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The images were being served through a PHP passthrough script at /media/$ID You would have no way of knowing if the image was an ad or part of the article cont

by Akujin 9y ago

The images were being served through a PHP passthrough script at /media/$ID You would have no way of knowing if the image was an ad or part of the article content since they were all served through the same thing. No silly subdomains like ad.domain.com either.

JoshTriplett 9y ago
> You would have no way of knowing if the image was an ad or part of the article content since they were all served through the same thing. No silly subdomains like ad.domain.com either. Still quite feasible to detect by size and styling.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Not if they mimic the size/styling of, say, images in the articles.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    If you make your ads look exactly like content, devaluing your actual content, then yes, you can mask ads more easily.
  - soared 9y ago
    That makes it a native ad and not a display ad, which can change the discussion quite a bit.
jlarocco 9y ago
That doesn't change anything, it just makes your site more annoying. I block "one off" ads like that every time I notice them. If I have to keep doing it then I just turn off images for the page. I wish web developers had more respect for their audience. If I say, "No ads," I really mean "No ads." Your site is not a special snowflake where I suddenly don't mind seeing advertisements.
- Akujin 9y ago
  I think you missed the part where I mentioned the content was targeted towards dentists and dental professionals. Our typical visitor would be a dentist in his 50s or 60s looking up some medical text. They generally had almost no technical expertise with the web or computers. Let alone ad blockers. I'm also not sure what you mean by "respect for their audience". If I put an ad on a website I didn't ask your opinion and frankly I don't care what you think. Unless you wanna pay my bills. If what you're saying is I should detect the existence of ad block and actually proactively stop writing the code for said ad into the website.....well... that's just silly.

by Akujin 9y ago

JoshTriplett 9y ago

> You would have no way of knowing if the image was an ad or part of the article content since they were all served through the same thing. No silly subdomains like ad.domain.com either. Still quite feasible to detect by size and styling.

ceejayoz 9y ago
Not if they mimic the size/styling of, say, images in the articles.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  If you make your ads look exactly like content, devaluing your actual content, then yes, you can mask ads more easily.
- soared 9y ago
  That makes it a native ad and not a display ad, which can change the discussion quite a bit.

jlarocco 9y ago

That doesn't change anything, it just makes your site more annoying. I block "one off" ads like that every time I notice them. If I have to keep doing it then I just turn off images for the page. I wish web developers had more respect for their audience. If I say, "No ads," I really mean "No ads." Your site is not a special snowflake where I suddenly don't mind seeing advertisements.

Akujin 9y ago
I think you missed the part where I mentioned the content was targeted towards dentists and dental professionals. Our typical visitor would be a dentist in his 50s or 60s looking up some medical text. They generally had almost no technical expertise with the web or computers. Let alone ad blockers. I'm also not sure what you mean by "respect for their audience". If I put an ad on a website I didn't ask your opinion and frankly I don't care what you think. Unless you wanna pay my bills. If what you're saying is I should detect the existence of ad block and actually proactively stop writing the code for said ad into the website.....well... that's just silly.