If this were a real issue Googles earnings would be going down, their ad network earnings would be in the toilet and they aren't.

...yet. Give it time.

Don't forget that more people are getting connected to the internet so for the moment no problem for Googles earnings but it's a mather of time.

Not vandalism.

Vandalism = action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. - focus on the word "destruction".

Obviously there's some misconceptions going on here.

I agree..

Interesting... so why do SE care about possible malware (they add the: "This site may harm your computer" notification if they think the site may have malware installed).. and according to you they would not care about users getting an access-denied message?

SE's are concerned about Malware inasmuch as it affects their crawls ... Bots pick up on the risk and report it as such.
By and large, adblockers are not server side, being distributed unknowingly to haphazard internet surfers .. they are harmless.
SE's focus on real threats .. and adblockers are only considered a threat by those who feel they aren't making enough money on their ads.

I think this whole blocking the adblocker deal is a one on one case by case that the webmaster/publisher has to deal with. If adblockers bother you, then block them. It's not too unlike blocking bad IP blocks or bad bots ... It's a judgement call.

SE's aren't going to one day wake up and start doing your work for you. Publishers/Webmasters have a set of responsibilities all their own, and blocking the adblockers rates right up there with you protecting your web properties by blocking other so-called nefarious things like bad bots and bad IP blocks.

If you've got something coming into your web property that you feel is a threat, then the burden lays solely on you to deal with it at your own discretion.

I'm using a script now that shows a popup every 12 hours if someone uses an adblocker. It says to whitelist the website to stop showing the popup and that the website is running because of earnings from the advertisements.

What do you think of this approach?

It says to whitelist the website to stop showing the popup and that the website is running because of earnings from the advertisements.

Your approach looks like a good one - Reminders like yours are common .. you want the traffic, but the ads are important too.
I think that a lot of folks would be more inclined to whitelist with a notice like that, than they would if it were a paywall solution. But that's just me.

All in all, it's going to be whatever you feel works for you in the end.
Solutions for the adblocker can end up being just as varied as there are the number of webmasters/publishers that exist.

Ok, so here is the only solution to ad blockers: 'native advertising' / 'sponsored articles' and manipulating to your visitors. That is, posting semi-true / deceptive information or hidden promotion of something in your 'native' posts but in fact advertising it at the same time. I wonder what users will choose in the end - to see a banner ad and ignore it or to waste time reading a manipulative article or a misleading review polluted with a brand name or a clear text link. It seems many of the posters here have mastered the game perfectly, but I'm not going to play it any more.

This is a basic question, but what exactly is an "ad" that is being blocked?

FarmBoy

Regarding a 'Donate Button', are you running a charity or a business. I donate to charties and buy from businesses. So, the failure of your donate buttons might simply be because you are using the wrong terminology. In fact, a donate button probably cheapons the perception of your site.

If your website is the authority you think it is, then you should be able to sell advertising directly to the advertiser without having to rely on a third party to supply the ads to your site. If you banner ads are coming from your server then they are not blocked. Tv stations, cable providers, newspapers, magazines and most businesses that make money selling advertising have seperate departments to solicit advertisers. Maybe it is time for adsense webmasters to join the rest of the business world.

this post is not aimed at anyone nor is it inteneded to degrade or insult anyone. I am just offering another view.

If this were a real issue Googles earnings would be going down, their ad network earnings would be in the toilet and they aren't.

The adblocker extensions I have tried don't block ads on Google Search pages.. They work quite well on publishers pages delivering AdSense and other scripts (advertising).

Being in the revenue "toilet" and losing revenue to adblockers is not a valid perspective. For example, Walmart retail loses a certain amount of revenue and profit to theft, however this theft has not resulted in their profit being in the toilet.

This is a basic question, but what exactly is an "ad" that is being blocked?

?
Imagine a webpage with AdSense ads on it then imagine the same webpage with THOSE AdSense ads removed or "Blocked" by using a browser addon or extension.

The adblocker extensions I have tried don't block ads on Google Search pages.

Just guessing but I expect that's because of the sweetheart deals Google has signed with various adblocker producers, to ensure that ads on Google web properties are whitelisted. Which is the thing that infuriates me most about adblockers. They claim to act for the good of the user by blocking those evil ads, but at the first sign of a dollar bill or three, well, maybe a few ads aren't so bad after all. And Google should hang its head for playing their game, rather than booting them off the field.

Every Windows box I get my hands on I do 3 things:

1. Install Firefox with AdBlock Edge(ABE, Original AdBlock sold its soul to BigCorp - white lists), NoScript, BetterPrivacy(flash cookie management).
2. Get a fresh list from winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt and modify computers hosts file with it.
3. Educate the user how to maintain all of it on monthly bases and why.

Why I do this?

For Others: It makes a Hero in their Eyes after I explain what it does for me, please read below.

1. Your Ads vs. my Privacy are 0:10 on the scale.
2. Your Ads vs. my Time are 0:10 on the scale.
3. When I travel abroad, I get a prepaid data plan and I don't want to spend extra monies on that plan.
4. Most important: If your content is good enough I will pay the subscription, but only after I have evaluated it.

Every Publisher(small or big) has to understand that the information that they publish is almost always elsewhere, if not, it will be elsewhere. Thus, they need to build the reputation for them selves for the user to stick around.

nytimes
-----------------------------
Take New York Times for example. They have a policy of 10 free articles a month. Peachy!, read 10, clear cookies and read more 10 more, np.

I am pretty sure they know about that they can't do squat about it and their developers time would be much better time spent on making the site more useful to the users.

But, they write content, whether it is good or nonsense (at times), they get users engaged and they get subscriptions($$$$$$$$$).

Why do they get subscriptions? One of the reasons is their visitors want to participate in the conservations(UGC) with other people.
-----------------------------


So in reality, if you were to visit the above mentioned news site without the all the ads that are thrown up on you first couple of visits, would you be compelled to get a yearly online subscription?

Ad Blockes might also be good for Your site....if your site is worth the dime on per user bases.

$ 0.02

Can we get a Dislike button?

What we really need is a webmaster union, so we can all kick up a fuss together and get stuff like this banned

Do you subscribe to NYT, blend27? Or do you just clear cookies every few visits so you can freeload and read their content for nothing? Sounds like it might be the latter.

robzilla, if there was one, I'd be hitting it.

?
Imagine a webpage with AdSense ads on it then imagine the same webpage with THOSE AdSense ads removed or "Blocked" by using a browser addon or extension.

So if I have an image on my site if clicked on by someone, it leads to a sales pitch for a product and, if purchased, I earn an affiliate commission, but it's not an AdSense ad. If true, that seems like we're discussing AdSense ad blocking and not just ad blocking.

FarmBoy

@trebuchet

Both, depends on A DEVICE.

Desktop that I post this and previous message from has a subscription to nyt, WebmasterWorld, etc. about 600-800 busks a month, 10 here 20 there, etc.... but cookies are cleared anyway every time computer wakes up, including me clearing them manually at will, I then have to re-loginto the site if I want to. Not a biggie, really.

Mobile(phone and tablet), clears the cookies, and I never login, always via TOR, just read, unless I am interested.

There are many users like me that don't just Surf the NET, oh and JS is OFF by default, unless I am interested.

Take WebmasterWorld for example, no Ads and no cookies required unless you want to express yourselves.

@robzilla & @londrum.

Not sure I understand your comments, hopefully they were not a reply to what I have wrote.

Just guessing but I expect that's because of the sweetheart deals Google has signed with various adblocker producers, to ensure that ads on Google web properties are whitelisted.

I think it is because the ads are not 3rd party and do not get blocked. The big problem with ads is the 3rd party aspect eats up bandwidth and the publisher has little control over what is on their site. My wife is petrified of ads after she tried to click a link on a site and as she clicked, it changed into an ad that infected her computer. It took me a couple of hours to clean up from that ad.

none of the comlainers in this thread can guarantee that the ads on their site are malware free, yet when adblock users try to protect their machines they become the bad guys, vandals and thieves.

Seriously, you have these high powered authority sites and then you let any shmuck willing to pay you 50 cents run an ad on your site without knowing where that ad goes or what it does to your viewers.

none of the comlainers in this thread can guarantee that the ads on their site are malware free, yet when adblock users try to protect their machines they become the bad guys, vandals and thieves.

In the first place, no web publisher, web host or sysop can "guarantee" safety from malware. In the second, the publishers here use Adsense, not some open slather ad network. Google is proactive with blocking and rooting out ads carrying malware. They have a thousand times the technical capacity for that than I do. I wouldn't guarantee that all Adsense ads are safe but I'd guarantee they're safer than if I had to screen them for malicious content.

Adblock users are not vandals or thieves but they are freeloaders. If you are concerned about the risks of visiting a site monetised with ads, find another site that isn't.

the publishers here use Adsense

Actually..many of "the publishers here" use other ad networks and ad serving methods other than adsense..and adblockers block many other kinds of ads than just "adsense" ( that is why the "adblockers" don't call themselves just "adsense blockers" )..The fact that the subject is posted in the adsense section of the WebmasterWorld fora is down to the OP ( not disagreeing with Netmeg's choice to post it in this area at all there : ), and the absence of a general "3rd party advertising networks" ( which could include Google's offerings ) area in WebmasterWorld..

The topic of "adblockers" does not restrict itself to "adsense" (as if you would read for example the linked to earlier list of items that for example adblock blocks, you would see, it is a long, long list ) )..Google is not the only ad serving network in the world ( it may be the largest )..others exist..Many of them using serverside ad serving methods, which are much harder for adblockers to block..But of course those serverside ad serving methods,require that the webmasters and site owners using them, know a bit more about webmastering and coding than simply how to "copy and paste" javascript provided by Google, as a means to access "webmaster welfare"..

They have a thousand times the technical capacity for that than I do. I wouldn't guarantee that all Adsense ads are safe but I'd guarantee they're safer than if I had to screen them for malicious content.

Not everyone's ( webmasters and in particular those participating in this thread ) "technical abilities" are the same..many of us are not "flying blind"..I know for a fact that blend27 isn't ;)..and he isn't the only one here with his "eyes wide open"..:)

BTW..Some of us even sell ad space direct, as well as use 3rd party ad serving networks..

All of that is redundant to the original point. Regardless of any poster's "technical ability" to identify and root out malware, I doubt it exceeds that of Google. The suggestion that Adsense publishers blithely hand over their sites to become potential distribution points for malware or browserjackers is silly.

BTW..Some of us even sell ad space direct, as well as use 3rd party ad serving networks..

So do I. So do many others. I'm not sure why that's relevant.

[edited by: trebuchet at 1:25 pm (utc) on Aug 18, 2015]

All of that is redundant to the original point. Regardless of any poster's "technical ability" to identify and root out malware, I doubt it exceeds that of Google. The suggestion that Adsense publishers blithely hand over their sites to become potential distribution points for malware or browserjackers is silly.

I would suggest that you try searching ( using the search engine of your choice ) for "Google serving malware with adsense" ..the following item is but one of very many results..
[blog.sucuri.net...]

I turned off my Ad Blocker to participate in this topic. I've left it on since then. Did I mention earlier that...

I HATE ADS!

What a nightmare folks are faced with if they don't have an Ad Blocker. For those of you who have ruined the business models for the others, there should be some sort of penalty. Your sites SHOULD be nuked from the indices. What makes you think I want to visit a site with 10+ ads dispersed through the content I'm there to read? And as soon as I scroll I have a full viewport ad appear on top of the content with an "X" buried way up in the right corner of the viewport. What type of advertising is that?

Why do publishers insist on the 728x90 Leaderboard above their primary brand? What is up with that? That's a sure sign of desperation.

Why do publishers insist on inserting "irrelevant" ads? I see more and more irrelevant ads and I'm going to "guess" it has something to do with my Do Not Track preferences. If you can't track me, how can you serve me relevant ads? Not only do you have Ad Blockers to be concerned about, I do believe there is other technology that interferes with the ad serving process e.g. Do Not Track.

Why do publishers insist on "saturating" their content with advertising? What happened with the "rules of the game" or do they no longer exist? Ever land on a site and the ad blends so perfectly with the content that you end up clicking on it? BAD PUBLISHER, BAD! As a seasoned silver surfer, I can usually determine what is and what isn't an ad. But, there are some sites who have managed to take Google AdWords and "blend" them to the point where they look like "the first step" in the process of doing something.

Bottom line? Greed has gotten us to this point of the discussion. Ad Blocking - best thing to happen to the Internet - since AdSense.

I would suggest that you try searching...

Why, did I say somewhere that Adsense has never served a malware ad? Perhaps you could use the search engine of your choice and point me to the ad network that has never served one.

For those of you who have ruined the business models for the others

I doubt that's anyone here. Personally I've never placed more than two ads on a page. Never used a pop-up or pop-under, an interstitial, a viewport clogger, an autoplay video ad, etc. etc. Those ad types are offensive to me so I don't unfurl them on my users.

I was thinking about a script for users of adblockers who get their screen turned black when visiting my website. For this moment it's just a popup message every day for people like Blend and Pageoneresults.

For this moment it's just a popup message every day for people like Blend and Pageoneresults.

Oh, there's a solution for that too - it's called the back button, I do it ALL the time. It's actually better than Ad Blocking. :)

I doubt that's anyone here.

Participating. But, what about those just reading who are thinking of ways to stuff more ads on their pages?

Oh, there's a solution for that too - it's called the back button, I do it ALL the time. It's actually better than Ad Blocking. :)

In that case, I don't get to serve you ads and you don't get access to my content, and everyone goes home happy. The only question is where this cycle of adblocking/adblock-blocking/back-buttoning will lead in the longer term.

Participating. But, what about those just reading who are thinking of ways to stuff more ads on their pages?

Well if they're bothering to read this then hopefully it might prick their conscience and make them stop (though I doubt it).

What amuses me most is the few on the fringe that assume everyone should also behave the same way, that the big bad ads are causing harm. Online privacy is such a fallacy unless you're a hardcore user of proxy sites. Anyone that uses the same IP from their host daily is leaving trails like a slug, even if you clean your cookies, block ads, etc. For many the IP and your browser fingerprint are enough to track you repeatedly.

For instance by browser settings are so unique it's something like 1 in 3M users, so when linked to my IP it's almost as good as DNA, not quite but good enough for anyone interested in attempting to track me.

Ad blockers and all the other nonsense are just that, the only true way to stop it all is NoScript, which disables javascript and then the browser fingerprinting is also blocked, as well as everything except raw log files.

Take New York Times for example. They have a policy of 10 free articles a month. Peachy!, read 10, clear cookies and read more 10 more, np.

I am pretty sure they know about that they can't do squat about it and their developers time would be much better time spent on making the site more useful to the users.

Sure they can do something about it, they can track you server side and not with cookies.

They can simply require you have to register to read, or use your social media account to login, then they can stop cookie washing.

Sure, you can make multiple accounts but at some point they can make it so painful that you'll pay vs freeloading. Anyone worth their salt could easily track your access patterns and block them but it's just not worth their time. If everyone was doing it and they were losing too much money, then the game would change.

FWIW, someone asked about ad blockers blocking on Google itself, I'm not sure of how they implemented it, but I've implemented unstoppable ads by merely including them as part of the normal page content, no iframes, nothing easily detectable, just text. Plus I made the size of the ads the size of all the page previews on the site so blocking the ads zaps everything on the page rendering it useless.

So if you think ads can't be shoved down your throat, it can be easily done, just not with 3rd party ad servers in javascript. It has to be embedded server site and not be a common image size which can be accomplished easily by adding nothing more than a small 1-5 pixel border, which can blend into the page color, or just resizing it server side.

I know it worked as my browser had ad blocker running and all the ads displayed.

If everyone adopted these tricks then ad blockers would have to just block all images. Text ads embedded server side are a bitch to get rid of esp. if they leave no characteristics in the page to identify them as ads.

It's all a cat and mouse game and considering the cats run the show, the mice should just play nice or they might find themselves locked out some day if the cats can't afford to keep supplying cheese.

That's the real issue on this thread and to date, there's not been enough people running ad blockers to make a real dent in the big ad servers pocket. When that happens the game will change radically and nobody will be happy when the free content goes away.

You decide, is it ultimately worth giving up your free content to run an ad blocker?

Kind of like cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Roughly 30-35% of my site visitors use ad block. I recently implemented a message that shows up in place of an ad if people have adblocker, asking them to consider disabling it. Will see if that helps at all.

What I'm really curious about though is how the use of adblockers differs on desktop vs mobile. Anyone have any numbers on the % of mobile users with adblock?