Ads. There is a tension in “web land” between the necessity of ads to fund the web sites we enjoy reading, and the tendency of advertisers to annoy the hell out of us by getting in the way of the stuff we're actually trying to read.
In Firefox we have the lovely Adblock extension, an easy-to-use tool to help us deal with this issue. Of course, none of us want our favourite sites to wither and die because all of their ad revenue dries up, and on that basis I have compiled the following set of handy hints for web site owners.
- If your site contains popups or popunders, I will block them. This is surely a no-brainer by now, but it's surprising how many still seem to not get it.
- If your site contains expanding banners, flash overlays, or anything else which obscures the page I'm trying to read, I will block them. What's important to me when reading your site is the content of the site. Anything that gets in the way of the content should be removed, and if you won't do it, I will.
- If your site contains banners which prevent the page content from loading because the ad broker's server is slow, I will block them. Design your pages so that they don't block waiting for ads to load, and see above.
- If your site contains banners which look like dialogue boxes, or exhort me to “click on something to win a prize”, I will block them. I will also block every other ad I can find on your site. Respect your readers and find a less unscrupulous ad broker.
- Interstitials. I will probably leave your site and not return.
Apart from this, as long as there appears to be more content than ads on the page I'm reading, and there are no headache-inducing animations, the rest will probably remain unblocked.
I might even click on one some time.
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