Ads on the blog
-
We seem te be living in a world where everything is just about money and advertisement. People are not the most important. You can’t look anywhere without being bombed with advertisement. That brings me to advertisements on WordPress. I can understand that a certain amount of advertisement is necessary to get some income through free blogs. But now I look at my blog and I see three advertisement blocks on every single page. First feeling I get is that it is making the blog ugly and it makes the blog uninteresting to visitors. It can also have the effect that people move on because they don’t want to be bombed with advertisements. When people visit blogs they do that because you have something to share, something to show etc. An advertisement now and than is not such a big deal but if jou click through the blog and get presented three big advertisement blocks on every single page, that’s kind of anoying. If I personally would get to a blog like that, I would leave too. And than the blog is not being read and the advertisements are pointless as well because people don’t see them. Than I can already hear some one say ‘you can get a paid service to avoid ads’. That kind of sounds to me the ads also are added to try and push people to use paid service. And there is the problem in these times. I, and a lot of people in my country and Europe, have no money to spend anymore because of the globalism we are dealing with. Income goes down, prices and taxes go up and so the money is being pulled out of our pockets. Where does that leave you when even your free blog is filled with advertisements because everything is just based on money? Like I said, I can imagine that a few ads sometimes are necessary but three big advertisements on every single page feels like the blog service’s first interest is more of a tool for companies to sell stuff and the bloggers come second. That’s my personal feeling in this world, people always come second, money comes first.
Just to be clear, I feld I needed to spell this out because I feel the size and number of the advertisements are just taking over my blog. I didn’t see it like this before.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Good evening Mr. Valk
First of all thank you for a nice long reply, I am sure the staff and people at WordPress are always happy for feedback. We are a community. I personally do not like ads almost of any kind, but as you mentioned they have to be there on multiple websites around the internet to give us the opportunity enjoy some sort of “free stuff”. In this case WordPress offers a free platform to everyone to use and express themselves.
Some might argue that you have to give something to get something in return and this is the case also here. I will not offer you the possibility to upgrade the plan as you already pointed it out that it should not always be about money.
A good solution that benefits both parties is always hard to find, for yourself or people that do not like ads when their browsing the internet,l there are multiple ad-blockers that people can use and are using on a daily basis.
All in all it seems you have a good blog/website up and running with many posts and topics. Maybe someone in the staff department might give you a better and more thorough reply why this is so, but I guess in the end it is company policy and we have to live with a few ads more that we seem is right or pay that extra fee for not having them on our website.
In the end I would like to say that people who enjoy a website or the topics what are discussed on it sometimes even do not see the many different advertisements.
All the best to you with you website for the future,
Sander
-
robertjvalk, thanks for voicing your opinion. Your statements are quite valid and are acceptable.
Although, as a fellow community member like sanderkorn mentioned, I am voicing my thoughts here too.
WordPress.com as a hosting provider enables millions of aspiring writers to get started and write for free. It offers a lot of features for free, which enable users to create a larger impact of their work. It’s important to understand that offering the space to host free blogs, and offering such valuable features for free takes up resources at their end – physical resources for hosting the site. This is in addition to paying for staff, investing in technical development and more.
On the other hand, WordPress is available as a free open source software that you can install and use, all by yourself, allowing you to publish content to the web for free.
That’s one key differentiator between offering a FOSS and a hosting service.
Your statement about seeing 3 ads on all pages often is acceptable, but considering the challenges involved, I would say I am with WordPress.com on this. If one wants to remove ads, it’s available by paying for the WordPress.com Personal plan at the least, or one is free to choose WordPress for hosting themselves. :)
-
Thank you for your comments. Allthough I completely understand your writings, I already mentioned I am not in a situation that I can spend money. Just like milions of people in my country, and with no doubt also in other countries. I know with what kind of world we are dealing. The thing is, I don’t live in that kind of world. It may be the same planet but that world is about business, control, money etc. That’s not the world I live in and basically never have. My life happens totally different. I don’t chose that, it just works out that way. Because of that, I don’t sell stuff or offer services through my blog. I just write some stuff down that people might find interesting, as humans. Sometimes people send a mail or a question. I answer them, for free. I don’t ask money for that, simply because of human stuff. For the rest, I just write things down that are about life and awareness. That is not the world of money, control, etc. The use of my blog is not in a way that I even would spend money on, because of the reason I also don’t MAKE money with it. If I would make money with it, the first organisation that would knock on my door would be the state and the tax authorities. To make that affordable, you have to make quite a lot of money. With my blog, it’s not even worth thinking about that. Basically, spending money in what ever way is not an option in my situation. In general, I really like wordpress as a blogging tool. And advertisements in general is not a problem as well. I just wonder why they have to be that big. And the colour of the cellphone advertisements: my God,that almost hurts looking at it. 😄😄😄
-
Hi there,
Thank you for your feedback. I’ve relayed it to our advertising team. They are currently experimenting with different ad placements on free sites, so it is possible this will change again going forward.
The reality is your site costs money, even if you don’t pay for it. To have your site online requires payment for servers, electricity, security, internet bandwidth, and the salaries of everyone who creates and supports the software and infrastructure that makes your site run. We don’t make money from the advertising on your site – ads on your site only covers the costs we have to keep your site online. Without the income from advertising we wouldn’t be able to offer you this free service.
Also note that we don’t even show ads on your site all the time. Only a small percentage of logged-in WordPress.com users should see ads when viewing your site.
As for the appearance of the ads themselves, we have no control over that. We use advertising networks like Google AdSense, who in turn get their ads from advertisers themselves. Those advertisers bid on ad slots on your site, and whoever bids the highest, it’s their ad that appears. It’s the specific advertiser who controls how their specific ads look. If you see an ad that you feel is inappropriate, please do take a screen shot and send it to us so we can investigate, though.
If you don’t want ads to appear on your site, you can purchase a paid plan as already mentioned in this thread.
-
Hi @kokkieh – are we to understand then that the number of logged in WordPressdotcom users seeing ads has increased? From my own experience I have not yet to this day seen an ad on any WordPressdotcom site while logged in unless that site was part of the WordAds network. Thanks for any insight.
-
@justjennifer, not that I know of. The team is experimenting with more ad slots and different ad placements on free sites, but as far as I know we still limit the number of logged-in visitors who see ads – I also see them only very occasionally on free sites. I’m not sure of the exact percentage, but it’s very small.
Logged out visitors should always see ads, though.
-
I’d like to say a couple of things here. Like Kokkieh says, I don’t see the ads when I’m logged in. I do see them when I’m not logged in. I think that most people who read the blog are not logged in. They just find the blog on the internet. I feel different about it. Everybody should be able to see the ad free or small ads on the blog. If you you only think logged in people should see no ads, you kind of MAKE people sign up when they want to see ad free blogs. Meaning you’re trying to draw people in to sign up when they don’t want to. That’s like saying ‘sign up and read o at ease or don’t sign up and and e confronted with big uninteresting ads.
Something else I’d like to say, when I see the ads, there is no connection between the ad and the content of my blog. I write some stuff down about life and awareness. The ads have no connection to that content AT ALL. I get it is still experimental but I still want to point out. In my case, If the ads are about a healthy life, that would at least be kind of connected to my blog. And then I don’t speak about using pharmaceutical drugs but I speak about heathy food, to name just one example. So, if you are adding advertisements, it should at least have a connection to the content of the blog, otherwise it is just about money and nothing else.
People always say there is two sides on every story. In cases like this, with blogs, there are three sides. First you have the advertisers who just want to sell stuff to make not just an income but also a (lot of) profit for the company itself. Second there is WordPress, they need money to keep things up. And third there are the bloggers. You can’t disregard that side. When it comes to money, and you don’t have any to spend, I can’t help but feeling the ads are a punishment because you don’t use payed service. And that isn’t the worst. The worst of it is the size of the ads. I can’t help but feeling that’s just rude and they are kind of hijacking the blog. It’s the size that is supposed to draw the attension to make money out of it. But if the content doesn’t match the blog, there is no connection between the ad and the content of the blog. I think that smaller ads which do have a connection to the content of the blog might be more interesting to people then big ads that have no connection at all. But thatls why money seems to be the only ruling thing to keep thing going. I think that might keep people away because people don’t want to be forced to buy stuff they have no connection to when they visit the blog. So basically I say the ads are to big, not related to the content of the blog and as a combination of that people can feel irritated and then they don’t read the content because they also are not in touch anymore with the content of the blog. Then you can’t read it and you leave. That’s how it works for me and I am not the only person on this world. And I don’t know if people have any idea of what is going on in the world but it is changing. People become more aware and when they do, they leave the ‘old ways’ behind. That’s a proces that’s going on.
-
I have a free WordPress blog, and have never previously been offended by the advertising WordPress have included at the end of my posts… no problem with that at all, but I’ve now discovered I have a fairly large ad shipped up in my sidebar. It’s rearranged the sidebar for me (no-one prewarned me ads would appear in the sidebar, or the order of things displayed would be rearranged). It looked so bad, for one horrific moment I thought my blog had been hacked!
I fully understand if I don’t want any ads at all I can upgrade (don’t wish to do that at the moment thank you) but does advertising really have to be so damn ugly and very distracting for a reader? It looks cheap and nasty!! I’ve now removed the image of my face from the sidebar because it had been shoved down underneath the ad and looked like I was endorsing the ad… would have been nice if WordPress could have told me ads were going to appear in the sidebar.
So, will there be even more ads appearing in sidebars soon… and maybe some of those really offensive pop up boxes? (The boxes everyone hates and closes without responding.)
I understand WordPress is a business and it can’t be run on nothing, but does anyone in the ad department realise most people ignore advertising, especially those that seriously try to get their attention? Wouldn’t it be better for the ads to be slightly smaller, less loud… a little more friendly?
Lots of people won’t see it of course because of ad blockers. I have ad blockers, and the first thing I saw was a great big gap in the sidebar, as if the blogger was a complete idiot and can’t arrange their sidebar in a coherent manner.
Does WordPress know clicks on sidebar links are very minimal compared to links at the end of a post? So what is the point of posting adds in the sidebar that have nothing to do with the blogger or the content posted on the blog? All WordPress seems to be achieving is annoying the bloggers… perhaps putting them off from wanting to upgrade… because why should they pay money to a company who fails to inform them of such changes?
-
I’ve always seemed to have had ads at the bottom of posts, I find this totally acceptable. But yesterday a very large ad appeared on the side of the front page messing up the look of the site. So i had to lose some widgets to make the site look balanced and right. This evening I look at my site and the ads have moved to a different place, messing up the look of the site again.
Am I going to spend each day now moving widgets around to try and get my site looking right?
I’m thinking about upgrading to the personal plan on two sites, so they’re Ads free. The extra storage space will be useful too. This month I’ve paid for the renewal of the custom domain names on both sites.
Yesterday I posted this. But didn’t get any answers…..
The Personal plan comes with a custom domain name, something I already have.
If I purchase the Personal plan on both sites, I’ll end up paying for custom domain names that I don’t need, as I already have paid for the ones I wan’t.
Is there a way getting the personal plan (cheaper) without paying for something I already have?
-
@suzyhazelwood. Thank you for commenting on my topic… and surely that of a lot of others. You say the same thing as I do, just in a bit different words. I think they believe that big ‘shouting’ visual ads are more effective than smaller ads or links. I think it just works in the opposite way. And the reason for that is ‘thinking in money that solves all the problems’. But that can just cause a lot of frustration with people, bloggers and readers. To change that, a change in thinking is necessary: thinking in human terms. Bloggers are custmers to wordpress. And as a business you need to keep your customers happy, otherwise they walk out on you for not respecting the bond between company and it’s customers. Basically, WordPress exists because of their customers first. If for what ever reason, a group of customers has no finacial options to use paid services, doesn’t mean they have be bombed with advertisements that are basically overruling the blog because of the size and the content. I agree withat a lot of people won’t even see the ads because of ad blockers. These kind of add-ons didn’t appear for no reason after all. And yeah, I saw the huge gap on the side bar as well. And it IS really large.
Personal: Now, I’m not going to say that ads would comletely have to disappear. But I do think that WordPress might put some more value on the bloggers as their customers instead of just a source to make money. I know this might sound a bit harsh but this is the story from a bloggers side. And like I allready said: you can’t disregard that otherwise you don’t value the blogger as a customer. That would be to bad cause WordPress is a good tool to blog with. Personally I think you have to have a choice, other then paid or non paid service. Forcing ads on the blogs is a one way thing and that’s what rulers do. They tel you how it’s ging to be and the rest just has to accept. That doesn’t sound like a good relationship between the business and the customers to me. And the ones that also are being confronted with that are the readers of the blogs. So I think suzyhazelwood mentions some good arguments. Ads are often blocked so the ad becomes pointless. If the ads are as big as we see them now, that could be even more reasons for people to use ad blockers. No one benefits in thay case. Well, maybe WordPress gets still payed by the advertisers but that would be all. But as a blogger you want your readers to actually find your blog interesting enough for them to come back as well. Because that is also some kind of connection or relationship. Relationships are between people and they are not based on money. It’s a peronal thing. If you want that relationship to work, it should be overruled by money and large ads for money. So, in the end, if you want to put ads on the free blogs, you need to respect these kind of relationship (bloggers with readers and WordPress with bloggers) the ads would have to be smaller or they could be links. If not, it’s just chosing sides and the advertisers are the side that will be chosen for the money only, which is no certainty that the ads are seen by readers using ad blockers. In the end, ads would be best if they are smal or they would be links. And they would have to match not only the content of the blog but also the interests of the readers, who read the blog when the content interests them. Posting ads with cellphones on a blog that is about a healthy life for instance is not a match. A healthy life has nothing to do with cellphones.
-
I’d like to say that I’m also opposed to huge ads in the sidebars of our free hosted blogs. It messes up the layout of the widgets in the sidebar. It looks awful and distracting.
-
I agree with what you said @robertjvalk about a business keeping their customers happy… and yes,’the bloggers’ are the customers. I get the impression from various articles I’ve read about how the public are responding to advertising (in most cases ‘not’ responding to advertising) it is a real problem to provide advertising that is effective. I feel at the moment there seems to be a push on all kinds of websites to ‘force’ the reader to read ads, in some cases not even allowing the reader to see the content until ad blockers are turned off. I don’t turn my ad blockers off… I just leave, having not read anything at all… including the pointless ads. When things get that bad, companies who provide websites (free or paid) to post text, sound, or video need to start thinking very differently on ‘how’ they can make advertising work, because trying to force anyone to respond to adverts, is offensive, totally stupid and unworkable… so why do it? The first question to ask is “if I arrived on this website, would I be interested in those ads?” If the honest answer is “No, I wouldn’t,” then the advertising is pointless, the companies advertising will soon realise they are not getting anything for their money and move on to advertise somewhere else.
Maybe one solution would be to allow bloggers to monetize their blog (if they wish to) and provide ads relevant to the content posted. I know SoundCloud had suggested such an idea some time ago, I don’t think any SoundCloud member objected, but they still haven’t created that facility… yet. Advertising in that way, also making sure the ads compliment the website and don’t irritate the reader may be more effective and cause less offence to the blogger.
- The topic ‘Ads on the blog’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 