New ads?

Install uBlock Origin for Chrome/Firefox on desktop/laptop.

Install Brave for iOS
Install Firefox on Android and install uBlock Origin.

You'll forget the internet has ads in about a week.
 
George_Apley said:
Lmao. Targeted, data? 😅
Click to expand...

LOL like I said, the ads a site serves reflects the quality of the site in the ad networks' eyes. Top brands don't spend on low-quality inventory.

Trimmers for your junk ads? AB is at the bottom of the inventory waterfall. And now that the ad formats are so fucking annoying, the bounce and drop rates will skyrocket (especially for first time visitors), further reducing the site's quality / value to Google. It's a downward spiral to bottom-of-the-barrel status.

@SkyriseCities, I've done this professionally for almost two decades on behalf of the largest advertisers on the planet. This is a stupid move that will lower your CPM ceiling. Or whatever metric you're trading on. You're breaking a bunch of Google's Publisher Guidelines around ad densities and 1st fold prominence. And your bid requests aren't running in parallel. With the number of ad units per page as high as you have it, that's a lot of lost load time to bottlenecked DSP calls. It's crapping up the mobile experience significantly. Which is lowering your QS. Which is lowering your publisher tier AND your EAT score. Which is lowering your CPM AND reducing your natural search competitiveness.

What are you doing?
 
meddlepal said:
Install Firefox on Android and install uBlock Origin.
Click to expand...
Didn't realize Firefox on Android had add-ons, I thought I just had to accept mobile browsing as terrible everywhere - thanks!

I think It's been said already, but my first thought when visiting was the site was hit with an ad injection attack (I used to manage hosting and had to deal with that every so often). The ads seem a little too legit for that, but I'm holding out hope this wasn't an intentional decision.

A clickbait news site can get away with shitloads of ads because they don't need users to come back; that's not how a forum works at all.
 
Andrew said:
A clickbait news site can get away with shitloads of ads because they don't need users to come back; that's not how a forum works at all.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Killing the usability of a user-based platform is not the way to squeeze revenue out of a platform.
 
Not to beat a dead horse, but WOW this is annoying....and makes the site look budget. I found AB 16 years ago, and visit multiple times a day, occasionally posting, but mostly just lurking, enjoying the last decade and a half of all things Boston development. These new ads in threads just killed the experience for me. I get needing to pay bills. Many have offered to donate, including myself, numerous times. If this is how AB is going to look moving forward, I will visit far less. Great job @SkyriseCities. Ads are useless when they cause traffic to be drastically reduced.
 
Last edited:
ADMINS,

Honest question--how can we get rid of the ads? How much does it cost to keep the site running ad-free? I'll pay--subscription, donation, or whatever.

The ads are fucking disgusting, offensive, and a genuine website ruiner for us. I'm not going to switch from my browser of choice (Chrome on desktop, Safari on phone) to an alternative browser because literally one website I enjoy immensely sold out. This feels like the digital equivalent of tearing down Penn Station to build MSG. Not. Cool.
 
If anyone has the wherewithal to launch a new forum with the same overall mission and overall functionality *WITHOUT* all these new ads, i'd happily contribute time, effort, and even $ to make it happen. Unfortunately, beyond knowing how to post to pre-existing sites via Wordpress or Joomla I don't have any eve vaguely relevent skill-sets, or I'd offer to host/design the thing myself.
 
For what it's worth, I'm not seeing the ads right now. Didn't get the pop-up, and the in-thread ads are also gone. The usual banner ads are still there, which I'm totally fine with. Hopefully it's not just luck, but an active re-configuration by @SkyriseCities to address the issue.
 
HenryAlan said:
For what it's worth, I'm not seeing the ads right now. Didn't get the pop-up, and the in-thread ads are also gone. The usual banner ads are still there, which I'm totally fine with. Hopefully it's not just luck, but an active re-configuration by @SkyriseCities to address the issue.
Click to expand...


Still showing up for me. I do think it’s worth seriously considering a move now because if Edward’s gone to this extreme to further monetize the site I would imagine it’s not meeting whatever his expectations were and that the site may disappear in the not too distant future without any warning(since it seems he couldn’t even be bothered to give the mods a heads up on this).

How much would it cost to get something up and running and sustain annually?
 
I'm still getting full-screen pop-ups with their close boxes formatted off screen, meaning I cannot click through. The site is unusable for me on my iPad in Safari.

I'm all for a subscription-based, ad-free alternative. I can help with optimizing the site for performance and for search once it's up. It's a shame a community built over the past nearly 20 years is getting flushed down the toilet by a remote owner with no connections to the community.
 
Today is day 3 no response from the admin the more things change the more they stay the same.

I was optimistic when Briv sold the site now I 100% agree with the need for a new community run site by someone that cares and I’m willing to contribute financially to make it happen. skylinecities if you want to sell pm me (or any other trusted member that wants to take the lead on this)
 
Last edited:
It would be nice if he did what Briv didn't do and sell it to be community run, but how could that work? Would he even sell it? It can't be a money maker
 
Logged and this AM and see no ads now. Was our collective feedback listened to?
 
Cojapo said:
Logged and this AM and see no ads now. Was our collective feedback listened to?
Click to expand...
im still getting the huge popups, mid-stream adds, and top banners crowding out the page.

didn't someone make a mirror of the site back when we were worried Briv had abandoned us and the forum could disappear any moment?
 
Cojapo said:
Logged and this AM and see no ads now. Was our collective feedback listened to?
Click to expand...
That happened to me yesterday, but today they are back for me. You may find they popup again for you next time around.
 
I just checked on my mobile browser and everything looks back to normal. Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top