Forum ads and drop downs

[Big Block Power]

Ok one never had this tool today and it's really annoying. I get a Google drop down on top. I get ads now in each thread between posts. Just started today in the afternoon sometime. I only get this one this site. But sure what changed. I cleaned my cache and history memory yesterday. The site worked fine last night and this morning.

[tgrace98]

It’s doing the same for me. On my computer and phone

[jhnmdahl]

Let me see what's up...

Edit: I think I found it - should be gone within a few hours (of 8pm Wednesday night). Let me know if it isn't

[Big Block Power]

Let me see what's up...

Edit: I think I found it - should be gone within a few hours (of 8pm Wednesday night). Let me know if it isn't

Thanks John.

[AsLan7]

Let me see what's up...

Edit: I think I found it - should be gone within a few hours (of 8pm Wednesday night). Let me know if it isn't

Thanks John.

.
I never saw this on my end.

Maybe it only affects flip phones or ealier? Are you using a Qualcomm possibly BBP?

.

[cmattj]

I never saw this on my end.

Maybe it only affects flip phones or ealier? Are you using a Qualcomm possibly BBP?

Geeze now you did it.
He may move your saved analog number up to the ten spot. I’m hovering in the 6 slot over a Atari pong” question .

[Big Block Power]

I'm still a Nokia guy. Best flip phone out there A10 and #6

[jhnmdahl]

Google does things on occasion to try to improve ad revenue (they call them "experiments" and show you how making various tweaks can improve revenue to your site by testing various changes). It does improve revenue, but the results are often a bit heavy-handed. It's hard to strike a balance between making a few bucks to keep the site healthy and being obtrusive, especially with people running ad blockers these days.

john

[Big Block Power]

Yea that was bad. I would not deal with that.
Thanks for fixing it.

[Krob1114]

I do most of my posting on public computer in the break room at the casino where I work.
When a woman walks by and sees the adds for bikini's on the screen, she looks at me like I'm a dirty old man.
LOL.

[jhnmdahl]

Ads are based in part on the profile of the person (or people) using the computer, so perhaps somebody's been shopping island wear on the shared computer when nobody's looking. Basically, whoever is willing to pay the most to have their ad shown gets the ad spot, so sometimes it can be unpredictable too. But, we have blocked certain "objectionable" categories from even being able to bid for ad space here.

That said, the ads pay to keep the server running and connected to the Internet, and I appreciate people tolerating them and not blocking them (and especially clicking one every once in a while)

John

[Krob1114]

I had colbaltchat.com open on this public computer at work.
I opened a separate browser, looked for an oil filter housing for a 2013 Mercedes Benz ML 350 BlueTec.
When I came back to this forum, guess what was on the top ad?

[jhnmdahl]

Google unilaterally changed our ads again to try to "improve" our (i.e. their) revenue. I've got a busy morning, but I'll work on softening up the impact of their new ad placement system,

John

[Big Block Power]

Yea it wasn't there before I came to work. Go get those dirty dogs.

[jhnmdahl]

Apparently they're not happy that I'm not "mobile friendly" with my old ad code, and they're going to keep pushing new ad formats (partly because that's what advertisers are paying to buy). Thankfully they emailed me letting me know they were doing it this time.

We obviously rely on ads to pay for the site, but I think more than 2-3 things per page gets to be distracting. It looks like I can dial it back quite a bit from their automated settings though, so even though there are new ad types they should be less intrusive than they were this morning. My preference is to minimize ads embedded in the content (e.g., between posts), so I've focused on dialing those out.

PS - I had that exact Qualcomm Airtouch phone pictured up above, maybe 1999? It was DIGITAL! So cool for the time.