Forum and Adverts

[taswegian]

A poster made a comment about the incursion of advertisements on this site and Wildwalks suggested a new topic, hence this.
I personally don't let them interfere but would prefer without.
I remember a while back when the Tarkine topic was in full swing and the add across the top was about recruitment for miners! How coincidental?

If there's a way to do without I guess I'd say lets go for it, but I gather someone gets some revenue from them. Wildwalks - does he get revenue to help run this site?
I would imagine something costs to host and run Bushwalk.com

I remember another ad that shot across the scene was for Asian ladies.
Now I can legitimately say that I don't Google or whatever it takes to get someones attention so if it's related to my viewing then not sure why.

But shock horrors. Wife away and I loaded up the washing machine with all manner of stuff and when emptied came across couple things that look like headlight covers. Mm - bras come adrift or something?
Well blow me but the next time I look on this site and across the top is a Berlie Bra ad! Now I do know I hadn't been looking them up to see how to put things back together before the wife gets back!

So maybe we do need to rid us of the wretched things?

[Strider]

Adblock Plus?

[perfectlydark]

Ads dont bother me, they seem pretty non intrusive. On another topic I suggested donations, another forum I belong to runs off them

[neilmny]

Adblock Plus?

Yep.

[wildwalks]

If there's a way to do without I guess I'd say lets go for it, but I gather someone gets some revenue from them. Wildwalks - does he get revenue to help run this site?
I would imagine something costs to host and run Bushwalk.com

Thanks for raising the discussion -- happy to hear peoples thought, suggestions and ideas on this.
Some info. Bushwalk.com gets around 2000-2500 unique visitors each day. The website is hosted in AU (mostly to make it more responsive, it was once hosted in the US). The website runs on a specific server (not a shared hosting system). It costs around $100 a month in hosting fees. People often suggest the site could run on a $10 a month system - this is technically true but it would be much slower, and would suffer from many outages and take much more time to maintain. There are other direct costs in maintenance, mostly in code fixes and updates. (EG we have a new Q&A section of the website I plan to launch soon). The emag is also a cost at this stage with Eva the designer been paid for her time and effort (not yet paid for advertising in the emag itself - yet). There is also small revenue from the online store. Bushwalk.com runs at a loss and paid for by wildwalks.com, but it is not a huge loss so I am not worried about it, my goal is to get it to a point where it is financially self sufficient.. Cost vary greatly depending on projects and fixes required. I will look into the revenue more from advertising - it comes from different sources. I suspect the revenue from logged in members is not very significant, most of the site visitors are not logged in.

I hope that helps. Please keep the conversation going - interested to see ideas and how much people are worried about the advertising.

Matt

[north-north-west]

Mostly I don't even notice the ads - one at the top, one at the bottom, but easy to ignore.
Naturally I'd prefer the site without, but it has to be paid for somehow and a couple of unobtrusive ads is the easiest way.

I don't have a problem as is; wouldn't like them to be any more obvious, though.

[Nuts]

Adwords are simple, limited scale, adverts linked to searches you do ie. of google.
Adchoices (here) is a similar, less confined, marketing tool.. though the choice is made to follow your potential customers around after they have done the initial search or where they may hide. The advertiser pays by bidding for the position and frequency of their adds.

[Zone-5]

TACO and Adblock Plus...

[icefest]

I suspect the revenue from logged in members is not very significant, most of the site visitors are not logged in.

Wow. What's the percentages of logged in users?

[wildwalks]

Wow. What's the percentages of logged in users?

Hi Icefest - not sure guess about 20%.
Regular visitors are also likely to become blind to ads and are much less likely to click on them.

Matt

[Picaro]

I'm pretty much inoculated to ads these days.

I find this site good compared to some from across the Pacific, where every other thread is started to spruike the latest whizzbang to the newbies.

I would be just as happy to do a voluntary membership/contribution/whatever, with or without value added if folk preferred that to ads. (Keep the ads until contributions can cover it???)

[maddog]

Relying on patrons to support a 'community' is preferable to depending on advertisements. Commercials are crass. Over time they will erode independence and invite bias.

Cheers.

[Nuts]

Nah, they cater for all tastes:

Screen Shot 2014-02-20 at 6.50.47 PM.png

[walkon]

The ads here dont worry me.

Nuts is that ad a result of your previous searches

[FatCanyoner]

To be honest, I'm completely oblivious to the ads on bushwalk.com. They are much more discrete than on a lot of other sites, and they're easy to zone out. They certainly don't interrupt the flow of the page or get in the way of the forum (you'll find some online forums have adds appear mid-way down, between posts, which is much more intrusive).

People always talk about preferring to financially contribute, rather than relying on ads, but I'm yet to see that model succeed. It creates a barrier to entry for new participants, possibly restricts keen people less able to pay, and relies on (what I would argue is far more intrusive) appeals for donations etc every time the money runs low.

Forums like this are time consuming and expensive to run. While the rest of us can come and go as we please, the owner has to be ready to respond to any outages or problems at all times, not to mention managing the constant upgrades / maintenance to generally keep the user experience good. If think few discrete ads are too big a price to pay for all that hard work, there's something a bit wrong with you in my books.

This forum has grown to become a really useful resource, and I'm sure one that has encourage many people into the bush (or further in than they would otherwise have gone). I think that's a credit to the past and present owners.

[Picaro]

A quick related question....does the owner get better returns if we use the links? I do occasionally, but would be more inclined to if it is a benefit for the site.

[Nuts]

Nuts is that ad a result of your previous searches

Wellll, for the benefit of the tape.. no.. Here's how it happened..:
I went to a link for a stove someone gave, to that site. Soon enough I was spammed with a banner add and changeable product images. Along comes a fake dog poo.. and yes, I'm guilty, I had to take a look Now I'm being spammed with other kids toys I guess

[icefest]

kids toys I guess

[wildwalks]

Hey

Nuts - yes I would not be excited about that ad either. I assume you were not logged in at the time. When logged in the ad should only be bushwalking specific ads at this stage. When you are logged out - I just leave it up to Google to decide what ads to show - they have a complex system to display ads.

also

A quick related question....does the owner get better returns if we use the links? I do occasionally, but would be more inclined to if it is a benefit for the site.

yes for most ads I only get money if someone clicks on the ads. But please only click on ads that are of actual interest to you. Although I get money, the business has to pay - so it is not fair to them unless you are actually interested to find out more. Also if I get too many people click on ads - then Google will think something dodgy is going on and end up not paying for any of the clicks.

thanks

matt