Google Ads (Adsense), Ad Block Request & Feedback

[Jeff Smith]

Hey Everyone,

Since we've just purchased the site, I ask you to consider the following.

We pay for and run the site based on ad revenue, the primary source of which is Google Adsense. Since you're friendly neighborhood Spidermen... er, Foamers, are now the owners, I'd respectfully request that you turn off AdBlock. It's a minor inconvenience for you, and a source of revenue for us to improve the site, and hopefully make a little dough, too, lol.

Your call; no judgement here!

[Rockingham Racer]

Done.

[STrRedWolf]

I'm a bit strict about ads being pulled, since I had a malware scare at work that was pulled from an ad served by Ars Technica. I'll trial it, since it's a good site, but if I trace a hack attack back to ads on this site, it's back on the ban (and the site will be notified).

[David Benton]

Is there a way of allowing Railroad .net but blocking other sites ads ? Perhaps if we can post this , more people will be willing to do so.

[GirlOnTheTrain]

I run ABP on Chrome (YMMV on Firefox or with a different ad blocker) - if you click the ABP logo to the right of the address bar, a box drops down and there is an option to toggle off ad blocking on the particular site you are on at the time.

[nomis]

In whatever ad-blocker you use, you would have to “whitelist” the Railroad.Net domain for it to be effective.

[justalurker66]

See here for AdBlock unblocking:
https://help.getadblock.com/support/sol ... r-options-

Hopefully you can keep the bad ads off of your site. When one signs up for ads to be placed on sites there are settings for what ads are allowed. Ads that automatically play audio or launch windows or use those permissions to install viruses are the main reason I installed AdBlock a few years ago. Even with all the "bad ads" turned off there always seems to be some coder trying to sneak something past Google (and other ad server's) filters.

There was one site I used (past tense) that decided to put several advertisements below the masthead and a square ad on several posts per thread. They made it hard to find the content with all of the advertising. After a brief battle of AdBlock on my PC vs anti-AdBlock on the site's server detente was reached. I don't see their ads because I don't visit that site. Not a good outcome for either side.

BTW: My AdBlock is disabled on this domain.

[Jeff Smith]

There is an adsense feature in Google that allows us to block ads. I'll trust Greg to handle that.

[andrewjw]

While we're on the topic of adblocking, I'd like to recommend "uBlock Origin" (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#installation). The extensions "AdBlock" and "AdBlock Plus" both show you "Acceptable Ads", which sounds well and good except that "Acceptable Ads" are defined by eyeo GmbH (owner of "AdBlock", "AdBlock Plus", and "uBlock"), which uses the "Acceptable Ads" program as a profit center. For instance, they receive a check from Google to ensure Google's ads are "acceptable."

uBlock Origin has the same "disable for this site" feature as the others, which you should use not just at railroad.net but at any other website you want to support as well.

[STrRedWolf]

While we're on the topic of adblocking, I'd like to recommend "uBlock Origin" (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#installation). The extensions "AdBlock" and "AdBlock Plus" both show you "Acceptable Ads", which sounds well and good except that "Acceptable Ads" are defined by eyeo GmbH (owner of "AdBlock", "AdBlock Plus", and "uBlock"), which uses the "Acceptable Ads" program as a profit center. For instance, they receive a check from Google to ensure Google's ads are "acceptable."

uBlock Origin has the same "disable for this site" feature as the others, which you should use not just at railroad.net but at any other website you want to support as well.

uBlock Origin is my go-to choice. It's much lighter on resources than AdBlock/Adblock Plus and just as effective.

[Jeff Smith]

Thanks all for the feedback. We're taking everything into account.

[Jeff Smith]

Well, the site seems to be running very smoothly (knock on wood), and as you may have noticed the banner ads have returned. As I requested earlier, I do request our members disable any ad blockers you may be using as it's our primary source of revenue to operate the site. I know many find them annoying, but like everything else on the internet, you can just scroll on...

As many have noticed, more sites, especially news sites, are migrating to a "ad block must be disabled to view" policy. I'd like to avoid that here. You can click, don't click, your call, I understand.

We may be soliciting at some point other advertisers or sponsors. More on that to follow. We have to work out the technical details for something like that.

In the meanwhile, if you'd like to offer feedback on the ads your seeing, please feel free to do so here.

[gprimr1]

Now that we have ads in place, it is possible to test the feasibility of disabling ads for donations.