Ad's on this forum - UPDATE

Salome

Administrator
Dear forum community,

I want to share with you a bit about what is going on behind the scenes in the land of ad's.

In the old forum design there was a long ad sense banner that ran on the vertical left hand side. The money earned from this unit is what, significantly, paid for the website.

With the upgrade and new forum design, there is no place for that ad unit anymore. I tried ad placement within the first post and it performed perfectly! There was virtually no interruption in earnings. That was a load off my mind.

Then a percentage of users reported that it was interfering with their ability to read the first post. After trying to remedy what was within our power and getting nowhere, I removed that ad.

In its stead we tried placement of a unit after the first post. To give you an idea - the ad within the first post would generate an average of 169 clicks in 10 days. The ad unit after the first post generated 10 clicks in 10 days.

There are other ad units on the forum, these contribute to the overall picture, but they do not support this website. In fact, I have permanently removed two new ad unit placements from the forum entirely because of poor performance.

We set up a subscription option and I’m deeply grateful to those of you who donated and subscribed. But there was not enough of a response to make up the difference.

I am sharing all of this to explain that I feel I have to put the ad within the first post back. We are going to try a smaller ad dimension in the hopes that it will not cause the problem it did for some.

If it does create the same issue for some: download the latest browser, that seemed to fix it from some people. Try an ad blocker, that fixed it for other people. If neither works, there is an option to subscribe for an ad free version of the forum. Which we didn’t have before.

I don't know if I can block the ad inside the video forum (those experiencing this issue said it obscured the video clips). If I can I will.
The ad that displays after the first post is still there, but just temporarily. It will be removed.

I am genuinely and sincerely sorry if this affects you negatively. But I have to have one ad that makes a goodly dent in my monthly website bills.

I appreciate your understanding and as always feel free to share your thoughts.
 

~Diana~

AFK Moderator
You got to do what you have to do to keep this forum running. None of us can have everything we want unless we deal with either ads or pay for a membership. I prefer to deal with one of these two rather than see this forum and it's information source close up.
 

Mosaic

Super Moderator
Is it possible to place a banner ad at the top of the first post rather than too the side, then the actual post is underneath the ad, or have it appear at the bottom of the post in the first post, then that may cause less interference?. Also the sponsor ad between the first & 2nd post (I'm only seeing the sponsor ad - is there an actual ad appearing for some members?) I think you should leave an ad there, or even have it appear halfway down a page of posts, even if it is only generating 10 clicks it is better than none:D
~Mosaic
 

shiradotnet

Well-known member
I was one of the people who had problems viewing the first post the last time you tried inserting an ad into it.

Today, I can see the ad in the first post, AND I can see the content of the post itself just fine. This is good news. I hope the ad will generate enough clicks to make up for the revenue loss caused by vbulletin's redesign.
 

Salome

Administrator
Hi Shira,

that is great news! We noodled with the banner size and I was really hoping this would make a difference
 
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