Internet Business Blog

Adblock Plus is currently the one of a number of Firefox add-on recommended by mozilla.org and it’s not difficult to see why. As well as being faced with potentially thousands of advertisements in their daily lives, website visitors also face an increasing amount of distraction from core content as more websites become monetised.

Using some form of ad blocking software can make for a more pleasant browsing experience, but there are those who take issue with having the ads on their websites being blocked whilst their content is freely consumed. Whilst I’ve participated in discussions about visitors viewing ads as recompense for the webmaster’s efforts, I hadn’t seen anyone actually take action to discourage it until now.

Danny Carlton has taken a very active stance against ads on his websites being blocked by users of the Adblock Plus plugin. In fact, Danny has taken it even further than just blocking these users and blocked all Firefox users completely from his websites.

If you’re an Adblock Plus user, how would you feel about being blocked from a website that opposed your blocking of their ads?

Try www.articlewagon.com in your Adblocking Firefox browser and you’ll be presented with the following instead of the regular website content.

This page cannot be displayed because ad blocking software has been detected.

I can appreciate the argument against ad blockers, but I also appreciate how much they can improve user experience. I’ll admit that I use the Adblock Plus Firefox add-on. Not only do I find it improves my general browsing experience by removing the more annoying ads, but it also prevents me from accidentally clicking on my own ads. There are even a few websites for which if it wasn’t for Adblock Plus I wouldn’t be able to bear them at all.

As an ad publisher, does it bother me that people might be evading ads shown on my websites? No, because I don’t rely on ads being seen in any way. I am a Google AdSense publisher, but I’m not dependent upon the income it brings in.

Let’s not forget that there are other forms of advertising that aren’t as intrusive, aren’t as easily blocked and aren’t rendered useless if they were to be blocked. Take Text Link Ads for example, the ‘ads’ are simply text-based links with no reference made to any central website (such as the TLA website itself) so they can’t be blocked by looking for a common denominator unless all links are blocked. Even if they were able to be blocked, they would still be visible to search engine spiders and still provide value to the advertisers in the form of link popularity.

Since the AdBlock detection process relies on JavaScript, simply disabling JavaScript using the Web Developer add-on for Firefox renders the blocking harmless and allows the visitor to view any pages that use such countermeasures.

So is ad blocking akin to stealing? Are people whose browsers are unable to render adverts (e.g. they use a screen reader because they’re disabled in some way) thieves because they consume content without ads?

I understand the concept of going into a shop and paying for goods, but if a website doesn’t make it clear that the non-blocking of ads is a requirement for usage then what’s a visitor to do? If visitors aren’t first made to agree to view ads as compensation for content consumption, are they really stealing when they don’t?

Personally, I think that preventing people who use adblocking software from visiting a website is short-sighted. Webmasters should be looking to diversify their website monetisation methods so that they withstand the shortcomings of each individual method and bolster each other.

Do you use an ad blocker? How do you feel about stealing from people? If you’re an advertiser or an ad publisher, how do you feel about people deliberately blocking your ads?

Technorati Tags: Danny Carlton, Adblock Plus, Google AdSense, personal crusade

A couple of days ago, I started developing a new website that’s covering a topic where there’s plenty of money being spent and lots of interest. It’s a popular industry, but this particular segment of the market isn’t too saturated with existing competition. I’m thinking it’ll be relatively easy to obtain good search engine rankings for as this type of site is always popular and very linkable.

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The Google AdSense programme has been operating for 3 and half years and only now have the rules about image placement been clarified. It’s announcements like these that make me feel pity for those people who have built large numbers of websites primarily for AdSense and spent endless hours fine tuning ad placement etc. It also makes me glad that I’m no longer worrying about what Google is going to change next about the AdSense programme.

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An interesting post from Stu about a contract I might have with you. Can’t say I agree with much of what’s suggested, though!

What would you think if I said to you,

“I’ll provide you free content, if you pop by once in a while and look at my advertisers ads.”

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When it comes to people’s businesses and livelihoods, it never ceases to shock me just how much faith is placed on third parties with little in the way of accountability. This behaviour seems to be much more apparent online than in the offline world. Much of this, I put down to people’s own perceptions about other people.

In the Internet marketing world, trust is a precious commodity. Trust will allow you more visitors to your website, more consumers of your product or service, more subscribers to your list. Yet many people will blindly place their trust without good reason. You might have done this yourself when you took a chance on an infoproduct or webhost on the basis of a recommendation from a complete stranger.

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