able to add a parameter the embed code for the flash player to solve this most of the time and I don't believe that any Wowhead devs have access to the actual display code hosted by the ad networks.
A lot of sites will solve the problem by hiding the ad frame when a menu appears and show it again when the menu is closed.
Post by
Malgayne
Isn't it possible to make the top and right one slightly smaller, and fit an extra two adds there?
Now you're getting into advanced advertising theory. This is possible, but it doesn't just give a flat increase to profits. The trouble is that the
value
of an ad placement is determined by the number of clicks it gets. The more ads you have on a page, the lower the click rate of each ad (since one user is only going to click on one ad per visit no matter what). There are some cases where adding an extra ad to the page actually DECREASES the money you make overall—for instance, if you added an extra ad that was somewhere where it wasn't likely to be clicked on, it can actually lower the overall click rate of your website and
reduce
your revenue rather than increasing it—and extra ads always negatively affect the user experience, in terms of computer slowdown if nothing else.
EDIT: On a similar note, how does an Ad Page sound? A page or two dedicated solely to ads (besides the ones we already have), where gracious users could just go and spam click ads, to generate clicks/visits/moneyz.
Unfortunately, this is "click fraud", and is against the law. Remember that an advertiser pays for each click, so they only people they want clicking are people that are actually interested in their product.
Post by
somethingsnappy
The main problem I have with with the ads is the ones on the item pages themselves, to the left of the info-boxes.
When you're looking at an item's page, and typing something into the search box at the top-right, the drop-down autocomplete thing goes UNDER the ad below it, so you can't read it.
I agree. I was just looking for librams from the drop down on the left. I could not see it because by the time i got to that level the ad was actually covering the group i wanted.
it seems the square ads beside the quick facts cover a lot of tertiary menu items if they happened to go 2 rows wide...like armor does.
I took a screeny but i have no way to upload it for you.
Other than that, I have a solid dsl connection but I get lots of full screen popup ads daily so if your ad provider says they are supplying one per 24 hours they are lying.
I got 2 popups during the last 10 mins in the same browser session.
Post by
somethingsnappy
And before i forget, if you think that clicking on ads on purpose will help wowhead it will not.
Advertisers know exactly what kind of click through rate (ctr) to expect and they have a pretty good feel how may sales/sign ups to expect from those clicks. If the ctr is at all higher than usual, specially with lower than usual sales/sign ups after the clicks, ads will be pulled which means less revenue and a bad rep for wowhead.
Clicking ads at random is a baaaad baaaad thing for wowheads long term ad revenue and suggesting to do so to others makes it worse.
Post by
vaad
The main problem I have with with the ads is the ones on the item pages themselves, to the left of the info-boxes.
When you're looking at an item's page, and typing something into the search box at the top-right, the drop-down autocomplete thing goes UNDER the ad below it, so you can't read it.
Hmm, I think we need to check the z-indexing on that, as ideal behavior should obviously be auto complete > advertisement.
Here's a screenie, cos it happened again just now. It's the latest firefox version. (sorry for the odd URL)
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_A3lZI1YHKK8/SZxPJTg0LEI/AAAAAAAAAjw/HpogHn4Bzdw/overlap.jpg
Post by
5200
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
Honestly? I don't know. It's not a decision I have the ability to make. =/
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