It means the minority of people who get irked by ads (and who wouldn't click anyway) won't see them, while the rest of net-using humanity wouldn't know what an ad-blocker is or why they would ever want to use one.

It's difficult to get worried about this, since this doomsday scenario has been talked about for years and has never materialized.

THAT SAID, AdSense is particularly vulnerable to blocking due to its reliance on Javascript. Javascript ads are trivially easy to block. So maybe one day the doomsday scenario will come true afterall. It's possible. Hopefully Google has a contingency plan in place to deal with that. Afterall they aren't going to sit idly by as hundreds of millions of dollars evaporates.

I would still argue for a way to display ads by a server-side script rather than client-side. That would be nigh-unblockable.

I would still argue for a way to display ads by a server-side script rather than client-side. That would be nigh-unblockable.

Hosts file:

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

What do we do? what shall be done? is it the end?

:-)
get a drink and let Google worry about it

Host file is not going to help someone if ads are included server-side, as the ad content would appear to come from www.yourdomain.com.

Unless they block yourdomain.com, in which case they aren't seeing your site anyway.

get a drink

Good grief, the sun's gone over the yardarm...definitely time for a drink and discuss new AdSense world domination strategy:-)

More thoughts on this one - IF ad blocking will take place in a significant way, this will call for different business models, i.e. publishers with sought-after content will find ways to monetize. This does not necessarily mean "advertising"; it can also be subscription based revenue or other ways, currently unknown to us.

But I am sure that such ways will be found. Otherwise it will be unattractive to generate new, fresh, current, attractive content.

BTW, Google is so easy to block, because all ads are called from one specific, easily bloackable domain. If they used multiple, say subdomains, say server1.google.com, server2.google.com, and so on, ads could not be blocked easily. OK, people might simply block google.com, but is this likely?

Maybe, once this becomes to be a real problem, we shall show content to those who enable ads. No ads? Fine, no content to you! hehe

Maybe, once this becomes to be a real problem, we shall show content to those who enable ads. No ads? Fine, no content to you! hehe

If a reliable way to detect ad blockers is found, I think this would be a great option for webmasters. You could do a number of things for the ad-blocking visitor:

Don't show the content
Show the content, with different kinds of ads in place
Insert a message saying "You've blocked my ads, how about leaving a donation?"
Just have a large, appropriate picture [google.com] display in place of content

Anyway, it would be nice if the webmaster had the means to decide what should be shown to ad-blocking visitors. Someone is going to say that you only shoot yourself in the foot if you block ad-blocking visitors from your content, and yet if they became enough of a problem to the point where many sites started blocking them, their internet experience would suffer and maybe they'd reconsider.

Again, I see no pressing need for such drastic measures right now.

If you can detect that the visitor isn't displaying ads simply pop up a subscription form and offer several payment methods, including Paypal.

If enough sites adopted that strategy they would either pay, or enable the ads again.

I'm not suggesting every site charges for access, but do it as a co-op and everyone that's a member takes a slice of the subscription pie at the end of the month based on visits by subscribers.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 4:50 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2006]

Let G handle that problem if it's really a problem.

Nah. Norton Internet doomed us years ago.

blocking ad-blocking visitors.. and now the questions of the day:
- detecting disabled javascript is one thing, but how do i reliably detect if someone uses ad-blocking?
- how do i prevent for example norton cutting my pages into shreds when their software can't be identified by referral string?

Let G handle that problem if it's really a problem.

So you trust your livelihood to one company?

I don't think so, they are just one cog in a very big income wheel for me, and any part of that income wheel can suffer from this problem.

- how do i prevent for example norton cutting my pages into shreds when their software can't be identified by referral string?

It takes 1 page view to detect Norton.

You simply set a trap based on known things (paths, etc.) that Norton blocks and then if the visitor comes back for a second page view you know the banner image or whatever trap you set was blocked since the image didn't download on the first page view.

What you do with the visitor at this point is up to you.

Wasn't AdBuster out before there was a Google, or even an IE?

Most people only want to stop annoying ads, not all ads. That's why popup blockers are so popular.

Refusing to serve content to users that block your ads will kill your market share. Almost every site that did that with popup blockers in the 2000 timeframe disappeared within a few months or changed back to allowing you to block the popups.

As someone else said, if they choose to block your ads, they aren't going to click on them anyway. It might matter if you are CPM, but it shouldn't matter if you are mostly CPC.

It is easy to detect if adblockers are running.
Once the page is loaded you can check whether the page contains an iframe called "google_ads_frame". If it doesn't, then it the google javascript didn't work.

But I wouldn't spend my time on this.
I believe in ROI and fighting adblockers will not bring you more revenue.
People who run adblockers do not want to click on ads and do not want to see them.
If you are really into it and have time for games, write a logger and see how many people are running adblockers.
I'm sure that the results will help you realx.

It's strange, I'd been thinking about this a bit lately again to.

What I'd love to do is to be able to serve alternate content to adblockers, like a poll seeing how many know they are blocking.

With so many firewalls blocking by default without mentioning it to the user, I'd be curious to know the percentage that honestly don't realise it.

I would like to display a message to Adblockers such as 'Dear Adblocker, thanks for not helping the economy. Ever think of joining a terrorist organisation or communist party?'

<So you trust your livelihood to one company?>

That would be a problem if your income come to one source. You can't do anything if the ads of G is block or people wan't to block G's ads when they surf sites or programs norton/IE/mozilla blocks G's ads that people didn't know. If that problem occurs, the blocking thing then G must solve that problem because G will also suffer the loss in revenue.

Actually some very greedy webmasters forced someone to write a pop up blocker. Ever been caught in pop up Hell? Your browsers is so filled up with pop ups that you couldn't even see the page and what's more, when you would finally manage to get one shut down 2 or 3 others jumped up in it's place.

Been a year or so for me but I hated it. A lot of times the only way out was to shut down my computer.

Yep, greed forced the build of the pop up blocker. :) and boy was I glad to see it!

So many flashing ads, etc is going to force more people to turn off their JS or use the host file. Ahh well, a dark day may be dawning but it is caused by certain webmasters.

Ann

No dark day, repeat after me... SUBSCRIPTION MODEL, I knew you could...

Adblock is a Mozilla/Firefox extension that filters out advertisements on the web. Including Google's AdSense advertisements

Ironically Google AdSense publishers have the option to promote Firefox and earn referral commissions. If there's a plugin for Firefox, can a plugin for IE be far behind that simply has a toggle button to switch off AdSense? Maybe it could come already installed with the next version of IE.

ibill!

Welcome back! Missed ya.

Dark day? Just following the thread... :)

Ann
<edit>
I guess I missed all your posts...duhhh

Wow... The minute I started a thread on Ad Blocking...

[webmasterworld.com...]

This thread started.

The real issue I think is how to serve up ads with elegance... not necssarily force it on the public... but yet, have them seen. After all, content work - if done right is labor intensive and a small payment (through relevant ads) is a great way to get paid.

Therefore, the real questions, I think, should be:

What percentage of people are not seeing your ads - but are seeing your content.

What if any are the REALISTIC workarounds that other webmasters have employed.

If anyone can add suggestions, work-arounds, and just genral information on what you have seen, please feel free to add your 2 AdCents

If Microsoft or Adblockers got anti-competitive then the javascript based ads will be replaced by a php generated html and server side scripts.

No dark day, repeat after me... SUBSCRIPTION MODEL, I knew you could...

A subscription model goes against one of the most fundamental principles of the Web: hypertext linking (a.k.a. citations).

It also doesn't work when the user wants information for a specific short-term purpose: e.g., planning a trip to Tahiti, buying a digital camera, or finding out the side effects of a drug that the doctor just prescribed.

A subscription model might work for a site like Webmaster World, but probably not, since few sites have a monopoly on information and there's always an alternative around the corner. Unless you're THE WALL STREET JOURNAL or a porn site that caters to a specific interest or fetish, a subscription model is unlikely to be a solution to the real or perceived problem of ad-blockers.

The good news is that a major take-up of the option will only happen once MFA starts to be a serious irritant to users (not just other publishers).

And that may finally push G into action to stop adsesne being mere pollution.

So far, I doubt that will happen - but adsense does slow page loading, so it may get a lot of users anyway ...

A subscription model goes against one of the most fundamental principles of the Web: hypertext linking (a.k.a. citations).

Principles of the web?

Oh puleez, tell WSJ and other online publications, games sites, porn sites, etc.

People pay to play when it's compelling.

It also doesn't work when the user wants information for a specific short-term purpose: e.g., planning a trip to Tahiti, buying a digital camera, or finding out the side effects of a drug that the doctor just prescribed.

Which is why I proposed earlier in the thread that it would have to be a co-op subscription type service, like Adult Check for the collection of adult sites, one subscription gets you into hundreds or thousands of sites.

If a whole bunch of high profile sites band together they could require a membership of their shared subscription service if ads were being blocked and split the revenue monthly.

I think something like this will come eventually if people revolt against the ads as information is never free, someone somewhere has to get paid to put it online.

People pay to play when it's compelling.

They pay when it's compelling, when they know it's compelling, and when they have a continuing interest in the topic.

If a whole bunch of high profile sites band together they could require a membership of their shared subscription service if ads were being blocked and split the revenue monthly.

Trouble is, people aren't necessarily looking for what's on high-profile sites. They're looking for what they want, wherever it may be.

I think something like this will come eventually if people revolt against the ads as information is never free, someone somewhere has to get paid to put it online.

I haven't seen any signs of a large-scale revolt against advertising. There could be a revolt against certain types of advertising, such as AdSense and its competitors (just as there's already been a revolt against popup and popunder ads). But if that happens, ad-blockers will be the least of an AdSense publisher's problems--the real problem will a lack of response to the ads (especially PPC ads) that users do see.