Hard Light Productions Forums
Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Sandwich on March 30, 2007, 04:49:20 pm
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We've brought back Google banner ads on HLP. Donations have slacked off tremendously, and with the server jointly costing us and Game Warden upwards of $100/month, we need a different source of income.
Those of you who've been around for a bit may remember the slight fiasco which led to our previous Google banner ads being revoked - fraudulent & repetitive clicks on the ads in order to increase income. DON'T DO THIS - I cannot stress this enough. Don't go to ANY sort of special effort to click on ads. Just behave, pursue what genuinely interests you, and all should be well.
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So is it okay if I automatically ignore the ads and never click them?
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Let's just say that that would be far preferable to over-clicking. :)
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Well I just clicked on a LEGO ad....... and it genuinely interested me..... :P
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Is any revenue generated just by the ads being viewed?
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Not that I know of, unfortunately.
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Hmm, well I was just wondering whether those with ad-blockers could help by disabling them for this site; I guess not...
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Of course it helps to disable ad-blockers... people who can't see the ads have NO chance of clicking on them. :p Besides, ad blockers were mainly needed back in the flashy banner ad days. With Google textual ads, I don't see the need for ad blockers anymore.
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True... Isn't there a way to set Google preferences, to let them be aware that this is mostly a Gaming / Sci-fi / action / adventure type of audience?
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Perhaps. I'll look into it.
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What about those scrolling ads? You know, the ones that flash with all the bright colors? They are very annoying. Are you sure it's just google ads? Because I don't mind Google ads.
EDIT: Yup. 10/10 times I loaded the forum index, one of those scrolly imvu ads was there. I don't really think those are Google ads.
???
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I get both. Google ads and the IMVU ones.
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WTF? I just saw an ad for john mccain!!???!!??
What did you guys do? I thought all you got was google ads?
John McCain != google!!!
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WTF? I just saw an ad for john mccain!!???!!??
What did you guys do? I thought all you got was google ads?
John McCain != google!!!
...
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Good catch. Actually, John McCain = Yahoo!.
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The Google ads you are able to display on your content pages can be either cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-1000-impressions (CPM) ads, while AdSense for search results pages show exclusively CPC ads. This means that advertisers pay either when users click on ads, or when the advertiser's ad is shown on your site. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for either activity on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks.
Depends on ads apparently. So disabling those ad-blockers on hard-light.net AND game-warden.com DOES help.
Use of ad-blockers is stupid because you're hurting every site's financial income you visit. You mostly visit the sites you like to visit, don't you? Wouldn't it be in your interests to keep those sites running? Then stop using ad-blockers. HLP and GW are not exceptions in using ads to bring them much needed revenue to pay for the bills to keep the site running. If they don't get enough revenue from ads, admins/owners have to pay the bills from their own pockets until they decide enough is enough and the site is killed.
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You mostly visit the sites you like to visit, don't you?
Nope. I search for interesting things all the time, and the last thing I want is ads all over the place. If I decide I like the site, then I might disable the ad-blockers... it would certainly help if 99.99999% of ads weren't stupid. The ones for eBay are OK, but the rest of them are :wtf: On TV, you see ads for things you might use/buy/be entertained with. On the internet, alot of it seems to be different, less useful stuff.
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Nevertheless, even then you leech off the bandwidth they've paid for. The least you could do is not to block their ads (if any) and give something in return that way.
I've always regarded ad-blockers sort of overreacting. I've never needed any blockers to ignore ads.
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Well, if just viewing them generates revenue, then I guess you're right... but I have no intention of checking any of them out unless they interest me. (This doesn't make sense to me... the companies putting the ads out want to make money too, but I have almost never found an ad worth checking out [that was before I started using ad-blockers].)
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Google has in the past year or so introduced graphical banner ads in addition to textual ads, which can be allowed or disallowed at the discretion of the AdSense account owner. In our case, since we're sharing a server with GameWarden that MatthewPapa is paying for (and since my AdSense account was disabled on account of invalid clicks), these ads are from MP's AdSense account, and however he chooses to define them is what we get.
Now personally, I'm fine with static or gently changing images as banner ads. It's the spasticly blinky flashy ones that I hate. So, if those start showing up, or if lots of people really hate any kind of graphical banners, let me know, and I'll work with MP to limit the ads to textual ads only.
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I'd have no problems with graphical ads as graphical ads may potentially have higher revenue than text-only ads.
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I don't mind too much unless it's one of those ultra flashy ones.
And I could live with them if it meant more money for HLP.
(I would donate, but I don't have enough money to, and in this case, it's not the thought that counts)
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Flashy ads... you mean the ones that say you've won a free _______? How the heck do they generate revenue, anyway? People should know by now, there's no free lunch (except in the case of FreeSpace, and even then, it comes at quite some cost to the developers, time-wise).
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I have no problems with graphical ads either, even some ot the flashy ones are fine. If an ad gives seizure, then that's another thing...
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You know, you could install a script that disables ad viewing for 24 hours for that IP via PHP/MySQL... A friend of mine did that, and once a person clicked on a link, the adsense banner would be gone for a day. I dont know how much workload it would put on the server, but I suppose it's worth considering.
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Is anyone else getting the insulting Wing Commander CIC ads? I thought it might be an April Fool but a) it's the 3rd today and b) the links look like legitimate Google ads.
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Yes, other people are getting them. It's being investigated and we'll be looking to get rid of them.
As for them being insulting - I wouldn't let it affect me that much - I haven't seen anything come out of CIC over the last year that hasn't been anything but amusing.
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Well, it's an insulting assertion to make that CIC is better than HLP. :p
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On the topic of donations slacking off, it seems to no longer accept Visa (well, my Visa at any rate) as a means of payment. I have no clue why, because it works for me just fine for anything except HLP donations, and has worked for HLP in the past too. Anyone have a clue what might be going on?
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Well, it's an insulting assertion to make that CIC is better than HLP. :p
I used to like the CIC, but this is outrageous. We should turn their own tricks against them and advertise on their site.
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On the topic of donations slacking off, it seems to no longer accept Visa (well, my Visa at any rate) as a means of payment. I have no clue why, because it works for me just fine for anything except HLP donations, and has worked for HLP in the past too. Anyone have a clue what might be going on?
That would be completely on PayPal's end of things... I suggest taking it up with them.
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Well, it's an insulting assertion to make that CIC is better than HLP. :p
I used to like the CIC, but this is outrageous. We should turn their own tricks against them and advertise on their site.
Yes, because we have that kind of money to piss away right now. Should we start whoring the admins out perhaps? Sandwich has military training, he could be a merc. Goob could be the Mr. Bean of database admin, only being sent in to purposely disrupt things. And Kal... well we could just plain whore Kal.
I'm drinking too much tea tonight.
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$2 to place that CIC ad, IIHeardC... But I also heard it was a joke... one with bad taste, IMO, but still a joke.
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Why with bad taste? I thought it was kind of funny. Actually, very funny. It shows that as much as they try to give off the impression that they/WC are/is so much better than us/FS, they still keep tight tabs on the comings and going of HLP. After all, that ad was in place how many hours after we got the Google AdSense thing running again? 48 or so? It shows a kind of fixation that's on one hand pitiable, on the other commendable, and (if you're a Shivan), on the third hand quite amusing. :)
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Alright, alright...
:lol:
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And Kal... well we could just plain whore Kal.
He's certainly attractive enough. :P
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Well, found the problem - It's not my card, apparently. Weird as it sounds, it's my telephone number. Seems they've made some change in the last week that has resulted in danish telephone numbers being seen as "improperly formatted", and as such it won't let the transaction proceed as it's a required field.
Anyway, there's hope. They've got to get around to fixing that sooner or later, I wager.