Anyone worried about Adblock PLus

[Todd W]

Has anyone seen Adblock Plus ?

It basicaly blocks all forms of ads.. this could/is affect our ad revenue.

It's a Recommended Add-on on the firefox page

What are you guys doing about it.

[MaxS]

Nothing. As far as I know, there's no way around it.

They can't block less traditional ads, such as CPA ads.

[Cutter]

I blogged about this. Its an interesting problem with no simple solution. As long as the "elite" power users have it, It doesn't really bother me. If AOL or Google rolled something like this out (which they wouldn't), you could see a really obvious hit to the bottom-line.

[Chris]

You could always boycott firefox. I mean seriously, they can't stop contributors, but to feature them is an endorsement.

Or you can check for ad loading the ban people if the ads don't load.

But yes, as with cutter so long as if it is just the geeks that use it, I won't worry.

[Todd W]

Originally Posted by Cutter

I blogged about this. Its an interesting problem with no simple solution. As long as the "elite" power users have it, It doesn't really bother me. If AOL or Google rolled something like this out (which they wouldn't), you could see a really obvious hit to the bottom-line.

That's true!

AOL/Google would never do such a thing their bottom-line would be affected more than ours

Sorry I missed your blog!!

[KLB]

I wrote an article on this last year for Chris, you can read it at: http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/ad-blocking/

A few months after I wrote that article I stopped blocking users who were blocking my ads. Really I haven't seen much change in ad blocking in several years (as measured by the percentage of page views that result in AdSense impressions). AdBlock Plus is better that AdBlock in that at least users can "whitelist" site that they are willing to allow ads to be shown on and regardless of the source of the ads they will be shown on whitelisted sites. Really ad blocking features in things like Symantec's Norton Internet Security and the ZoneAlarm firewall are a bigger concern than AdBlock, because those products confuse the issue and make users think that ads are a security risk, where as AdBlock Plus doesn't cause this confusion and really only tech savvy users install it.

[Cutter]

Todd, I blogged about it because of your post here!

I pointed out on my blog, Firefox brings in a ton of money from Adsense with their Google search integration. Is it really in their best interest to promote this?

[Todd W]

Originally Posted by Cutter

Todd, I blogged about it because of your post here!

I pointed out on my blog, Firefox brings in a ton of money from Adsense with their Google search integration. Is it really in their best interest to promote this?

Gotcha

Exactly - shooting themselves in the foot.

I wonder if the recommended list is auto-generated based on downloads.

-Todd

[polspoel]

Ad blocking is standard in the mac specific version of firefox called camino.

[Cutter]

Interesting, one (or the) developer of Adblock Plus commented on my blog. Feel free to join in on the debate there

[AmbulanceBlues]

That was a great introductory article you wrote, KLB. I learned quite a bit that stuck in my head.

My question is this: Adsense (and most networks) pays by the click, right? This is why you have to calculate out your eCPM, no? If somebody goes to the trouble of seeking out and installing ad blocking software, they probably were never going to click on your ads anyway. So, what are you losing, besides the bandwidth which you'd still be losing even if that person had never installed an ad blocker?

[Todd W]

Originally Posted by AmbulanceBlues

That was a great introductory article you wrote, KLB. I learned quite a bit that stuck in my head.

My question is this: Adsense (and most networks) pays by the click, right? This is why you have to calculate out your eCPM, no? If somebody goes to the trouble of seeking out and installing ad blocking software, they probably were never going to click on your ads anyway. So, what are you losing, besides the bandwidth which you'd still be losing even if that person had never installed an ad blocker?

I know I installed the adblocker on a computer I just re-configured for someone he always clicked ads and it got him into a lot of trouble!! I installed all the security, spyware, etc do-dads for him and he's not computer literate... So you have to remember that this is pretty common too. (Fixing computers for friends, family, etc.) Why did I install it? I earn less fixing his computer than making/working on my sites LOL.

[AmbulanceBlues]

"Got him into a lot of trouble" like some sort of shopping/gambling addiction? Or alot of accidental clicks? Are accidental clicks really a significant source of revenue? Has anyone ever studied that?

It just seems like you're not really missing anyone who was of value to you. Like when I turn off the radio during the extended ad breaks on talk radio. I'm not going to buy any herbal ED meds or gold bullion anyway. I don't think I really "owe it" to the broadcaster to listen to that garbage.

[KLB]

Originally Posted by AmbulanceBlues

That was a great introductory article you wrote, KLB. I learned quite a bit that stuck in my head.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by AmbulanceBlues

My question is this: Adsense (and most networks) pays by the click, right? This is why you have to calculate out your eCPM, no?

Yes AdSense pays by the click, but some ads pay by impression and others pay based on action (e.g. sale or lead generation).

Originally Posted by AmbulanceBlues

If somebody goes to the trouble of seeking out and installing ad blocking software, they probably were never going to click on your ads anyway.

Ironically enough this isn't always the case. First for a while some new computers were being delivered by Symantec's Norton Internet Security (NIS) preinstalled and for a time NIS default configuration automatically enabled adblocking. ZoneAlarm Pro also was blocking ads by default or confusing users into blocking ads for a time. As a reault many users who were blocking ads either didn't know they were blocking ads or didn't understand what they were doing. Also many corporate IT departments and schools were starting to block ads on their networks. As a result people who would otherwise be receptive to ads weren't seeing them.

Since NIS and ZoneAlarm Pro no longer block ads by default and both have deemphasized this feature this is not so much of an issue anymore.

Originally Posted by AmbulanceBlues

So, what are you losing, besides the bandwidth which you'd still be losing even if that person had never installed an ad blocker?

While it isn't true now, a few years ago bandwidth was really expensive in comparison to the amount of advertising revenue a site could generate. As a result I was forced into a position of having to find a way to reduce my bandwidth costs in comparison to the amount of ad revenues I generated. The easiest way to do this was to block users who blocked my ads. I didn't really expect those users to allow my ads in order to gain access to my site. My assumption was that they would get frustrated and leave my site all together. In this way I could reduce my bandwidth costs.

Interestingly enough about a year or so after I figured out how to detect and successfully block those who were blocking my ads someone came out with AdBlock Plus that took the original AdBlock extension and added a "white listing" feature such that users could selectively allow certain sites to display ads unimpeded. It was really a brilliant piece of work. Users could easily allow ads on sites that required this and/or on sites that the user wanted to "support" but would otherwise block ads on other sites.

As of June 2006 I disabled my ad blocking detection routines and stopped blocking those who were blocking my ads to see how it would affect my site and my revenues. The reason for this experiment was that bandwidth costs had tremendously dropped and ad revenues had significantly increased thus the reasons I had implemented my countermeasures in the first place no longer existed. Since ad revenues continue to climb and I'm seeing no significant decrease in AdSense impressions in relations to the number of page views my site delivers, I've decided to leave my ad-blocking countermeasures turned off. Unless I start to see ad blocking become a serious issue that threatens my revenue model, I plan on leaving those countermeasures turned off.

[KLB]

In a related development to the ad blocking issue, Symantic's Norton Internet Security suite no longer ships with ad blocking as a standard part of its feature set. Instead it is a separate download. See: http://cnet.com.au/software/internet...0091423,00.htm

This is great news as it means that fewer regular users will have ad blocking software installed on their computer.