Poll: How do You Feel About Website Ads?

[kazikian]

To write an honest reply is tricky. Of course I hate ads, I used AdBlock, I don't see them, I don't click on them. But therefore I'm denying profit to the sites I visit. Though not illegal, it's a behavior akin to file sharing. Then again, I would never pay for webcontent. So I can imagine a deep conundrum for website designers re: surfers such as myself. So far, I think there will never be enough people with the tech savvy or who care enough to install Firefox and AdBlock. I mean, the ad model still works; look at Google. But there is a real possibility that the opposite will happen. What if we have something like the real estate bubble collapse or the dot-com bust in the works? If everyone suddenly blocks ads, Google will fall apart like a house of cards, the whole web model will go up in smoke, and it may quite seriously mean the end of the Internet as we know it... of course, the net will survive, but it will be a very different net. The net neutrality debate is interesting too. If neutrality falls through, the net will become stratified like Cable TV, with 1/100th the content, and pay-per-use. I personally think the net will survive as is for a long time, but who knows, the free all-you-can-eat model may be close to an end. Imagine all that; ads make everything possible online; it's a far bigger business that any of us truly realise. And the ramifications of looking at ads or not are serious. But at the end of the day, I can only ignore the whole thing. I'm not paid to keep the internet from collapsing.

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

-snip-

Yeah, I hate it when some site says "click the ads please!"
If you do that, you don't use the ads properly. The ads are supposed to be tailored to the people who visit your site.

So the next few days I am going to customize them, which I know you can with Adsense. You would think that ads about games on a site about a game is the way to go.

That being said, I still use AdBlock, but only on sites I know have annoying ads. I know now that the ads are there to put money in the pockets of those running the site. And that is fine with me.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Personally they annoy me, but then again I'm not the one trying to maintain a website. I like the way steam does their advertising, they give you the update sheet when you log in and I nearly always scroll though them.

If anybody uses dictioary.com, more importantly its thesaurus for college work etc you will know that they are taking the piss. When you enter a word you may get several returns all of which are listed and may be relevent to what your doing. The way they insert the add's is a pain though, its like

word
synonyms
(some other stuff)

ADD

word
synonyms

ADD

word
synonyms

ADD

very annoying.

 

[Contun]

If it's a simple ad trying to convey their message I don't mind it at all.

It's when the ads interrupt what I'm trying to read, then it becomes a problem.
Especially the ads that say something along the lines of: "Congratulations, you've just won two free I-Pod Nano's, click to claim!" or something else I care very little for...

 

[Thaius]

Well clicking on the ads without buying anything actually doesn't help at all: it has a pretty bad effect on either the advertiser or the hosting website, depending on their agreement. Either way, not a good idea.

 

[Jon Etheridge]

I love them. But honestly I'm a bit biased since my income is completely dependent on such things.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Website adds are a nesccessary evil. You ned them to keep the web service free, but they are annoying.

 

[Ocelot GT]

I dislike them most times, I think 10% of the time I actually click them or get decent info.

 

[lostclause]

A necessary evil. I don't block them, except flash ones that slow down my computer.