... makes this site look cheap. Low class even.... i.e. just like all the other CLICK ME CLICK ME sites out there.

 

Not a fan, but there's a price to pay for everything...

 

Perhaps this thread should be moved to site feedback?


I am guessing that Mark is not struggling to pay his bills but money talks and despite the fact that not a single user wants these ads I would bet the amount of traffic this site gets nets a return that is hard to turn down.

 

I don't like it either but thats the price you pay for a free site.

 

The Google AdSense group contacted me last week and I'm trying some of their technology out to understand how it works. I tried to provide placements that wouldn't interrupt the normal flow of the site and use areas that were not being used for something already. The main reason I decided to try it is to see if there is a way I can provide other advertising options for vendors that, for one reason or the other, don't want to go with one of our other advertising programs. Based on what I learn over the next few weeks I'll see if its something I keep in the site or not.

Thanks for putting up with my experimentation

Mark

 

About what I figured. And yes its not replacing something else.

It is funny how though when I look at thread about exhaust how the ads change to reflect that

 

Yeah...this is something that the normal AdWords functions doesn't do. If it didn't reflect the content in the page I wouldn't have even considered it. When I was experimenting with doing a placement in the Gallery area you can only imagine what came up....hence why there is no placement there

Mark

 

Hmmmm I haven't seen any of the ads. Does that mean my firewall/pop-up blocker is doing it's job or I just haven't had the (mis)fortune of hitting the right page yet or has my mind become so numb to these things that I am totally blocking them out

 

It's not easy, but we do our best to tolerate you.


bamatt - they're over <--- there on the left.
If you can't see them, google isn't doing its job and earning that $500 stock price.

 

I use the Adblock extension for Firefox to nix the Google ads in most pages that use them, so I dont even see them here. NAM is one place where I wont block the sponsoring ads, since they are relevant, and I do business with these vendors. AdSense will often come up with annoyingly irrelevant ads when the context is not clear, sometimes bordering on being offensive IMO. My gmail exchanges involving personal family matters get peppered with inappropriate pitches. I know this is not the intent, but that's what happens. It can be comedic as well at times. In fact, I've done some exchanges who's purpose was to send AdSense into a tizzy. The same way that I would never respond to an unsolicited telemarketing pitch (other than to hang up) is the same reason I wont deal with merchants hawked in such advertising mechanisms. The true 'contextual ads' IMO are the ones placed by sponsors that work with the community. Those get my attention, and often, my business.

 

I understand that any business needs to explore new revenue streams, so it is worth a try.

However, I agree with all of the others that it brings the site down a notch and looks untidy. Not to mention that it sometimes offers stuff that doesn't seem exactly targeted to the membership. Yesterday at one point it was trying to sell me trees by mail order.

Somebody please tell me exactly how to make them disappear. I use firefox.

 

As GB said there are ways to block them. All I see is a small banner that says Google Ads, but there’s not an ad in sight.

I can live with the little banner.

 

Where is the banner or the ads showing up on the page? I don't see anything different at all. I am running Zone Alarm Security Suite on all my puters.

 

The ads are being shown in a custom NAM block on the lower left and bottom of the NAM home page. In the forums they show up just in the lower left column. They are also in the Review system at the bottom of the page.

 

Ok, I installed the adblock extension for firefox but I have no idea how to use it. I was able to make it show me some giant list of blockable elements, but that doesn't mean a darn thing to me. Can anyone tell me what to do in order to make those google ads disappear?

If they make some extra revenue for the site and I can make it so that I never have to see them, it will be a win-win situation.

Ok. I figured it out.

Here is how everyone else can block the ads.

1) go here and install the firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/10/

2) Under Firefox tools, click on adblock and then "list all blockable elements"

3) scroll through the list to find this: http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js

4) click on it and then hit the ok button.

5) Google Ads will now disappear and you'll only have a tiny box on the page saying google ads but it will be small and empty.

 

For those running adblock, click on the 'Adblock' status bar item to open it. Then scroll until you find a script with the text "http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js". Select this and click OK. Note that this will clobber Google ads in almost every page you visit that uses them, which to some people may or may not be a good thing. The same script title is used in countless web pages.

Some webmasters feel that you are robbing them of revenue that keeps their site going if you do this; the other side of the coin is how many actually do click up these contextual ads. I dont, and would rather give my business to those merchants who work directly with the site owners instead. These are vendors that take the extra steps to support the site directly and work with the site's audience. Contextual ads almost never reveal a merchant that has a 'direct' connection with the site's community. This is not always an issue, since there are tons of sites out there that basically have an open-ended advertising policy, in other words, it's luck of the draw. These tend not to be 'community' sites like this one, so no 'loss' there. NAM in my opinion has a cozy group of spectacular merchants that have worked with us for a long time and built up good reputations. I do my business with them.

 

I see em on my work puter, will have to check my others when I get home. I guess I didn't notice them because they are just words. I was looking for pictures

I will say that the box w/the picutre ads normally shown at the top of the page advertising the NAM vendors is now empty

 

I didn't want to do pictures since I think they are obnoxious as well. With words in the blocks they are more easily ignored if you aren't interested in them.

As for the normal NAM vendor ads they should be showing up since they are all hosted on the NAM server and have no relation to Google. Are you blocking images with your browser or using some other type of ad blocker?

Mark

 

The NAM vendor ads used to show up on all 3 of my puters until recently (all 3 have Zone Alarm). I have private header & 3rd party cookies blocked. Ads blocked are Banner/Scyscraper & pop-up/pop-under. Everything else is allowed. I dunno if any of those setting are blocking them but I know I used to see the vendor pic ads until recently. I haven't changed anything on Zone Alarm recently. I will say that some of my puters have done a few odd things since the IE7 upgrade was thrust upon me.

 

With Zone Alarm are you allowing cookies for NAM? If not, how are you staying logged into the site?

Do you see the banners in the Vendor Directory?

 

With the Adblock on firefox I only see the ads that are NOT hosted on NAM.

 

The google ads are pretty rediculous imho. They all relate to generic Mini stuff, auto generated based on the content of the NAM home page, which is the entire purpose of this forum... To visit NAM. I doubt anyone will find something relevant that they'd want to click on the google-ads based on how it's set up and what it's displaying.

Now if it displayed next to specific threads, and was able to pull info that people were actually discussing in threads, then that would be relevant. But also infinitely more annoying.

 

I allow session & persistent cookies just not 3rd party. I have never had any trouble staying logged in to NAM.

The only banner I see in the vendor directory is for GBMINI Circuits. Detroit Tuned & Stratmosphere has a white space where the banner should be. Everyone else has just words.

p.s...all this cookie talk & such, I feel like when I type the words I must come across like I know what they mean when I really don't understand much about any of it, I am just looking in my Zone Alarm settings & telling you what is there

 

If I want infor from Google (Right now I see a listing for a Motor Bike rental in Rome and prices for Honda cars) I'll go there and get it.

There is a danger here. I'm sure that the site generates more revenue for the placement than we get value from them. Damn, I forgot I really was looking for a new Suzuki! Eventally, if this keeps up, this will reduce to yet another shill site with significantly diluted value. This would not be good.

Each one of these items that's somewhat "off topic" to Mini enthusiasm is just another piece of crap that I have to wade through. More space on the page that isn't relevant content, making the square of text that I actually read smaller and smaller.

I vote no, against these things. If you want income from your site, do it with more direct methods (vendor fees and the store....). This provides me NO VALUE, and a DILUTION OF THE NAM EXPERIENCE.

Drop them like a hot potatoe...

Matt

 

I don't like them added to my user cp with the subscirbed threads.