Changes to forum ads


bob

Administrator
Staff member
You'll probably notice some ads in places you haven't seen them before, such as between messages in posts. I'm experimenting with ad location and quantity.

Why so many ads? Well, the subtle banner ads aren't working any more. Ad revenue last month was about $15. The server costs roughly $2,000 per year. You don't have to be a CPA to figure out that's not good. Now, I certainly don't expect to make the $200 a month it would cost to break even, but I'd like to make a bit more revenue so running the place isn't quite as expensive for me.
 
I don't have an issue with ads, and I understand needing to support the forum, but the ads on the topics lists are kind of intrusive. :)

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Yes, and they also duplicate. Working on fine tuning quantity and placement. Make take a few days as it's all automated and it takes it a while to adjust to the site.

Right now, those are the ones that annoy me most. I'm working on figuring out how to change them.
 
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I thought something was wrong when I first saw them, but understand the economics of the site as well.

As twforeman said, "Thanks for running this forum!"
 
I notice there's some quite large picture ones appearing within links in the "What's New" tab. They're spreading the spaces between each quite a bit.
 
Ya Bob we appreciate all you do to keep this forum up and running the way you do! Thank you and know that you are appreciated here!

James
 
Ya Bob we appreciate all you do to keep this forum up and running the way you do! Thank you and know that you are appreciated here!

I second James' comment above...this is a great Forum. Nice work Bob.

Greg
 
I notice there's some quite large picture ones appearing within links in the "What's New" tab. They're spreading the spaces between each quite a bit.

I hate those. I'm working with them to try and remove them. There's a catch though, that's not an actual web page, it's "dynamic content" generated when you click on that link. So the place where I can tell it "don't mess with this page" doesn't like the URL. :(
 
I hate those. I'm working with them to try and remove them. There's a catch though, that's not an actual web page, it's "dynamic content" generated when you click on that link. So the place where I can tell it "don't mess with this page" doesn't like the URL. :(
They'll get you if they can. I've got Google ads appearing in the right corner of my monitor that I can't find a way of unsubscribing, all because I've accidentally clicked on one, when the page has jumped. I'm wondering now whether that little "occurrence" is part of the "game" they play.
 
How do you get paid, by displaying the ad, by us opening the site or by us clicking on the ad?

If its by us clicking on the ad, the only way to increase that is to get more relevant ads or by us just randomly clicking on the ads to drive up the click count.

This is not a phenomena unique to this site, ad revenue is down on all the model RR venues, both paper magazines and electronic forums and magazines. Numerous threads on the MRH magazine forums about low revenues. They actually had to put part of the magazine in a paid subscription edition and held a "subscription drive" this past month or so because ad revenue is down.
 



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