Forum and Adverts

Discussion about this site, including these forums (eg, suggestions, comments, queries). Topics may be manually deleted occasionally (eg, after suggestions dealt with, or changes bedded in).

Forum and Adverts

Postby taswegian » Sat 25 Jan, 2014 8:07 pm

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! :oops:

So maybe we do need to rid us of the wretched things?
User avatar
taswegian
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
 
Posts: 888
Joined: Tue 27 Jul, 2010 8:34 pm
Region: Tasmania
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Strider » Sat 25 Jan, 2014 8:44 pm

Adblock Plus?
User avatar
Strider
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 6030
Joined: Mon 07 Nov, 2011 6:55 pm
Location: Point Cook
Region: Victoria
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby perfectlydark » Sun 26 Jan, 2014 6:01 am

Ads dont bother me, they seem pretty non intrusive. On another topic I suggested donations, another forum I belong to runs off them
perfectlydark
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
 
Posts: 950
Joined: Tue 04 Jun, 2013 6:13 pm
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby neilmny » Sun 26 Jan, 2014 7:44 am

Strider wrote:Adblock Plus?


Yep.
User avatar
neilmny
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 2604
Joined: Fri 03 Aug, 2012 11:19 am
Region: Victoria
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby wildwalks » Sun 26 Jan, 2014 7:48 am

taswegian wrote: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 :)
wildwalks
Magnus administratio
Magnus administratio
 
Posts: 946
Joined: Mon 22 Nov, 2010 4:35 pm
ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS: Wildwalks, Bushwalk.com & NPA NSW
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby north-north-west » Sun 26 Jan, 2014 7:22 pm

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.
"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."
User avatar
north-north-west
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 15069
Joined: Thu 14 May, 2009 7:36 pm
Location: The Asylum
ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS: Social Misfits Anonymous
Region: Tasmania

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Nuts » Fri 31 Jan, 2014 11:24 am

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.
User avatar
Nuts
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 8632
Joined: Sat 05 Apr, 2008 12:22 pm
Region: Tasmania

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Zone-5 » Mon 10 Mar, 2014 1:06 am

TACO and Adblock Plus...
... moved to another forum @ 10/10/2015
User avatar
Zone-5
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
 
Posts: 760
Joined: Sat 04 Jan, 2014 5:45 pm
Region: Australia

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby icefest » Mon 10 Mar, 2014 11:57 am

wildwalks wrote: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?
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful.
User avatar
icefest
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 4475
Joined: Fri 27 May, 2011 11:19 pm
Location: www.canyoninginvictoria.org
Region: Victoria

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby wildwalks » Thu 13 Mar, 2014 4:16 pm

icefest wrote: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 :)
wildwalks
Magnus administratio
Magnus administratio
 
Posts: 946
Joined: Mon 22 Nov, 2010 4:35 pm
ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS: Wildwalks, Bushwalk.com & NPA NSW
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Picaro » Fri 14 Mar, 2014 9:10 am

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???)
User avatar
Picaro
Athrotaxis cupressoides
Athrotaxis cupressoides
 
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu 25 Oct, 2012 5:35 am
Location: Tamborine Mountain
Region: Queensland
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby maddog » Sat 15 Mar, 2014 8:36 am

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.
maddog
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
 
Posts: 652
Joined: Sun 07 Nov, 2010 4:10 pm
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Nuts » Sat 15 Mar, 2014 8:46 am

Nah, they cater for all tastes:

Screen Shot 2014-02-20 at 6.50.47 PM.png
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
User avatar
Nuts
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 8632
Joined: Sat 05 Apr, 2008 12:22 pm
Region: Tasmania

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby walkon » Sat 15 Mar, 2014 9:25 pm

The ads here dont worry me.

Nuts is that ad a result of your previous searches :D :x
Cheers Walkon

"I live in a very small house, but my windows look out on a very large world."
User avatar
walkon
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
Phyllocladus aspleniifolius
 
Posts: 803
Joined: Sun 24 Nov, 2013 7:03 am
Region: Victoria
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby FatCanyoner » Sun 16 Mar, 2014 8:27 am

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.
User avatar
FatCanyoner
Athrotaxis selaginoides
Athrotaxis selaginoides
 
Posts: 1048
Joined: Fri 12 Aug, 2011 7:45 pm
Location: Blue Mountains
ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS: www.FatCanyoners.org www.CanyonGear.com.au
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Picaro » Sun 16 Mar, 2014 9:43 am

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.
User avatar
Picaro
Athrotaxis cupressoides
Athrotaxis cupressoides
 
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu 25 Oct, 2012 5:35 am
Location: Tamborine Mountain
Region: Queensland
Gender: Male

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby Nuts » Sun 16 Mar, 2014 1:39 pm

walkon wrote: Nuts is that ad a result of your previous searches :D :x


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 :roll: Now I'm being spammed with other kids toys I guess :oops:
User avatar
Nuts
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 8632
Joined: Sat 05 Apr, 2008 12:22 pm
Region: Tasmania

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby icefest » Mon 17 Mar, 2014 10:51 am

Nuts wrote:kids toys I guess :oops:

:wink:
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful.
User avatar
icefest
Lagarostrobos franklinii
Lagarostrobos franklinii
 
Posts: 4475
Joined: Fri 27 May, 2011 11:19 pm
Location: www.canyoninginvictoria.org
Region: Victoria

Re: Forum and Adverts

Postby wildwalks » Tue 18 Mar, 2014 4:57 pm

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

Picaro wrote: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 :)
wildwalks
Magnus administratio
Magnus administratio
 
Posts: 946
Joined: Mon 22 Nov, 2010 4:35 pm
ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS: Wildwalks, Bushwalk.com & NPA NSW
Region: New South Wales
Gender: Male


Return to Forum & Site

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests