Why all the scam ads?

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psych
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21 Nov 2009, 3:04 pm

TallyMan wrote:

ouinon wrote:

I use Firefox, but I m computer-clunky and don't know how to put in Ad-blocker Plus ( and am wary of/anxious about downloading stuff too ).

TallyMan wrote:

It's like complaining about a pair of shoes which hurt. Instead of moaning put another pair on.

What if you can't "afford"/can't "find" another pair? Give up wearing shoes? Leave WP? Or get ingrowing toenails and corns and blisters and walk with increasing difficulty because want to carry on wearing shoes/using WP, and don't know how to get another pair/AdBlocker Plus whatever.
.

Your comparison isn't valid. Firefox is free. Ad-Blocker plus is free. The only difficulty people may have is knowing how to find and install it, but it isn't difficult.

this probably wont be possible for people using public computers.

I know of someone whose sole internet access is the (free) computers in the library, there are some AS sites hes been completely unable to access at all, for technical reasons beyond their control.

iquanyin
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21 Nov 2009, 8:51 pm

@sinsboldly i hear you. i'd do just as you'd like to.

DW_a_mom
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21 Nov 2009, 9:03 pm

sinsboldly wrote:

and with everyone on ad blocker plus, what revenue stream that WP was getting is now dammed up.

making us dependent even more on donations that don't come.

~sigh~

But as long as all the ads are inappropriate, I would hope people don't click on them. OK, maybe click so the company pays us, but not actually buy anything. I really sympathize with the complaints here. I don't mind ads, but we should have ads that are appropriate to our goals as a community.

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iquanyin
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21 Nov 2009, 9:24 pm

-i'm using chrome dev build, and for anyone else who might be, guess what? you can get extensions, just as with firefox. not as many yet, but a respectable number and i think there's an adblock type thing.

-i may be wrong (and am too lazy to look it up), but i think click fraud is where the site itself artificially increases the number of clicks (or fixes how that number is counted?] to increase its revenue. i think this because of the context of an article i read last month about facebook being sued for click fraud.

if so, clicking would raise wrongplanets's revenues (not a bad thing). but the other part, about the advertisers being stung? my sense of things (based on how little i hear it costs to spam a bazillion people) is that it costs next to nothing to run the ads. whatever the costs are running your server, i'd assume. and if it's google....well, it wouldn't factor into their decisions much, would it?

that said, i too like how @tallyman thinks

@sinsboldly i'm going to imagine from now on that you're wearing one of those t-shirt!

TallyMan
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22 Nov 2009, 4:34 am

iquanyin wrote:

if so, clicking would raise wrongplanets's revenues (not a bad thing). but the other part, about the advertisers being stung? my sense of things (based on how little i hear it costs to spam a bazillion people) is that it costs next to nothing to run the ads.

Spam is free for spammers to send out by the million especially on bot-net infected computers. However, placing paid for ads with Google isn't cheap as I remember. I know someone who paid Google for their first page ranking when when people entered a keyword in Google search and it was something like a $1 fee every time someone clicked on their link! Not sure how much Google charge for targeted ads to web sites though because that is slightly different.

Edit: I just done a little checking. The cost to advertisers depends on how valuable the keyword is. The minimum they pay for these adsense adverts that are placed on websites such as WP is $0.01 per click. It depends how marketable a keyword is and how much competition between advertisers there is to "own" that keyword and that can push the price up enormously. I would guess clicks are logged against the IP address though to avoid multiple payments if people click a link 100 times or set up a bot do it continuously. Those of us on dial-up Internet get a different IP address each time we connect so presumably we can click again. (Assuming you automatically delete cookies between sessions as I do). Which makes it look I'm a new / different Internet user every time I connect.

So I guess if everyone on WP clicked those nasty ads, all those cents would soon add up to an irritating cost to those advertisers. It would also eat into their bandwidth and could push up their internet hosting costs.

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ManErg
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22 Nov 2009, 8:22 am

The one beneficial side-effect of those ads is that however bad things get, when life is at its lowest ebb, I think "at least I don't work in advertising" and I realise there is still hope....

When they accuse us of being 'Unpopular', just remind them of the truth:
Bill Hicks on Marketing

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CerebralDreamer
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22 Nov 2009, 4:50 pm

We should post a thread in general discussion about this, specifically targeting the nastier advertisers. We might not be able to target an ad more than once, but if we have several internet connections, we can rack up 2-3 hits on every ad out there.

A simple effort by half the membership to click on any new ads, then close the page once loaded, would not only allow us to specifically target those nasty ads we want to be rid of, but also help fund WP.

glider18
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09 Dec 2009, 10:11 am

While we are talking about advertisements on the WP, I have a question. Has anyone seen the ad that appears on the left (at least on my computer) that has a woman who smiles real big? It deals with a government refinance program? Is her smile suppose to be exaggerated and unrealistic? Or is this actually her smile? I don't know.

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sinsboldly
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09 Dec 2009, 11:03 am

glider18 wrote:

Well, it is supposed to catch your attention because her teeth have a prominant overbite, there is a companion ad of a man with a big UNDERbite. The idea is to notice it, and I guess it accomplished that, eh?

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glider18
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09 Dec 2009, 1:38 pm

Yes, it caught my attention Sinsboldly. When I first saw it I thought this was actually her real smile, and I felt like it would be inappropriate to say I found it humorous. But after seeing it a few times I began to realize it might actually be exaggerated by photoshop or something. I haven't seen the one with the underbite. I will look for it.

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DW_a_mom
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09 Dec 2009, 2:46 pm

I actually have ads up today I might actually buy from. Interesting, eh? Yesterday I was searching for composting equipment and today WP is showing me compost ads Hey, if the price is the same as elsewhere, why not?

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Friskeygirl
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09 Dec 2009, 3:27 pm

I am using ad blocker so never see any ad's here, does google ad sense actually make money for this site, all I
know is Ad Sense key's in on certain words on a website then gives an ad based on its own list, so we get alot of
the spammy garbage ad's. In Canada we do get different ad's mostly Canadian Tire

RainSong
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09 Dec 2009, 6:13 pm

RainSong wrote:

My understanding of how advertisments work is that the ads are provided by a third party and they're pretty specific to each user. They look for keywords in the sites you visit and then show ads that fit those keywords.

For instance, everyone here is probably going to see ads that have to do with the autism spectrum, because that's what this site is about. You can't go to a single page here without the word autism showing up, because it's in the banner up top. The ads see that and pull up ads that are under their autism category to display.

There will also be fairly generic ads. Lots of people want to lose weight and/or earn money, so those ads are also likely to get clicked (in theory, anyway).

However, there are also specific ones for each person. If you search glasses repeatedly or read a lot of sites about glasses, you're going to start seeing ads for glasses. It saw that keyword and picked it up.

Here's a few (this site) examples, if you want. A few months or so ago, there was a discussion in another part of the forum about acid reflux ads. Most people didn't have them, but if they went to that topic (especially repeatedly) and replied, the ads starting showing up. It recognized that keyword - acid reflux - assumed that everyone had it or was at least interested in it, and started showing ads for it. It doesn't even have to be here on the site; I got a ton of ads here for diabetes after my mother did some searches for it on Google.

On the other hand, shortly after I joined, another person from Ohio started getting dating ads for wealthy men on Lake Erie. He mentioned it and a few people replied. The post wasn't all that popular, because back then ads weren't such a big deal, I guess, and probably because it's funnier if you live in Ohio (I did at the time), but it got replies. Of everyone on the thread though, I was the only other one who ever saw it, and that was after the post and even then only twice. Why not everyone, since it happened in the thread up there? Well, for one thing, Ohio isn't as big of a keyword as acid reflux and autism, probably. It's not that big of a state, and there's not much special about it. Beyond that, the two of us who did see it also did outside searches for things related to it and/or also mentioned it in other posts. So it all depends.

I don't think that clicking the ads will increase them for other people, but it probably will increase them for you. What will increase the ads for multiple people - and this is kind of a Catch 22 - is openly complaining about them. The ad searchers don't get that you're saying I don't like dental ads; they see the dental and assume that that's what you want, so you see more. And if other people quote that or post about it, they're going to start seeing those same ads.

To add on to that, the third party is Google in this case, and while they try to get rid of the scam ones, some can slip by. I'm pretty sure you can report ones that are legitmately scams - not ones that you just don't like, but ones that are trying to get personal information or are misleading. Google does pay out when you click on an ad, but that might not actually affect the companies you're clicking on... I'm unsure, but I suspect they just pay a flat rate up front for the service, based on what they predict will happen. Not too many people click on ads to begin with.

As for the I'm Popular, You're Not ad - I don't get why people are offended by it. I really don't, and now I'm curious as to why.

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roadracer
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15 Dec 2009, 3:36 am

is it just me, or wouldnt it make more sense to replace all the ads and adverts with messages asking for support and donations? If you keep people continualy aware that they need to donate inorder to keep the site alive, and how much he needs each month with some sort of big money counter at the top or something, well, I think he would get way more donations and be able to do away with the google ads, or maybe just put one at the bottom or something were it dosent bother people as much.

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