A few months ago I asked readers what they thought about ad blockers, in particular the popular adblock script. Blocking advertisements is a subject that still divides web users although a large percentage of webmasters dislike their visitors using them because their ad revenue drops. If you are in the latter category then you may be interested in a new plugin from Thaya Kareeson called ‘Anti-AdBlock WordPress Plugin‘.
The plugin detects if the user is using adblocker and if they are, a message is displayed encouraging them to support your blog and display advertisements on your blog. You can choose how many times this is displayed to visitors who use adblocker. For example, the default setting is 10 so on the 11th visit to your blog the message will not be displayed. I think this is a good method of encouraging visitors to view your blog sponsors as it allows them to view your website but explains why blocking ads can hurt your website.
Some of you may not appreciate blogs using this feature but I strongly believe blog owners have the right to do this if their revenue ie reduced because of adblockers. As Matt Harzewsk from Webmaster Source points out :
My opinion is if someone’s going to block your ads, they should be compensating you for your work in some other way. Do you think it’s cheap to run sites such as Envato’s NETTUTS? Considering they pay out $150 to the writers of their tutorials, I would say it’s a huge disservice to them to block their ads.
Is this something you would add to your blog?
Haha. That is a pretty funny plugin
What a horrible idea. I get bombarded with enough advertisements, the first thing I do when I get a new computer is install Firefox and add adblock plus. The fact that adblock plus doesn't block google text ads made me also get greasemonkey, where I run a script that does that. I'd probably do something similar to stop this if a website I frequented tried to add this.
Cute but useless. I don't think there are enough people who would care among those who run ad blockers.
First thing I do when coming across a site with something that detects and insists I turn off adblock is leave. Immediately. If I want ads displayed on my browser I will do so. No one else is going to strong arm me into doing it.
Unfortunately I have to agree with the block-ads crowd. I use Opera (which lets me block ads via CSS) and have a modified HOSTS file. If I like a site well enough to consider supporting, I'll disable the ad-blocker stylesheet for that site. Besides, there are other ways of supporting sites I like rather than clicking on ads, such as leaving links to their sites and articles (hello, SEO 101 anybody?) and recommending them to my friends, family and colleagues.
Prove to me that your site (and by your I mean a site in general, not singling anybody out here) has unique value, and I'll let the ads go through (and tel others to do likewise).
Unfortunately if I come across an anti-adblocker I leave the site and never come back. There is an over supply of blogs right now so there is no shortage of replacements.
I would never install such a plugin on my blog.No one likes ads, but a few are necessary if you are going to get the bills paid and get food on the table.Too many ads on a blog makes it look cheap.
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for writing about my plugin. You also forgot to mention that Matt Harzewski also had a good idea that you can replace the "please turn off AdBlock" text to "please donate" (or "please write about us" per @Dan Shulz's comment).
The plugin supports custom text so you can freely do this as you choose.
The benefit here is that you will be personally notifying only AdBlock users and nobody else (as they are already supporting you by viewing advertisements).
Hope this helps!
By viewing a web page you are implicitly agreeing for the ads to load. By forcing them to not load, you are breaking that agreement and hurting the site you are not viewing ads on.
Take a look at this blog, Blogging Tips. Look at the ads. A few unobtrusive 125×125 ads. Blogging Tips is not forcing huge animated talking banners on you. They have thought of the end user enough to not put highly irritating ads up. If you still feel the need to block the ads, you are simply a selfish freeloader.
I only implicitly agreed to do an HTTP 1.1 GET Request and get some hypertext in return. That's all I agreed to. You and your ads can go eat a bowl of dicks.
Let it be clarified that I am not simply against blocking ads. You should see my full opinion here before spewing vitriol: http://www.webmaster-source.com/2009/01/09/what-y…
Personally, I build sites because I like it. Getting a few dollars in ad revenue is also nice, but again, my main driving force for building and putting up sites is because I enjoy it. If someone doesn't want to visit my websites they don't have to, but I also don't have to let them see my free content if they block ads. So, frankly if having a plugin like this stops someone from visiting, well, I probably didn't want them there anyway.
I probably won't use this plugin because I'm too lazy to install it at the moment, but I certainly wouldn't let a few threats from adblocking fanatics stop me if I wanted to use it.
>By viewing a web page you are implicitly agreeing for the ads to load. By forcing them to not load, you are breaking that agreement and hurting the site you are not viewing ads on.
By reading my comment you are implicitly agreeing to pay me pile of money.
As enforceable as your statement. And when something can't be pushed to people without choice – telling them that they are selfish bastards is last thing that is going to change their minds.
Advertisement industry thought it can to be as annoying as it wants and deals with long-term consequences. In my opinion web publishers must learn to deal with it (and plenty of them do) instead of hating their readers.
"In my opinion web publishers must learn to deal with it (and plenty of them do) instead of hating their readers."
Web publishers don't "hate their readers." If they're putting effort into finding advertisers themselves and keeping them to a minimum, as Blogging Tips seems to do, they care about the readers' experience on the site.
@Lynn,
I like your attitude. I also make websites because I like to also. I also believe that a lot of visitors need my site for plugin support, so it's not bad to nudge once (after the first 10 visits) to disable AdBlock of it's on.
@Rarst,
> By reading my comment you are implicitly agreeing to pay me pile of money.
I think comments on peoples blogs are owned by the author.
> In my opinion web publishers must learn to deal with it (and plenty of them do) instead of hating their readers.
I certainly do not hate my readers and I don't feel like I'm hating my readers if I use this plugin. Look at it this way. If you visit the site for 10 times, you obviously think the site is useful. How bad is it to see 1 pop-up reminding you to turn off AdBlock and never see it again? It's just a little nudge saying:
1. We know you are running AdBlock.
2. We know you find us useful.
3. Please help support us.
4. If not, then it's okay because I will not bug you about this again.
@Matt Harzewski
Really? Calling some of them "selfish freeloaders" is tough love?
I completely agree that managing advertising in smart way is caring about readers. I don't agree that people using ad-blockers do something bad.
@Thaya Kareeson
I am sorry if I was unclear, hating readers was about demonizing people using adblockers, not about your plugin.
As I wrote above I don't consider plugin to be very effective but I have no problem with it at all, especially after clarification about custom messages.
Feature proposal – in your visit 10 times example wouldn't it be better to show nudge after X visits instead of each time?
@Rarst
> Feature proposal – in your visit 10 times example wouldn’t it be better to show nudge after X visits instead of each time?
It already does that
.
@Thaya Kareeson
Kevin's description doesn't mention that.
Good to see you have everything covered.
@Rarst
You are right. Thank you for letting me know!
@Kevin
The way it works is:
1. The nudge will *not* show up until the 11th visit (configurable)
2. After that, it will *not* show up again unless you increase the nag limit.
Can you please update the post?
@Rarst:
Well, maybe "selfish freeloaders" is a bit strong.
I just have a problem with people vehemently insisting that they have a *right* to view whatever they want on the internet without ads. I get it a lot when I write anything about ads…
If you take a look at the quote from me about NETTUTS.com, you should note that they pay out $150 per post to their tutorial writers. Their ads supply the money to pay the writers. If everyone blocked the ads, the advertisers wouldn't want to continue buying space on the site, and NETTUTS wouldn't be able to keep paying their writers, and the site would eventually cease to exist. Now imagine that on a larger scale; how many sites pay their authors?
@Matt Harzewski
Everyone blocking ads – not happening ever. And I had read opinion from web-publishers (somewhat valid imo) that people using adblockers (=making effort to escape ads) won't click ads in any case and would be just harmful for stats like CTR.
Questions to think about:
1. Would you prefer that user visit your site with ad-blocker or doesn't visit at all?
Stronger question:
2. Would you prefer user who has a lot of weight on StumbleUpon with adblocker stumble post – bringing spike of traffic and increasing ad impressions few times for the day… or doesn't visit at all?
Power users with adblockers are not ad revenue. Mostly they are not ad revenue even without adblockers. Why alienate them by telling them they are wrong? Like any human being listens when told how wrong he is.
You have a point about the StumbleUpon, but:
"And I had read opinion from web-publishers (somewhat valid imo) that people using adblockers (=making effort to escape ads) won’t click ads in any case and would be just harmful for stats like CTR."
Many ads are not billed on a CPC basis, but by the number of times the ad is shown or by a fixed time period. To use Blogging Tips as an example again, take a look at their ad sales page. Each of their ads is sold for a fixed dollar amount for the duration of one month. Clicks aren't a factor. The fact that an ad is seen matters just as much to an advertiser, if not more, than if it is clicked or not.
And while everyone may not block ads, plenty do. What matters is how many people out of a site's monthly visitors block ads? It's much more common in the tech circles, obviously, so what of the tech-related blogs? A very sizeable chunk of their visitors may be blocking ads, which would matter to advertisers. How many of the site's unique visitors in a given month won't see their ad? Ad blockers can cost a website an ad sale.
> And I had read opinion from web-publishers (somewhat valid imo) that people using adblockers (=making effort to escape ads) won’t click ads in any case and would be just harmful for stats like CTR.
About CTR, that also depends on how the advertisement is blocked. Some ads get blocked via CSS (display:none), but the content still gets loaded in the background. So the CTR is still worst.
I am generally against visitors blocking advertisements. I 100% agree that visitors have the right to block advertisements however I also believe it is the right of the website owner to stop that person viewing the site.
Many blogs rely heavily on advertising income. Their income model is very similar to one of those free newspapers you get at train stations i.e. the newspaper is only free because of advertisements and personal ads etc.
To answer Rarst's questions :
1. Would you prefer that user visit your site with ad-blocker or doesn’t visit at all?
It depends on the site. If the website has ads but also generates income through direct product selling or whatever then obviously I'd prefer the visitor to stay. If, however, the site generates 100% of it's income from advertising then there is no value whatsoever from an ad-blocker visiting the site. All they are doing is costing you bandwidth.
2. Would you prefer user who has a lot of weight on StumbleUpon with adblocker stumble post – bringing spike of traffic and increasing ad impressions few times for the day… or doesn’t visit at all?
That's a valid point. Those who block ads could still bring some value to your site – either via a link, social vote or whatever.
I think the argument would change a little if a higher percentage of people used ad-blockers. I'm not sure what percentage of people use it just now but I would imagine it is minimal compared to the total number of visitors.
However, if say 25%+ of your visitors were blocking ads then you would have to either stop ad blockers viewing your site or move to a subscription model. This is something BloggingTips would have to do as I rely heavily on advertising income to run this site. All authors are paid so less money means less money to pay staff which means less content for visitors.
p.s. thanks for dropping by Thaya.
I don't use Adblock when I visit websites which are useful to me and my niche… Reason: Some of the ads are relevant and provide me great discounts and amazing offers
I think that plugin is a little to “in your face” for my tastes. Maybe if it just displayed a link-bar at the top of the page that gave information onwhy you would prefer the reader didn’t use adblock while viewing your site, then I would install it.
@Jeremiah,
Thank you for your suggestion. I will add it to the features to come list. Will let you know once it gets implemented.
Unfortunately if I come across an anti-adblocker I leave the site and never come back. There is an over supply of blogs right now so there is no shortage of replacements.
@Jeremiah,
Version 0.1.7 should have the link-bar feature. Thank you again for the suggestion!
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im still in the fence if i should totally block my ads, I still need to do some research on its benefits..good plugin though…
i will be using it soon…whether you like it or leave it …i will not be wasting time writing useful how to do things just for people to read..it is not for charity purpose….