EasyList Blocks Me: Yet Another AdBlock Rant

Aug 23, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Featured, Monetization 15 Comments

In the past 30 days, this blog pulled in about 37,000 pageviews. While that’s not an astronomical figure, it’s more than the 30 days before. This blog is slowly, but steadily, growing.

To my dismay, my ad impressions are lower than ever. Only fifteen thousand in the last 30 days. That’s down from 20,000…which is down from 25,000. (A few months ago, the ads were getting over 30,000 impressions!) It seems that my ad impressions are decreasing at a rate that’s far faster than the rate that my traffic increases.

Before I do much complaining, lets get a few facts straight:

  • My ads are served by the wonderful BuySellAds marketplace.
  • As per BuySellAds’ regulations, I don’t run any Flash-based ads. That means no sound, no video, no annoying salesmen dancing across the text you’re trying to read.
  • The ads are six small squares, sized 125×125 pixels, in the right-hand sidebar.
  • I set my own pricing. This means I can charge what I think is fair to both the advertiser and myself, instead of being stuck with pennies. I had been charging $30 for a thirty day period, which at one time had meant upwards of 30,000 impressions.
  • I manually approve the ads before they are shown here.
  • The ads pay for hosting and domain expenses, as well as the hours I put into writing. It’s no picnic pushing 6-7 posts out each week; a constant struggle to meet the daily deadlines without being reduced to releasing subpar-quality content.

Obviously I was not happy when I discovered that only one of my ad spots was still filled, the others having vacated earlier in the day as advertisers checked on their investments and took care of their ad bookings for the next month.

You see, advertisers will only pay for what they see to be a good investment, which is figured with a ratio between the cost and the number of times a banner ad is viewed. $50 for, say, 100,000 ad impressions would be considered a very good deal, as it works out to be about $0.50 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Now if a website charged the same $50 for only 25,000 impressions, that would work out to be $2 CPM. If you could get more eyeballs for the same amount of money, why would you go with the lower-traffic site?

These aren’t Pay-Per-Click ads (like Google’s) we’re talking about here. The advertisers don’t care too much if their ads get clicked. They’re more worried about them being seen. If the ad views go down, I get a lot less money. Period. I can either cut my rates, and make less money, or not be able to book the ad spots at all, and make less money.

What happened to the impressions? I’m pretty sure it’s a result of AdBlock. I’ve, for awhile, used Thaya Kareeson’s excellent BuySellAds WordPress plugin to prevent my ads from being blocked by the EasyList filter, which had included a line that would block content from s3.buysellads.com. That meant that my ad impressions were nearly in line with my pageviews. Guess what happened. I found this little gem in the EasyList filter:

webmaster-source.com##.adblock

They added a line in to block ads on this website specifically. Here I had been thinking they were just blocking BuySellAds’ ad HTML at the DOM level instead of just blocking the script server, but no, they went and made it personal. Anything with a class of .adblock (which includes ads generated by BuySellAds) is stripped from my web pages. Upwards of four million internet users have the EasyList filter installed and, whether they know it or not, they can’t see the ads if they come here.

  • selwasan

    unsubscribing from your blog than, be happy with your ads… (yeah, i choose adblock and easy list, but you will not get the extra traffic from me, so it will be no problem for you…)

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

      "be happy with your ads"

      What if I said to you that you should be happy with unemployment? Or that you should be happy with a pay cut?

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/evankline Evan

    Wow, that's surprising. I think the normal user doesn't really think about the ad issue – I know I didn't until I had my own site. It's easy to forget that those ads are paying for the otherwise free content. I confess that I was an AdBlock Plus user at one point, but have since uninstalled it on all my machines since I decided I wanted to support the sites that visited.

    • http://www.intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

      I'll admit that I run AdBlock myself, but I don't use a filter subscription (except to test my adblock-preventing measures). I use it to selectively remove ads on some sites where they hang Firefox or just really get in the way. Not too often though.

      The widespread use of the EasyList filter (4 million+ users!) is really bad for websites that support themselves with ads.

      I have no problem with the use of AdBlock as if it were a pop-up blocker (e.g. to remove the ads that play loud audio clips or float over the main text), but I don't like the use of aggressive filters like EasyList to blanket-block *all* ads.

      EDIT: Oh, and thanks for being reasonable. :)

      • http://news.runtowin.com Blaine Moore

        My take exactly – I've been too lazy to reinstall adblock since I upgraded my computers so I haven't been running it for a while, but when I did I only used it to block ads on specific sites (or from specific networks that I don't want to support.)

        What did you do to piss them off so much? Was it just that you made it so that their filter didn't work on your site? Perhaps you can use a rotating CSS class for your ad blocks which would make it more difficult to block?

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

          "I did I only used it to block ads on specific sites (or from specific networks that I don't want to support.)"

          Yeah, I've blocked a few networks too, such as TribalFusion, Kontera, and the other major ones that highlight random words throughout the text.

          "What did you do to piss them off so much? Was it just that you made it so that their filter didn't work on your site?"

          That and I've written several posts that show my dislike for the EasyList filter… :D

          "Perhaps you can use a rotating CSS class for your ad blocks which would make it more difficult to block? "

          I already have, but ssshhh…

  • Pingback: designfloat.com

  • http://www.arcdesignnc.com Rick

    This Adblock problem is the similar to the invention of product placement on TV. Once people could record shows on VCR and now DVRs, advertisers knew that they were losing money and the networks knew they had to find a new cash stream.

    Its time for bloggers across the board to find new ways to generate revenue and stop trying to keep the old way alive. I think we will soon see a fuzzy line between blog posts and posts that are just ads. There will be some idea for creating revenue that will make as many people mad as it makes happy, just like product placement.

    Stay tuned.

    • http://www.bookadvice.net minerva66

      "I think we will soon see a fuzzy line between blog posts and posts that are just ads."

      These posts already exist, and I avoid them like the plague. It isn't quality content, and it isn't something I want to do to my readers. I think instead we will see many good bloggers quit in frustration, because they can't get compensation for their hours spent. Do you want an internet full of ad posts, instead of unobtrusive ads on the side? I don't.

      How can you not want to support a favorite blog when it costs you nothing? Think people. You wouldn't expect to open a magazine and not see any ads. You can't watch a trailer on IMDB without viewing an ad first. EasyList is sabotaging businesses, and your favorites may disappear as a result.

      • http://www.arcdesignnc.com Rick

        Those ads do exist. I think it should have made it clearer that doing ad posts isn't the new way I would want bloggers to find to generate revenue. That revolution has yet to be found

        I support my favorite blogs and I have no problem with authors trying to get paid for them. At the same time, being a specialist in your field doesn't mean blogging is the financial answer either.

  • http://gn.net.au Grant

    This is quite a laughable topic.

    To me this entire post makes it quite apparent that the only reason you write is to benefit financially, so you might as well be writing advertorials and just save yourself the time.

    There are more ways than traditional media formats to monetise your blog, and ultimately it seems that consumers (who in this case are your readers) are empowering themselves to avoid most common advertising formats. It is why Newspapers and Magazines are falling off shelves at an astounding rate.

    It is up to you to provide content that is worthy of your consumers, and for them to decide whether it is worth them sacrificing their browsing experience and being able to focus holistically on what they came here to read: your content.

    By standards of your argument, would you also agree then that the 584 subscribers to your RSS feed are also cheating and robbing you of your hard earned fruits? It would seem logical then that you would not offer RSS as an option in order to profit from your content.

    Don't fall by the way of huge media giants and fail to understand your audience. Try different things, like perhaps the ability for users to 'donate' to your PayPal account if they like your article. I think it would be sage advice for you to not exploit your users with advertising they don't want to see.

    Grant

    • Blaine

      Grant,

      I don't understand your position at all. Are you trying to say that he doesn't have the right to provide value for his advertisers because a third party that isn't at all related to this website, the reader of this website, or the advertiser on this website has a personal beef with the site?

      Are you saying that his work is worth reading (acknowledged by the fact that you read it and felt compelled to comment on it), but not worth enough for him to be able to earn compensation for what he wrote?

      Why does his offering a convenience to his regular readers in the form of an RSS feed seem to be a problem? Is your worldview so narrow that somebody that wants a little compensation at little to no cost to the person consuming the efforts of his labor is some sort of evil twit?

      Are you honestly offended that his website has a couple of advertisements in the sidebar and a strip of google adsense _after_ his article? I've certainly seen people that load their sites down with far more in the way of advertisements than this one and only provide a fraction of the value.

      I think that your stance seems more laughable than an article calling out the questionable practices of a third party seems to be. But then, I sometimes insist that people pay me for my knowledge, and I'll even go as far as requiring a credit card before I let them read or listen to what I have to say or benefit from my experience and coaching, so I guess that puts me even further down the ladder.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

      "To me this entire post makes it quite apparent that the only reason you write is to benefit financially, so you might as well be writing advertorials and just save yourself the time."

      Do National Geographic's writers not earn money when they write? Do newspaper journalists not earn a salary? Doesn't a novelist earn royalties? I enjoy writing, but I don't see why I shouldn't be able to make a living writing just because my content is published on the internet. And I would never write "advertorials." (Not to mention the fact that the Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on that kind of thing…)

      "It is up to you to provide content that is worthy of your consumers, and for them to decide whether it is worth them sacrificing their browsing experience and being able to focus holistically on what they came here to read: your content."

      I take great pains to not sacrifice my readers' browsing experience. A few small banners off to the side is *nothing* compared to what larger publishers (e.g. Forbes.com) have. I could join a network like Casale Media or DoubleClick and put a big leaderboard at the top, and a skyscraper format banner in the sidebar. I'd probably make some decent money from it. But I chose not to. If you had read the bullet points in the article a little more carefully you might understand that.

      "By standards of your argument, would you also agree then that the 584 subscribers to your RSS feed are also cheating and robbing you of your hard earned fruits? It would seem logical then that you would not offer RSS as an option in order to profit from your content."

      No, I would not agree. If I thought they were "cheating and robbing" me, I wouldn't provide the feed now, would I? RSS feeds are a great convenience, and one that I make use of daily. And I certainly could push some lightweight advertising through my feed. I haven't yet, but I certainly could. I simply haven't made a conscious decision to monetize the medium yet.

      "Don't fall by the way of huge media giants and fail to understand your audience. Try different things, like perhaps the ability for users to 'donate' to your PayPal account if they like your article."

      I maintain several WordPress plugins, which takes a significant amount of my time up. They all have easy PayPal buttons for donations. Despite the tens of thousands of plugin downloads, I still don't get that much money in donations. A very small percentage of the users donate, despite the fact that 50%-75% of them send me support emails every day. (Which has prompted me to start fleshing-out plans for paid support plans…) Someone simply reading some articles isn't going to be bothered to leave a tip.

      "I think it would be sage advice for you to not exploit your users with advertising they don't want to see."

      Give a little, get a little. Nobody can have their way all the time; there will always be compromises. I try to keep things fair by keeping ads to a minimum. I get a small salary, readers get free content.

  • http://mypicks.efikim.co.uk mike

    I do use Adblock, as I don’t see why in general I should use my bandwidth to download ads that I’m not going to look at. For some reason I thought that pay per impression ads had vanished, and so since I wasn’t going to look at the ads, never mind click on them, I didn’t see it being an issue for anyone.
    Now that I know that ppi ads are still in use, I’ve disabled adblock on this site, and will do the same on other sites I want to support.

  • ianto39

    I’d got used over the years to ads on the page, guess my eyes have adapted to filtering out even video and flickering ads, but in-text ads (Kontera esp) have pushed it too far, you simply can’t navigate pages that use them when almost every other word has the double underline. I looked for and found adblock to fix that problem – with the side effect that nearly all ads vanish. So, instead of blaming adblock, I’d blame businesses like Kontera that pushed us all too far, just like the TV channels did with their 6 mins of ads every 9 mins of content, and drove ever more people into finding fixes that yes may over time even kill the goose.