Ad on top of sidebar
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Hello,
I have been using the free plan on wordpress.com for 9 years. Not long ago we were told that non-intrusive ads might be shown at the bottom of posts to support the platform used by free account. I was perfectly fine with that. Some time later those ads were shown every time, not just from time to time. This morning I saw fairly large ad on top of my sidebar. That doesn’t look nice anymore and I see many users complaining. I also had a couple more ads of the same size in the middle of my home page under the most recent post (only short part of the post is shown the way I configured it).
What is really interesting to me is the fact, those ads are not visible when I am logged in my account, so I was able to see them only because I logged off the site yesterday.
I really hope this is not a way for wordpress to force free plan users to go for paid plan.
I made a couple of screenshots to show the situation:
https://penoff.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ad.png
https://penoff.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/more_ads.pngThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello Ads on free-hosted sites are shown to logged out visitors and occasionally to a small number of logged in visitors. https://en.support.wordpress.com/no-ads/
There are a few forum threads currently discussing this change. Please see this reply from Staff https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/ads-on-the-blog-1?replies=14#post-3069730 Currently the ads team is testing placement of those ads.
I’ve also gone ahead and tagged this thread for Staff attention.
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Hi penoff,
Thanks for the screenshots, I’ve passed them on to our ads team. They are currently experimenting with different ad placements so you may see ads in areas where they weren’t previously displayed. But these areas could change.
In the thread @justjennifer linked to, another member of staff mentioned we still limit the number of logged in visitors who see ads on WordPress.com — which is why you saw them when you logged out of your account.
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Thank you for your quick reply. I’ve seen this topic already.
My position is that I don’t oppose ads on free blogs. Somehow the service needs to be paid for. As mentioned in the other topic, those blogs are mostly visited by non-logged in readers, so they do see the ads. If those ads are annoying and not interesting, those readers will go somewhere else or keep ad-blockers on. Ads should be about something that is of interest to the visitors if possible, or at least on the same topic with the content on the web page.
My experience with ads all over internet has gone from nice to mostly horrible these days. Websites don’t allow me to see content until I disable my ad-blocker. When I do, they show me much more ads then usable content. Now when I see such sites I just leave and never come back on purpose. Other websites are so overloaded with ads that is difficult to filter the content you came for in first place. Some of the most annoying are those that mix ads inside the actual content of the site like links in the text or those suggested posts on Facebook that look like regular posts by friends. And not to forget the video ads with sound that start automatically when you visit some web sites.
Similar thing happened to printed media. Some years ago I stopped buying computer related magazine, because when I counted the space used by ads it ended up being around 65% of the whole magazine. Even though the ads were on computer topic, I was paying for information, not for ads, so I quit buying. A few years later they stopped printing that magazine.
Overall if ads change too much the appearance of a web site the visitors might go somewhere else. If ads are annoying or not interesting for the visitors, they won’t click them anyway and will again look for other websites.
It is really sensitive topic and I really hope wordpress team will find the right balance.
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Hi penoff,
It is really sensitive topic and I really hope wordpress team will find the right balance.
Absolutely, this is what we are trying to do. These ads help cover the cost of our free features so we aim to strike a balance between that consideration and the best placement in relation to your content.
Rest assured, the ads team have your feedback and this is something we are continually working on :)
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I’d like to say that I’m also opposed to huge ads in the sidebars of our free hosted blogs. It messes up the layout of the widgets in the sidebar. It looks awful and distracting.
I also don’t mind the ad placement below our posts but not in the sidebar, too.
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A few screenshots from me as well. Besides the large size, look at how overruling the colours of these ads are. It’s just a visual dominance and it disturbes the calm of the rest of the colours.
https://bewustzijnindenieuwetijd.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ad01.jpg
https://bewustzijnindenieuwetijd.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ad02.jpg
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Hi dandelionsalad and robertjvalk,
I’ve passed your feedback and screenshots on to the ads team too. As I mentioned earlier, this is something we are actively working on at the moment so you may see further changes.
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Most users seem to be unhappy with the fact no one warned them of that change and how it will affect their blogs/sites. Maybe a beta test program would have been an option as well.
Not on topic, but I would like to ask another question. I am again considering Personal plan for getting rid of the ads and also for having my own domain. When I checked for available domains on https://wordpress.com/domains/add/penoff.wordpress.com I was only offered Premium plan with any available domain. So what domains does the Personal plan include? Let’s say I like penoff.me, which is currently available. Can I have it with Personal plan?
One more thing. Does the personal plan allow me to freely control my domain? I mean can I for example create sub-domains and use them with another site? Basically I am asking if I will have the same control as if I bough just a domain from another provider? -
Thanks for passing the objection to the sidebar ad placement along, gemmacevans.
When I first started on WP, ads were only occasionally put on the blog posts (never the blog’s sidebar) and now there are multiple ads on every single blog post. It looks awful, to say the least.
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You’re welcome @dandelionsalad!
@penoff please start a new thread for your Personal plan questions and tag it with modlook. We’ll be happy to answer those for you :) That way, we can keep this thread for ad questions.
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Thanks! I have already managed to find all the information I needed and decided to go for the Personal plan. Not just for the ads removal of course.
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Perfect! I’ll mark this resolved. Write to us via wordpress.com/help/contact/ for future needs.
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I resolved it for myself. I hope there will suitable solution for all the free blogs as well.
We can close this topic now.
Have a nice day, everyone!
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