Cleaner, more relevant advertisements

Post by Wraath

Just a suggestion to the Wowhead team, have always loved the site and don't really mind the advertisements for the most part, but have you ever considered using advertisement services such as Google Adsense? They have the option to color coordinate the ads to match the site, and all the ads are relevant to people browsing the site.

I'm just saying this because of some ads that make no sense being on a WoW related site, not too mention are flashing and moving around and really don't match the layout of the site. As well as ads that start talking, which are really starting to get annoying, because you'll accidentally mouse over them and they won't shutup.

I suppose it's more about the financial side though, and maybe Adsense doesn't generate the same amount of cash as the flashy ads.

Post by Miyari

Every time I've seen a WoW-related site use Adsense, it's been inundated with RMT ads and leveling guide/exploit links and whatnot.

I'm just saying this because of some ads that make no sense being on a WoW related site, not too mention are flashing and moving around and really don't match the layout of the site. As well as ads that start talking, which are really starting to get annoying, because you'll accidentally mouse over them and they won't shutup.

If you are experiencing these sort of ads, we ask that you please report them to us.

Post by Wraath

Well, it doesn't just have to be Adsense, just about cleaner looking ads to match the look of the site.

Post by Malgayne

It's always our goal to promote cleaner, more relevant advertisements. At one point, though, Thottbot had Google Adsense running on it, and its reputation still hasn't recovered--you'll still hear people talk about how "Thottbot used to be full of RMT ads", despite the fact that the only ads ever came from Google Adsense, and Thottbot pulled them down almost immediately. That's not a mistake Wowhead can afford to make.

We're trying to make up for this by selling "direct campaigns"--ad campaigns purchased by people who specifically sought out our sites for advertising. The difficulty is that historically, Wowhead has a relatively low click-through rate--meaning our users don't click on ads as much as most people do. As a result, the relevant, valuable ad campaigns that you're looking for don't especially want to advertise with us--they'd much rather advertise on other websites that are less useful, but get more clicks. As a result, we get whatever ads we can scrounge--Pizza Hut, dating sites, and such.

If you want to see cleaner, more relevant advertisements, we'll keep working on trying to get people to buy them--but if you guys want to help, the best thing you can do (counterintuitively) is to click on the ads for things you might be interested in. The more clicks we get, the more tempting we are to advertisers and thus the easier it is for us to sell more targetted advertisements.

Cleaner, more relevant advertisements

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