Google Advertisements During Testing Phase

[Dan]

We've always had Google advertisements, since the day we began. Though now we've switched domain names from .co.uk to .net, we had to reapply as a fresh brand new website so we've had no Google advertisements for some time while we waiting for approval.

Now Google has approved our site, we have limited records on which pages and threads work well for us, and the advertiser, at the same time.

A) We don't want to display an ad that doesn't get clicked on. That reduces our income.
B) We don't want to display too many ads on a page, that causes one or more of them to not get clicked on, that reduces income too.

But we've gone from no ads at all, straight in to an ad-testing phase. So it's looking a bit ad-heavy at the moment. And I apologise for that.

It'll take a few weeks in all to test well. We'll be doing some A/B testing. So showing 50% of traffic one setup and 50% of traffic another. And then comparing those. And we'll also be showing different ads depending on which country a visitor is from, and that kinda thing.

Then once we've got the core testing done. We will be then showing less ads for those who contribute more to the forum. That just makes sense. That wont be quite yet though.

And then of course to remove all Google ads, and all sponsors ads, so you have just pure plumbing content and nothing else, we have the new subscription service. Which is optional.

Some people have said themselves they'd pay this forum something as it saved them a lot of money somewhere down the line, or got them a lot of work, or helped them through training. So it's there for them if not you reading this. So don't knock it.

Me and Lou who run these three forum aren't millionaires by a long stretch. Every plumber and spark earns more than us. And most tilers too. So it's just a business that's all. Don't need to knock it for needing to make money to stay online.

Just hang in there for us. We are testing. So it's a bit all over the place. But we will be reducing all ads and ad positions for you. If you don't click on ads, don't click on them. You're welcome to use an ad-blocker in your browser, but be aware there will be an annoying message asking you to turn it off, that covers the page more than an advert would. So swings and roundabouts.

Hope that explains a bit for you.
I'll add to that. I've just noticed while I'm browsing on a laptop (so not in mobile view I don't think it's as bad on a mobile) that on the What's new page Google is automatically sticking vertical long ads inside a horizontal thread snippet and throwing the whole design of the page right off.

So I've just disabled automatic ads for that area. That was screwing up the design and I get fussy about that.

Haha - That's not on.

I've turned the auto system off Google clearly can't do that yet. lol

 

[Dan]

Okay. Done with the testing now. So if you're logged in, you should just see the sponsors ads, and then one Google ad below the first unread post for you. So that one moves and is user-dependent. If you've read 17 posts of a thread that's 21 posts long and you revisit the thread, you automatically get taken to the 18th post. And that's the post the ad will be under. If you read to post 19 and come back to the thread, it'll be under the first unread again which will be post 20 for you.

So everybody will see it under a different post, but it's always under a post.

Thanks for your patience.

 

[rpm]

Thanks for the update, always much appreciated.

 

[Dan]

Thanks again for your patience. I know it's annoying seeing ads. But with it being a brand new domain name in Google's eyes, we had zero records to go off so needed a baseline.