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Resolved Why am I getting Google ads?
- Thread starter T Bredehoft
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2011
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- 10,525
OK. I logged in as my $25 donor alter ego and find in the list of fora consistently only three ads. But when I open any longer thread, the number varied from 3 to 5 each time that I clicked the browser screen refresh button. So I reported it.
Note that the Admin who would probably be the one to look into this is away for the weekend so it may be next week before anyone checks into this.
However, one thing that you should go ahead and check is the expiration date on your donation. The system is supposed to warn you at about the 11th month but part of the Upgrade process is automatic and unless it has been revised, part of it is manual, meaning that an Admin has to do something to fully implement it every year after you repeat the donation. That probably has nothing to do with the problem but it is something that you could check while waiting.
Note that the Admin who would probably be the one to look into this is away for the weekend so it may be next week before anyone checks into this.
However, one thing that you should go ahead and check is the expiration date on your donation. The system is supposed to warn you at about the 11th month but part of the Upgrade process is automatic and unless it has been revised, part of it is manual, meaning that an Admin has to do something to fully implement it every year after you repeat the donation. That probably has nothing to do with the problem but it is something that you could check while waiting.
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Hi everyone. Thanks for reporting these issues. I just got back from a long weekend retreat and am getting my feet back under me. I'm not sure exactly what is going until I get some more facts.
There are a couple of things that have changed recently that may be affecting visibility on your profile:
1) Xenforo software update.
2) User Expiration Add-On update.
Both of these should have things working properly at this point for ads and membership privileges assuming you are up to date on your donation levels. However, there has been a little bugginess on the User Expiration Add-On Update for some members which is basically to say that they have had privileges revoked because they haven't upgraded their donation even though it looks like they have privileges on their profile. This has literally affected a handful (one hand) of people so I will be surprised if this has spread to this many people, but I'd like to rule it out first.
With that said, it may be something else going on as a result of #1 above that I haven't detected without your assistance.
There are three things I'd like to do so I can fully understand what is happening here:
1) I'm going to check membership dates for each of the people who reported in on this thread, I can do this behind the scenes on the admin panel,
2) I'd like to log into each of your accounts to see exactly what you are seeing for ads. Please respond to this thread with a "Allow" or "Not Allow" to give me permission to do so. If you allow it, you will receive a notice via private message from me telling you that I've accessed your account. My actions will be browsing the various forums to see exactly what ad positions you are seeing and how many depending on the forum type. This will help me track down where to look in the settings or in the templates used to place ads.
3) Clarify the permissions. $10 (Silver) donators will see ALL ads. $25 (Gold) donators will see 3 ads. Sorry Silver, I'm not sure what quantity of ads = ALL. And for Gold, I don't recall if 3 ads = 2 sponsor ads and 1 Google ad. So I will investigate this as well and report back here what I find.
Thanks for your patience. I work a full time job managing a manufacturing plant and this (along with raising the family) can put admin duties on the back burner for a few days. I may not be able to respond to a complicated matter like this for a few days so thanks again for reporting this and for being patient while I figure it out.
Bryan
There are a couple of things that have changed recently that may be affecting visibility on your profile:
1) Xenforo software update.
2) User Expiration Add-On update.
Both of these should have things working properly at this point for ads and membership privileges assuming you are up to date on your donation levels. However, there has been a little bugginess on the User Expiration Add-On Update for some members which is basically to say that they have had privileges revoked because they haven't upgraded their donation even though it looks like they have privileges on their profile. This has literally affected a handful (one hand) of people so I will be surprised if this has spread to this many people, but I'd like to rule it out first.
With that said, it may be something else going on as a result of #1 above that I haven't detected without your assistance.
There are three things I'd like to do so I can fully understand what is happening here:
1) I'm going to check membership dates for each of the people who reported in on this thread, I can do this behind the scenes on the admin panel,
2) I'd like to log into each of your accounts to see exactly what you are seeing for ads. Please respond to this thread with a "Allow" or "Not Allow" to give me permission to do so. If you allow it, you will receive a notice via private message from me telling you that I've accessed your account. My actions will be browsing the various forums to see exactly what ad positions you are seeing and how many depending on the forum type. This will help me track down where to look in the settings or in the templates used to place ads.
3) Clarify the permissions. $10 (Silver) donators will see ALL ads. $25 (Gold) donators will see 3 ads. Sorry Silver, I'm not sure what quantity of ads = ALL. And for Gold, I don't recall if 3 ads = 2 sponsor ads and 1 Google ad. So I will investigate this as well and report back here what I find.
Thanks for your patience. I work a full time job managing a manufacturing plant and this (along with raising the family) can put admin duties on the back burner for a few days. I may not be able to respond to a complicated matter like this for a few days so thanks again for reporting this and for being patient while I figure it out.
Bryan
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Morning everyone,
Thank you @Long Roof for allowing access to view your profile and see exactly what you are seeing.
One conclusion I've taken away from this: Gold Members are promised a reduction in ads by donating at the $25 level. That reduction is a maximum of three ads. Based on Robert's feedback and what I viewed from Steve's profile, it apppears that Gold donating members could reliably see up to five ads. A brief explanation:
There are three positions marked for Google Ads: Above Content, Embedded Content and Below Content. Think Header, Body, Footer.
The Embedded Content is limited to three positions in a forum thread. Header and Footer ads are in addition to the three. I'm going to work with Google Adsense and the template to determine exactly how those are placed and reduce the maximum number of ads in forum threads to three as promised on the donations page.
Gold Members should only be seeing maximum of three ads on forum lists. This is when you are browsing a forum looking for a thread. Those Google ads should be a Header Ad, a Footer Ad and on occasion a site sponsor ad from PlastiBlocks. Again, maxed at three ads as promised.
OK back to the forum thread ad limits. On occasion you may find yourself in a forum thread and the content is short, i.e. only a few responses to the OP, then it is likely you will see a Header Ad, one or two Embedded Ads and a Footer ad. So the number of the forum responses will allow Google Ads to place more ads between forum post replies but is limited to a maximum of three. Again, this does not include the header and footer ads and I will rectify this for Gold Members so the limit on any page you are visiting is max three ads.
A couple of responses to other comments on this thread:
We are not in control of the content that appears in a Google Ad. We are only in control of who we agree to sponsor the site and their ads are approved by admin/staff.
The content in your Google Ads is absolutely based on your web browsing history, cookies you accept, your demographics, etc. Your browser is sending info to Google and Google Adsense is placing ads from their adsense network to your browser based on your interests, likes, shopping history, etc. More on this in a moment.
There is little we can do to entirely prevent unwanted ads from offending individuals sensibilities. Well, that isn't entirely true. IF I could see the ad your are referring to and get the corresponding website it is promoting, it is possible to go into Google Adsense and block specific domains from buying ad space on H-M. I've had some experience with this on a website I used to operate and it isn't 100% reliable because advertisers are sort of middlemen to the products and services advertised, so blocking an advertiser may not actually prevent that content from finding another way into your browser. It really is based on your browser history. With that said, I'm not exactly excited about chasing down this info and splitting hairs over individual's preferences. Quite honestly, I would be spending most of my time tailoring the site to one person's interest only to have it change by the next complaint. There would be no satisfaction for anyone here.
This is hands down the best suggestion on this thread for H-M members that are wiling to install AdBlock. Thank you @Ulma Doctor for making this suggestion. Especially for Gold Members this will alleviate much of what you are noticing in this thread and would effectively tailor the site to your liking without waiting for me to do it for you and then wondering what changed when I inevitably revised the ads based on additional feedback from other members.
Two things:
1) there is an option for completely ad free and it is at the Platinum Donating level. I've personally done it for a few years now. Not everyone can do that and that is why ad-block is a very practical alternative here. For those that aren't willing to donate, we do absolutely rely on Google Adsense to cover costs of hosting and maintaining the site so we have tried our best to strike a balance here.
2) while viewing the page under @Long Roof profile as a Gold Member, I noticed that the embedded thread ads were major reading disruptions and recalled my early days on H-M as a non-donating member of being annoyed with those in the middle of the thread as well. With that said, I think most people can probably tolerate the header ad, footer ad and sponsor ad/one embedded thread ad in a thread.
Conclusion: I will revise the maximum number of placements for Gold Level Donating Members so that the maximum number of ads is three as our promise to those members. I have some work to do on this and it requires a brief review of the ad placements, which ads are actually generating revenue for the site and where the ads will best be placed while continuing to enhance the user experience. Right now, I'm thinking that a header ad, a footer ad and one embedded ad is appropriate to make good on the Gold Level promise of limiting ads to three per page. But I will report back on what I come up with a little later this week.
Thank you @Long Roof for allowing access to view your profile and see exactly what you are seeing.
One conclusion I've taken away from this: Gold Members are promised a reduction in ads by donating at the $25 level. That reduction is a maximum of three ads. Based on Robert's feedback and what I viewed from Steve's profile, it apppears that Gold donating members could reliably see up to five ads. A brief explanation:
There are three positions marked for Google Ads: Above Content, Embedded Content and Below Content. Think Header, Body, Footer.
The Embedded Content is limited to three positions in a forum thread. Header and Footer ads are in addition to the three. I'm going to work with Google Adsense and the template to determine exactly how those are placed and reduce the maximum number of ads in forum threads to three as promised on the donations page.
Gold Members should only be seeing maximum of three ads on forum lists. This is when you are browsing a forum looking for a thread. Those Google ads should be a Header Ad, a Footer Ad and on occasion a site sponsor ad from PlastiBlocks. Again, maxed at three ads as promised.
OK back to the forum thread ad limits. On occasion you may find yourself in a forum thread and the content is short, i.e. only a few responses to the OP, then it is likely you will see a Header Ad, one or two Embedded Ads and a Footer ad. So the number of the forum responses will allow Google Ads to place more ads between forum post replies but is limited to a maximum of three. Again, this does not include the header and footer ads and I will rectify this for Gold Members so the limit on any page you are visiting is max three ads.
A couple of responses to other comments on this thread:
We are not in control of the content that appears in a Google Ad. We are only in control of who we agree to sponsor the site and their ads are approved by admin/staff.
The content in your Google Ads is absolutely based on your web browsing history, cookies you accept, your demographics, etc. Your browser is sending info to Google and Google Adsense is placing ads from their adsense network to your browser based on your interests, likes, shopping history, etc. More on this in a moment.
There is little we can do to entirely prevent unwanted ads from offending individuals sensibilities. Well, that isn't entirely true. IF I could see the ad your are referring to and get the corresponding website it is promoting, it is possible to go into Google Adsense and block specific domains from buying ad space on H-M. I've had some experience with this on a website I used to operate and it isn't 100% reliable because advertisers are sort of middlemen to the products and services advertised, so blocking an advertiser may not actually prevent that content from finding another way into your browser. It really is based on your browser history. With that said, I'm not exactly excited about chasing down this info and splitting hairs over individual's preferences. Quite honestly, I would be spending most of my time tailoring the site to one person's interest only to have it change by the next complaint. There would be no satisfaction for anyone here.
you can use an ad blocker ( i do)
AdBlock can be added to google chrome and other platforms
here is a link
AdBlock
AdBlock is a user-supported browser extension that lets you surf the web ad-free.getadblock.com
i don't see any annoying ads on HM after i installed AdBlock
This is hands down the best suggestion on this thread for H-M members that are wiling to install AdBlock. Thank you @Ulma Doctor for making this suggestion. Especially for Gold Members this will alleviate much of what you are noticing in this thread and would effectively tailor the site to your liking without waiting for me to do it for you and then wondering what changed when I inevitably revised the ads based on additional feedback from other members.
Two things:
1) there is an option for completely ad free and it is at the Platinum Donating level. I've personally done it for a few years now. Not everyone can do that and that is why ad-block is a very practical alternative here. For those that aren't willing to donate, we do absolutely rely on Google Adsense to cover costs of hosting and maintaining the site so we have tried our best to strike a balance here.
2) while viewing the page under @Long Roof profile as a Gold Member, I noticed that the embedded thread ads were major reading disruptions and recalled my early days on H-M as a non-donating member of being annoyed with those in the middle of the thread as well. With that said, I think most people can probably tolerate the header ad, footer ad and sponsor ad/one embedded thread ad in a thread.
Conclusion: I will revise the maximum number of placements for Gold Level Donating Members so that the maximum number of ads is three as our promise to those members. I have some work to do on this and it requires a brief review of the ad placements, which ads are actually generating revenue for the site and where the ads will best be placed while continuing to enhance the user experience. Right now, I'm thinking that a header ad, a footer ad and one embedded ad is appropriate to make good on the Gold Level promise of limiting ads to three per page. But I will report back on what I come up with a little later this week.
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- Joined
- Aug 8, 2016
- Messages
- 438
I have this to say about pop up adds. I receive none, not because i even knew about it but last time i renewed i went with platinum. Not an easy task for someone on a fixed income (SS) but i changed my priorities from buying a scratch ticket every week to investing my money here. I say investment because i can learn so much more here than that dollar a week ticket can bring me. I was not trying to get rid of the adds but was thinking more like helping take up a little slack for whatever portion of our members can't /don't donate for whatever reason. I'm not calling anyone out here, I know what it's like to be in that situation.
Thanks HM. and thanks for the help Bryan.
Thanks HM. and thanks for the help Bryan.
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