Annoying online ads

[Rageaholic]

I get it, websites get money off of marketing revenue. If I made an even remotely popular website, I would try to make some money off of it as well. What I hate is how in your face and annoying some of the ads are. Some websites take 10 times as long to load because of all the dumbass ads they have. There has even been times when I was in the middle of reading something or posting a comment and the website would crash in the middle, taking me to some error page, even though I was already at the website. I HATE THAT!! Ads that simply advertise don't bother me, but these intrusive, in your face ads need a nice trip to the woodchipper.

-For instance, videos. Some videos force you to watch some stupid commercial before you watch the video itself. I don't blame the webdesigner for it, seeing they need to make money, but the company who thinks that these in your face ads will make people want to buy their shit. (and yes, I am aware of brand recognition, but can't they just do that with those little banners?)

-I also hate those fucking survey popups that show up right randomly and follow you around until you answer. NO! I don't want to take your dumbass survey! If you want to make sure I'm a sastified comcast customer, stop bugging me to take your stupid survey! They are useless anyway! (but that's for another rant).

-I also hate those ads that take up the entire screen, making you think that that's the website you're on, or that you want to the wrong site. Not only are they annoying and instrusive, but they slow down your computer just so they can load.

-And last but not least, spyware, malware, and any kind of virus that fucks up my computer in the name of advertising. 3 times has these tactics nearly crashed my computer and forced me to restart and redownload everything. Yeah, great way to get customers.

So as I said, I don't mind advertising, and I don't blame the webdesigners, but the people who think that shoving their product in your face is a good idea. They should just shove their product up their ass if they're going to do that shit.

[HYHYBT]

The ads in videos are especially annoying when they mean you cannot pause the video and let it buffer. My connection is usually a bit slower than what will allow one to play all the way through without interruption, but if I can pause it and then come back later it plays fine... except when pausing it causes the connection to stop and start over when it's released. The main purpose seems to be to stop people with less than perfect connections from watching at all, but why would they want that?

If I could universally bar exactly one technique, though, it would be auto-refresh. Serves no purpose at all that I can find, except to make me have to first wait for the page to reload, then find my place on it again because it never goes back there. Though I've met a few pages that don't load until they are in the frontmost window/tab, which also is pointlessly annoying. And of course there are those that make any sort of unasked-for noise at all; like the previous ones, they're especially annoying if you've got several pages open at once, because it's hard to find which one is doing it and dammit, I shouldn't have to turn my sound off just because some site wants me to hear about something I wouldn't be interested in buying anyway.

[Rageaholic]

Oh I forgot about those sound ones. The ones I hear the most are those scam ones telling me I won a wii or a 1000 dollar Walmart Gift card. But the most annoying or those smiley ones which shout "HEL-LOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!". Man those are annoying!

[Rapscallion]

I did consider adverts on CS.com a long while back after I'd taken over, but quite honestly it's a case of a pain in the arse to set up (and have to redo templates every update etc), and the problem that most people are able to train their minds to ignore them, so they're not effective.

I did that once talking about Youtube, wondering how they were going to make money out of it without advertising. Someone had to point out the adverts to me. I was even clicking the close on the lower banner adverts on the video without even realisng it was an advert.

Rapscallion

[Red Panda]

I hate it when adds on a site load but the page itself doesn't. Whats up? The ads worked fine? Why isn't the rest of the website made out of the same thing as the ads?

[dendawg]

Or worse yet, how about the ones that give you 15 seconds on the page you're viewing, then suddenly fades to a page that says "*Website* is brought to you by *Sponsors name*?" Oooh I hate those with a passion!

[Fryk]

All these anoyances, and they wonder why people like me keep my awesome adblocker up at all times

[muses_nightmare]

The random video ones with sound. I usually have like 15 tabs open, so I'm never sure where the noise is coming from.

Also, the ones that pop across the screen and have tiny little close buttons.

Oh and listverse started this new one where they have one that attaches itself to your mouse for 5 seconds (I think you can close it too, and I'm not entirely sure if they've done away with them, I know they were trying them out.) Super annoying!

[draggar]

All these anoyances, and they wonder why people like me keep my awesome adblocker up at all times

Same here. When I put ads on my site I mainly do AdSense ads (by Google). They're usually small and most of the time text links. I hate the sound ones and the "pop unders" that are pop-ups that appear in the page, not a seperate Window.

And don't get me started on those that take up the whole screen...

Funny how the most effective ad placement I've discovered is like on this site:

http://www.germanshepherddogs.org/

A simple text ad at the top and a window on the side bar. I may get rid of the bottom one since it doesn't do anything but at least it's not "in your face" like it might be near the top.

Raps - there should be many plugins for VB that will manage the ads for you including placement etc. For WP there's one you just enter one line of code where you ant the ad and you manage the rest through the plugin (AdRotate). I'd say only make non-logged in viewers see them.

[Rapscallion]

Well, there's also the fact that I don't want to put adverts on. Let's face it, the average member of CS.com is going to be surrounded by adverts all day long at work. No reason to make them see more when they relax.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

I vaguely remember when Mr. Slugger had the site that there were problems with "inappropriate" ads from time to time, and that even when he checked the ads beforehand, thy would sometimes be switched without notice.

If you ever have to raise money for the site, it might be simpler to try taking donations first. Though it *was* a bit spooky: one version of the site supporter system showed your expiration date above each post, even if you had the lifetime version. Apparently my lifetime will expire in 2018 (I think it was)... so why worry too much about the future?

[Fryk]

So your life will end 6 years after the world does? Man, those are going to be some boring times for you...