PC Guide forum ads

[ixl]

Hello everyone,

As I am sure many of you have noticed, there is now a single banner ad space at the top of the forums. I added this to the forums last night, below the permanent ad from the fine pair Networks people.

I did this as a bit of an experiment, for a couple of different reasons.

The first is to see whether or not any revenue can in fact be generated by ads on the forum. I am somewhat skeptical of this and I wanted to put this to the test.

I have not put up ads on the forums before because frankly, the ads would have been mostly irrelevant, annoying junk, and I didn't think anything would come of them. Google's new text ad service, however, is designed to work in concert with their search engine. The ads served are actually targeted based on the comments in the page, and may also be impacted by your location. This means that the ads you see when you post to a thread about hard disks will usually be related to hard disks. The system isn't perfect but it is pretty good.

If the Google ad engine can't determine appropriate ads, then the system falls through and shows one of my default ads. That's what the ads for the TCP/IP Guide and Desktop Scenes are. I am also planning to use that default space to run other ads that I think may be of relevance to forum members. (Those ads are not centered because the Google ad is 728x90 and my ads are 468x60. I haven't got a good solution for this yet but will figure something out.)

When a thread is first posted, it won't be in the Google database, so the default ads will also show at first. It takes a few hours until things start to show up.

The second reason is that because running Google ads causes the Googlebot to index the page where the ads was called, this means that many/most of the threads in the forums will be indexed in Google, where they can be found by others. This will help people find the forums and also ensure that much of our collective wisdom is archived for the Internet community.

Your feedback on this is most appreciated. Please do NOT feel shy about telling me if you find any of the default ads annoying. I am already debating if I may disable the most "noisy" of the TCP/IP Guide ads.

Thanks... Charles

[Paleo Pete]

I, for one, think they look pretty cool. I saw the Google ad last night too, and noticed that the first one I really paid attention to was related to the same topic as the thread I was looking at. That and getting indexed by google might be a good thing. At least the indexing should bring a lot more people to the site, since it will probably also turn up a lot quicker in searches.

Appearance...I haven't seen anything yet I would think of as too "noisy" as you put it. The animation doesn't make it a fast, obnoxious changeover, it gives you time to read and then some, and so far the colors haven't been "where's my sunglasses?"

Overall, I think it's pretty cool. I'd like to see those ads showing up on eBay, CNN, Yahoo, Amazon...32 zillion people hitting those sites per day, it would have to make some money, even if just a little, and draw tons of visitors...

[Abbadon]

There are ads on this site? :)

Seriously, I didn't see them untill this thread brought them under my attention. I must've developed a blind spot for banners during my years of surfing.
Mind you, this is a good thing, since it means that the adds aren't overly intrusive :D

And raking in some Googles is always a plus of course... ;)

[john5211]

They look fine to me, and I agree that indexing the threads in google is a good idea. I hope they manage to generate some profit for the site.

John

[tommy]

No problem. But it does seem to slow things down a bit (on dialup).

[rio_bugarin]

np too. i love seeing new links to browse.:)

[Vic 970]

I hadn't noticed them either, like abandon I think I must've developed a blind spot.

but it sounds good and it's nice to do a google and be directed back to pc guide.

;)

[Paul Komski]

I'm with Tommy - and on dial up too - and my impression is that the site loads its pages significantly slower at the moment - particularly ones with the tcp/ip gifs; sorry to have to say that.

On a related not, it has been the case for some time now that google caches new threads within a day or two.

[Rick]

Small Bug in the AD
I clicked on the Pc Mag one to shop and compair

BUT it didn't open pc mag.
it opened some shopper site :(

Oh Well I gave them a try and your site gets credit for the Hit..

:)

[saphalline]

Strange, I haven't seen any of the "default" ads, just the Google ones. How does one go about "seeding" the rotation? :p

I did notice the new ad(s) right away, but only because the whole forums visual effect was lowered on the screen. Ack, we must have all developed a blind spot for ads! Definitely going to be interesting to see if this generates any revenue. I for one would be willing to click an ad a day if this will help the site, but I must admit that I am against clicking an ad to find what I want. If I want something online, I'll look for it myself under my own terms.

[tommy]

Another little inconvenience:

From a forum thread list, if I click on "go to first new post" --

Previously -- the first post in the string would appear while the rest of the string was being loaded (transmitted). While the first post would be there for only a few seconds, it gave me time to scan it and recall what the string was about before it moved to the first new post.

Now -- The first post is so far down, it doesn't appear. If I down arrow to it, it destroys the request to go to the first new post.

[Paul Komski]

How does one go about "seeding" the rotation?
Try After Hours Club (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=16) - it's content related it seems.

[bassman]

No problems here. The idea of the site generating some revenue is something I have long pushed for. If "AD" revenue is back up now, then I say it's good for the site. Your efforts and ideas deserve to be profitable Charles ;)

[as1232004]

The add's would be better at the bottom of the page and dont ever put popup windows on the site I hate them.

[Mark Miller]

Personally anything that will bring revenue into the site is fine with me, you deserve it. Best site on the net IMHO:D :D :D :D

[rik148755]

I think there fine, I hope they do generate some revenue.

[ixl]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I do appreciate them.

I realize the ads will annoy some people. The point of using Google ads is that they are text-based and should not slow the site down. There will be no pop ads on the forums (there are some on the main site.)

So far the ads are not really doing that well. It's an experiment and I am still undecided as to whether I will keep them around or not.

c

[as1232004]

Do we have to click on the adds for you to make money?

[ixl]

The ads are hopefully targeted so that they will interest the readers of the site. You should click on ads that interest you and make you want to purchase the advertised product/service, or learn more about it in order to decide if you want to purchase. You should not click on ads just to help the site (though I appreciate the sentiment. :) )

c

[FrankSG]

Originally posted by Mark Miller
Personally anything that will bring revenue into the site is fine with me, you deserve it. Best site on the net IMHO:D :D :D :D
I agree with Mark...

[ixl]

Thanks for the support, gentlemen. I do appreciate it.

And yes, if you see something in an ad that you feel is of interest to you and/or that you think you might want to purchase, clicking on the ad to visit one of the sponsors will help the site. Simply viewing ads does not. But only click the ads if you are interested in what they say.

c

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Sorry,
Kinda late on the bandwagon here. I've been wondering what this whole thread was about because there were no ads displayed whatsoever until I changed some IE settings in an effort to use MSN groups for a little free pic storage.

Bad move I know. I was having difficulty getting their site to acknowledge my membership so I went by their instructions to get it to work. Now I see the ads alright but I also have some hitchhiker taking hold of my pc! Couldn't get online for almost an hour yet the scans showed nothing. One deletion of a suspicious 016 HJT item and I'm back. Got more but that's not for this thread...

Nutshell is, the ads are very pleasantly unobtrusive and the only time you would see them is when you are viewing a thread for the first time anyway because if you stay logged in, when you view the thread for another time, you are directed to the first unread post anyway so the top of the page is unnoticed.

As per usual, ixl has taken the utmost consideration in being least offensive. Thanks Charles. :)

Now on to completing my mission...

[FrankSG]

there were no ads displayed whatsoever until I changed some IE settings
I discovered something else that can prevent you from seeing everything. It has to do with a setting in ZoneAlarm Pro. When you are at a thread, you will notice the little buttons (Profile, PM, Search, etc.) above the top of a members name. There was a time when I was not seeing all of them until I changed a setting in ZA. If you have ZA Pro (or probably even the free one), open up ZA and click on Privacy and then the Main tab. There you will see three settings which can be set for High, Medium, or Off. On the middle one which says, "Blocks all Pop-up/Pop-under and animated ads", mine was set for high. If I'm not mistake, that is the default setting. It will prevent you from seeing some of the things on certain web pages. As I said, I couldn't see all of the buttons above a users name. I changed that setting from High to Medium and that took care of it. I still don't get many pop-ups and pop-under adds. So you might want to check yours as it could be preventing you from viewing certain things.
By the way, as far as the ads are concerned that are on the forum, even if I'm only mildly interested, I still click on some of them. This morning there was one that I knew I probable wouldn't buy but I clicked on it anyway. After reading what was displayed in the ad, I learned something that I didn't know before. So, I think it's a good idea to do some clicking on the ads. You could learn something--and besides, it will help the forum. Know what I'm saying......? Peace