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Jeff Chandler

Ad Block Plus Not Needed Here

adblockplusThis blog post has been on the tip of my tongue ever since I introduced display advertising. Here on the Tavern, I use a plugin called OIO Publisher to handle my advertising needs and it’s been the best $48.00 I’ve ever spent. In the sidebar as well as the blog header, I use a block of javascript to display the advertising zones. Unfortunately, these advertising zones are not displayed for those running Ad Block Plus in FireFox or alternate ad blocking software.

Back on May 11th, 2009 the creator of the Ad Block Plus extension proposed a change to his user base where occasionally, a new version of the software would suggest users to whitelist frequently visited sites. He has published the responses to the initial proposal in a follow up blog post along with his take on the feedback.

As an Ad Block Plus user myself, I actually wouldn’t mind a notification every now and then asking me if I’d like to whitelist a site URL since I visit it so much. I thoroughly enjoy browsing the web without having to deal with blinking ads, flashbased annoyances, etc. However, I can certainly understand the other side of the argument in that these advertisements are there to generate revenue for the site to exist.

I’ve been down that road of annoying advertising on sites so with that in mind, I am asking you to instill trust in me and whitelist WPTavern.com if you’re using Ad Block Plus or any other ad blocking software. As it stands, this site only displays images for advertising, nothing is flash based and there are no popups. I don’t plan on adding popups, popunders, flash advertising, surprise forms for you to fill out to give me your details, etc.

I am this websites advertising manager and since I have access to all the stats, I feel I can make a pretty good judgment on whether a piece of advertising will be relevant to most of the audience that visits this site.

The bottom line is, not every site on the net is filled with advertising evil, WPTavern being one of those sites. So I ask again that if you enjoy what is happening with WPTavern.com, to allow the advertisements to be displayed and hell, even check a few of them out as all of them are pretty much WordPress related. If you have any questions or concerns related to advertising, you can contact me here.

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9 responses to “Ad Block Plus Not Needed Here”

  1. I use NOscript 1.9.5

    It blocks all scripts, I can even find out if a site is using Google Analytics or Woopra.

    I have you white listed.

    I resetted the list of sites I allow.

    One thing about NOscript 1.9.5 is that I whitelisted GA and Woopra on this site, it is whitelisted for all sites using GA and Woopra (GA and Woopra, not those sites, that’s seperate). Basically I don’t have to say yes every time GA or Woopra is used in every site, I trust them here so I should trust them everywhere.

    I seen sites with over 20 scripts. waaaaaaay too many ads.

    If 19 out of 20 items in a website is ads (20th. being the content of whatever post) then that says a lot about a site.

    I am just curious about appropriate ads (I have only clicked on webdev studios on this site), I do click an ad or two from time to time if I find it interesting or I need something from it.

    There has to be a balance of ads and content.

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  2. I know I wouldn’t be caught dead without Ad Block Plus! There’s so much nasty stuff out there, it’s almost a security risk…

    But I selectively disable it on many credible sites, like yours, because I know that advertising is going to be low-key, legit, and maybe even useful.

    I actually just enabled Ad Block Plus on WP Tavern and the ads are still showing up, so you must be doing something right!

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  4. I use Ad Block Plus too, although like Jleuze, I disable it on certain credible sites such as WP Tavern where I know the advertising is unintrusive and interesting to me.

    Just for the record, I enabled it now and it looks like all six 125×125 ads and the 468×60 ad in the header are all still displayed with the default ABP settings. Not sure if this is a feature of OIO Publisher or what that has a workaround.

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  7. I have this site white listed as well i Ad Block Plus. However, it looks like you DO allow flash ads as long as they are the right size for your ad spaces. I only say that because I’m interested in putting an ad up so I looked at your pricing and it says I can upload a gif, jpg, jpeg, png, or swf. I actually have a guy making a 125×125 swf to advertise http://xavisys.com right now.

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  8. @Aaron D. Campbell – Well, not all Flash ads are equally annoying ;)

    I have made quite a few web ads at my day job. I often use animated GIFs and Flash for these ads, but the animation is slow, the transitions are soft, and they are not content heavy.

    I think just about any non-popup/under ad format is fine, as long as the ads are made to be subtle and not overly annoying. Unfortunately, it is much too easy to make those kind of annoying Flash ads that we are all very familiar with!

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  9. @JLeuze –
    I thoroughly agree. I wouldn’t have chose flash if I thought it would be annoying to users. I just wanted to make sure they really were allowed before I paid to have one made (although I guess it’s already too late for that…it’s not made yet, but I already got him started on it so I’ll have to pay either way).

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