More ads than normal
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supernovia Today’s screenshot from https://taurangaorchids.wordpress.com/ at 11:58. As well as the frequency and size of the ads, some thought needs to be given to their composition. This one looks like something I might have added to the site – man up ladder staring at roof. Weird. And it is cheapening the look of the site. Thanks for your help.
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I’m having the same issue and I’m using a relatively new theme. When you land on the site nearly half the screen is ads and then more ads between paragraphs in the text and sometimes pop-up ads as well. It’s counterproductive because people are put off visiting the site so they won’t see the ads regardless
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Here’s an example of pop-up ad appearing when I navigate off the public face of the site to “My Home”. Not had ads behaving like that before.
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Thank you both! We’ve forwarded the feedback and the screenshots to the team working on ads.
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Thanks for starting this discussion.
I am having the same problem with http://www.apopfansdream.wordpress.com
Very intrusive and excessive number of ads. So much so that readers have emailed me to complain. Affects laptop and mobile viewing.
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@supernovia this is another example of the kind of ad I hate the most and cannot get rid of ( https://notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/turning-the-tide/ ) and as you requested, a screenshot of the page you get to when you click on the i. These ads do not even seem to be advertising anything – you just get through to pages and pages of privacy policy. They are intrusive celebrity click bait with no purpose and I strongly object to them.
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@themusingmeow No, I forego extensions in my usual browser (Firefox) so I can help track site issues, but FF does have some built in blockers, as does Brave. which I’m currently using. I avoid Chrome entirely and according to W3Schools statistics, it’s the most popular web browser.
@supernovia being logged out and changing browsers to MSEdge (latest) changed the experience for the worse (big time!).
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@walterpascoli the outbrain “sponsored content” ads were introduced last year (2022) on ad-supported sites. There’s a previous forum thread with Staff reply here.
And I entirely agree with your sentiment, “If our free sites are no longer visited (because of too many ads), everyone will lose!”
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Hi @staff-heroponriki I’m grateful that this problem keeps being referred to the ad team but a bit disappointed that no-one has answered my question. Why can’t they revert to the original format? Battle strategy game adverts covering a war grave post really isn’t acceptable and this advert makes the home page unreadable. Is anything likely to be done to improve it or do we all need to be looking elsewhere? Thanks very much.
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Hi @wardsendnews, thanks for the screenshots. They will keep iterating, and any updates may be slow, but I would not expect a reversal. I also expect most other free platforms out there will have lots of ads and/or other ways of monetizing: costs have generally gone up while ads payouts have generally gone down.
Since WordPress is open-source software, you could export your site, then buy your own hosting and any other services you need to run your own DIY installation. We take care of spam filtering, maintenance, and security, for example, as well as direct support for our paid plans. Speaking frankly, I believe you would be hard-pressed to find all of that service at a yearly cost less than our Personal Plan. I’m not saying that because I work here; it’s one of the reasons why I work here.
That said, if you ran your own WordPress installation, you would get more flexibility since you’d be able to modify the code with plugins. It’s more responsibility, so there’s a time cost if you don’t hire out maintenance, as well as a learning curve. We have more info on that here.
If I were in your shoes, I would probably feel pretty frustrated, too; sorry for that. Here’s what I would do anyway if your team would approve it:
- Upgrade to Personal to get rid of ads
- Add a donation or tips option to the site (the Personal plan includes this) to help cover the costs of the upgrade. Or if you get plenty of traffic, you could upgrade to Premium instead and add your own ads, with a bit more control over placement. You can compare options here.
- Add a custom domain so that if you do decide to change services at some point, you’ll have the same address no matter what. Adding that now would give search engines time to recognize your site at an address that’s yours even if you leave our services. Noting if you did decide to leave our services right away, though, there is a redirect upgrade you can buy to address that. It’s $13/year and I’d keep it til people aren’t visiting the old address.
- If you do decide to host your own copy of WordPress, at a minimum, please be sure to keep it updated regularly, and keep backups that you know how to restore.
I hope that helps.
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@justjennifer ahhhh that makes sense. I guess this thread makes more sense to you too now!
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@notthenewsinbriefs oh interesting. Is that what you’re getting when you click through the small blue icon in the upper right of the ad?
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@renkuleader, thanks; yeah I agree there are some questionably designed graphics out there. The design of the ads is all from the advertisers themselves.
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While it’s not updating every week (and breaking stuff left and right), Blogspot is still fully functioning without ads. NOT ONE SINGLE AD.
Jus’ sayin’….
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Hi @supernovia thank you for your prompt and comprehensive reply. While it’s disappointing that WordPress will probably not return to the previous format you have given me, and I suspect others, plenty to think about. Unless I missed it I don’t recall a warning that that this was going to happen and there feels like there’s an element of ‘this is how bad it will be if you don’t pay us. What I particularly object to is the dominating, indiscriminate and sometimes inappropriate and disrespectful nature and placement of the advertisements. I realise this isn’t your fault and you have been extremely helpful but I do think WordPress needs to know this isn’t a good look and may have permanently tarnished their reputation for being the “go to’ host. for individuals and small groups like ours. Thanks again.
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I agree with @wardsendnews – I think the WordPress brand feels tarnished by this. You have been helpful @supernovia but if my blog continues to look cheap and nasty I won’t be able to continue using it and my trust in WordPress will be damaged. The way this has been forced on us is not helpful at all, I would like some assurance that all the complaints here will be taken seriously and the worst changes will be reconsidered.
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