[Mike]

Ads are back - which and why?

I just wanted to make an announcement thread to let everyone know that unfortunately, advertisements are back on Inheritance Forums. When we upgraded the forums to IPB 3.0, we lost our advertisements in the skins and since then, the forums have gone ad-free. Because Shur'tugal and IF are a *completely free service*, we rely on the advertisements to keep afloat.

We've added three advertisements to the website:

1. A Google Adsense banner at the top of the forum.
2. A Google Adsense banner at the bottom of the forum.
3. Infolinks link advertisements (only five links are altered)

For those of you who really hate advertisements, let me be the first to say that I feel your pain. However, I do need to explain how important advertisements are to Inheritance Forums and Shur'tugal: they are our main source of revenue to support the website. Advertisements pay for the entire website, from the monthly hosting bill (our private servers do cost a large amount of money), to software such as the forum software powering Inheritance Forums. The trips we go on to cover events such as book releases and conventions also cost large amounts of money, though a good chunk of this money usually ends up coming out of my own pocket. Without advertisements on the websites, Shur'tugal and Inheritance Forums would cease to exist.

Ad blocking severely hurts Shurtugal, IF, and all websites relying on ad revenue

I'm also aware that some members choose to browse Shur'tugal and Inheritance Forums using ad blockers. For those of you who do visit the site with ad blockers, I hope you do realize that visiting your favorite websites with ad-blocks enabled is incredibly destructive to that website. As I explained above, our network pays for itself based off of the revenue from advertising. When people visit our website and block advertisements, we lose a substantial amount of revenue to power the websites. This can result in major cutbacks, such as us being forced to downgrade our server, us being unable to cover the events that everyone wishes for us to cover, and could ultimately lead to the websites being shut down.

If you do visit the websites and block advertisements, all I ask from you is that you read this great article titled "Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love" over on Ars Technica. It explains exactly what ad blockers do to websites who rely on advertising revenue to sustain themselves. You might think that there's no harm in blocking the advertisements since you won't click them anyway, but most advertisements are not solely based on clicks, but based more so on the traffic received on the web page the ads are displaying on. By blocking the ads, even when you don't want to click them, you're really hurting the websites.

So that's the end of my little explanation to you ad-blocking visitors. Please read that article and remember that everything on Shur'tugal and IF is provided for free. We want to keep that going for as long as we can and we need your help doing so.

Reporting advertisements that may be inappropriate or offensive

I've set up a thread in the Forum Help section for reporting ads you disagree with. Please do not abuse this or I'll just stop listening to ad complaints. In the past we've had certain individuals who reported nearly all of the advertisements. That isn't helpful. At all. Check the thread out here: http://www.inheritan...showtopic=59093

As a quick note to the more tech-savvy visitors: You'll notice I also added Google Analytics back to the website. If you use a web-script blocker, I'd greatly appreciate it if you allow Google Analytics to load on the forums. Google Analytics just allows us to collect traffic statistics. It lets me view what browsers and operating systems people are using to access the website, as well as the most popular (and unpopular sections). This information really helps us make sure the forums are working for the right browsers and helps us improve the sections that need improving. It doesn't collect personal information. I've been running this on the site for years, it just got deleted when we upgraded so I added it back in with the adverts.

[Master of the Blade]

I am glad the ads are back. Purely because it means that IF can operate whilst earning.

Like ye said Mike, it is pretty bloody necessary to have the ads.

They don't cause any sort of problem to the layout so I don't see why folk need to complain about it.

[Pompoon]

I've never really minded the ads. It's a necessary part of running a forum, or so I've been told. Just ignore them, It's not hard.

[Arthryn]

I'd never minded ads on most sites because I do realize that they are usually a major source of revenue, but on lots of sites they've gotten very obnoxious (and sometimes even dangerous). I put up with all of them until very recently, when I encountered some malicious ad twice (seems to have been sneaked onto DeviantArt by a scummy third party advertiser), which installed some rogue programs and rootkits on my computer... twice. I just started using Ad Block Plus to help protect my computer from crap like that. It's also handy for obnoxious ads (auto-expands, epileptic animations, infolinks, audio, ads that slow down load time, ones that load adware cookies, etc).

But benign and non-seizure-inducing banner ads are great and really help websites like this out. It's just a shame that many ads have gone down the route of deception, malice, and obnoxiousness and that good ones get blocked because of all the bad ones.

[Bartimeaus]

Just for you, Mike, I'll keep the banner ads unblocked. Also, this time around the infolinks don't seem to be as obtrusive as they were.

[Iced Tea with Lemon]

Is there any way, when using an ad-blocker (such as Adblock Plus) to disable it and allow ads on certain sites, like here? I know I could probably look around and find some tut but I'm feeling quite lazy, so could someone tell me how? Thanks.

[Mike]

If you use AdBlock Plus, you should see a red stop sign somewhere on your Firefox window that says ABP on it. You click the red stop sign and select "Disable on Inheritanceforums.com" which will stop ABP from blocking ads on IF.

[Alec]

Do you receive revenue from ads on a per click or per view basis?

[Mike]

A combination of both.

[Fabius]

Bartimeaus, on 11 March 2010 - 06:17 PM, said:

Just for you, Mike, I'll keep the banner ads unblocked. Also, this time around the infolinks don't seem to be as obtrusive as they were.

Me too - just for you Mike.

[Chris]

Yeah, I've never actually minded having ads on sites I visit. I don't even use a pop up blocker lol

[Future Quest]

Chris, on 12 March 2010 - 02:39 PM, said:

Yeah, I've never actually minded having ads on sites I visit. I don't even use a pop up blocker lol

Not having pop-up blockers on is a bit thick. Who wants porn popping up every time you accidentally click the wrong link? There's a greater potential for viruses doing that.

[Mike]

Chris, on 12 March 2010 - 02:39 PM, said:

Yeah, I've never actually minded having ads on sites I visit. I don't even use a pop up blocker lol

Most browsers come with them built in now. Chrome and Firefox do, at least.

[baneofdurza]

Mike, on 13 March 2010 - 03:06 PM, said:

Most browsers come with them built in now. Chrome and Firefox do, at least.

Yeah IE and Safari do as well

[Feladrin]

I don't mind adds because I never click on them/pay attention. When it happens, it's because I did it by mistake. It's however quite annoying if you get an animated add with soldiers that move and stuff because it slows down the browser until those guys calm down. This problem can be easily fixed by scrolling down, or up, depends on where the add is positioned, to 'escape' from it.