ImHere

Sweet...I just got this as one of my served ads here:


Hot Clubs Hot Girls
Chat With Millions Of Sexy Singles and Hook up Tonight!
True.com


What are you trying to tell me?

Bob

you hottie you

fatbrit

After turning the ad blocker off for a mo, Goooooooooooooogle is offering me UK Pension advice, Learn about Portals and British Food Shop Online from this thread.

Think I'm going portaling given that choice.

snowbunny

Silliness is comedic relief needed by everyone. Obscenity, vulgarity, and libel put the site owner and participants in legal jeopardy.

On the forums I have or am a member of, moderation decisions are best greeted if they cite a particular post or posts and the relevant sections of the user agreement violated. That gives any aggrieved parties a concrete matter to discuss, and ultimately restores faith in moderators' impartiality.

doctor scrumpy

Yes we need some moderations, but do we need as much as there has been ? Has there suddenly been a swathe of unacceptable posts recently ? I doubt that the standard of posts is any worse than it was a year ago.

snowbunny

Do you think Depends would be interested in sponsoring the funny threads?

ScousePete

I hear the new pope, in addition to having been in the Hitler Youth, was once an online moderator

Paul

Another 'freeloader'.

The site is paid for by advertising. If you don't want to see the ads then there is an option allowing you to contribute by becoming a premium member. That's why the option was introduced.

Are you expecting others to pick up the bill for you? Ot maybe you'd prefer the site to be completely subscription only.

Pimpbot

If I become a premium member. Do I get a discount for all the bandwidth that Bob takes up?.

Paul

That's actually a good point.
But then, the people who view more pages view more ads so generate more income. Unless you're a premium member of course.

Maybe premium members should be billed per page view.

Bob

That'll ruin me *lol*

ImHere

What would I get - apart from missing out on a load of dates with hot singles - for becoming a premium member?

Paul

There's no real benefit other than seeing no ads. How much you get out of it depends on how much you hate ads.

fatbrit

Possibly? You tell me! Is the revenue based mainly on hits? If so, do ad blockers destroy the figures or not? If so, please advise which ones do or do not destroy your figures. Also, I occasionally shoot the terrorist/swat the fly for you -- does this help or not? Let us know how we can help and I'm sure many will only be too pleased. However, disabling ad blockers all the time is not really on given that members also visit other sites on the WWW.

Come to think of it, I resent being referred to as a freeloader since I believe I contribute much to this site, and the contributors are the reason this site is so popular. Without contributing members, there's really not much there.

I do not think that a subscription only site would enjoy the numbers, do you? I would guess the decline would start from day one, and the gap would be taken by someone else.

Anyway, regardless of my comments, thanks for running a great board -- it can't be easy.

Paul

Revenue is mainly on views. In fact, clicking the ads if you have no real interest in the product can be harmful over time. Some advertisers track conversion rates. ie. clicks/purchase. This ratio will affect the ad rates. In some cases, they may even count it as 'click fraud' and blacklist the site.

With the 'squash the bug' type ads, there is no problem clicking those. The advertiisers know that people click just to see what happens. Those ads pay based on number of impressions.... unfortunately

Many advertisers that are interested in 'branding'. These tend to be the bigger players like Vonage, Verizon, Microsoft etc. They realize that people may see the ad and act on it much later. Just like traditional magazine advertising. These ads also pay based on impression count.

The safest action is to only click banners for products in which you may have an interest.


One thing I will clarify though:
The site is not a huge money making machine. Forums require a lot of hardware and bandwidth and this is where most of the ad money goes. In fact if you factor in manhours I may even be running at a loss.
I'm not complaining about it. I just get upset when people think I am somehow 'ripping them off' or doing something underhand by displaying ads.


I also agree that ad-blockers do have a place on the internet... just not on this site.