

Ask HN: Do site ads affect perception of content quality? - rkalla

Exasperated question time.<p>I have the unfortunately ability to choose poor names for my web properties, so my current site sounds like some sort of SEO/garbage site (it is a tech site). I also have a standard layout of adsense leaderboard/sidebar ad on my WordPress site to monetize it a bit and help pay for hosting.<p>Total traffic is 920k pageviews a month (cool) but I notice I can never get traction, no matter how serious the story, on social news sites of any kind. I &#60;i&#62;think&#60;/i&#62; this is either due to the name or the ad layout making the site look "spammy" so the 2-second gut reaction from a reader when they click over is "shenanigans!" and then they leave.<p>NOTE: I'm not using any hyper-aggressive techniques that make you want to kill the admin; like text-linking or the 300px story header ads that push the actual content down beyond the fold.<p>What I'm curious about is if YOU guys are effected by this, or if you are blind to ads and just read the content. (I am fairly biased when I visit a site that looks like it's shoving ads in my face, regardless of content - but I am too close to this to know if it's the issue).<p>This was all spurred by me clicking on a story that was submitted here to HN, going over to the site and immediately thinking "bullshit" when I saw leader/sidebar and banner ads all over... I didn't even read the content, I just got annoyed and closed it.<p>And it dawned on me that I might be doing this to my readers so I thought I would ask.
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Loginid
I am largely ad blind. I only notice them when they are annoying, and when I
do notice annoying ads I generally leave the site.

It is hard to comment on your situation without a link to evaluate. I would
suggest that if you are thinking this way, you probably already know what the
answer is.

Perhaps some A/B testing is in order to tailor your site to your audience.

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rkalla
That is true, I have wondered for a while what the reason was.

I'll look into see if there is some easy WP plugin I can get for A/B testing
two different layouts. That is a good suggestion.

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sagacity
Quite a few available here - take your pick and all the best. :-)

<http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/ab-testing>

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rkalla
Thanks sagacity!

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kongqiu
Definitely makes a difference for me...

John Gruber has made the point over and over that "Ads are content" (link:
<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/17/ads-mule>)

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rkalla
Great link. I only recently started using the "filter" option in Adsense to
get rid of the more annoying ads... frustratingly enough I am not suppose to
click my own ads (Adsense - only done it once though), but how else am I going
to figure out what domains to block.

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jmount
I would say 920,000 page views a month is a huge number, in fact more traffic
than you would get from a few big hits on social networking sites. The traffic
must be coming from somewhere- so you must be doing something right.

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rkalla
jmount, a good majority of it is from one-off posts that I find entertaining
and socialize well on FB and SU, but aren't really representative of what I
want the site to be about.

For the stories that I do spend a good amount of time on that are serious,
they seem to die... like I'm screaming into an empty room and waiting for
feedback.

And yes, I'm absolutely in denial that I might just not be interesting to read
:)

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Jsarokin
It could be the placement or it could be the ad type.

If you're looking for a more user friendly type ad, shoot me a message, I have
something you would be interested in.

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worldtize
I'm currently working on launching 2 huge networks that profit mainly from
advertising. The more interaction and innovative service offered to the user
in return for them being subjected to the ad all depends on the grand scheme
of the situation. If your site if providing content to read and your ads are
not floating over the words or constantly popping up during the scroll, but
they designated to a specific area and actually stay there, the user must
understand those ads allow the content to be available.

Personally I'm blind to the ads, that's why my networks are designed to make
sure you see and appreciate the ad being there because of how amazing the
networks are, especially being free to the user.

The future of online advertisers lies in knowing specific interests of each
internet user, creating an approval process to only allow the most creative
and entertaining displays, and concentrating these ads into portals created
for them to shine properly, not wasted at the top of a page that will be
scrolled down almost immediately upon arrival.

The internet is to big and has to many offering to really cash in on this
concept, that why the richest man in the World has yet to surface. A
controlled network being used while consumers are in motion of spending money
holds key to the biggest fortune man has ever seen.....coming soon, to town
near you - GTV

