www.ryanblock.com/2007/08/an-open-letter-to-friends-and-colleagues-on-keyword-popovers
An open letter to friends and colleagues on keyword popovers Vibrant Media ad Dear every site advertising with keyword popovers, You know who you are, and many of you are people I consider friends and colleagues in the industry. You're smart, independent businesspeople carving out your niche in the new media landscape.
IntelliTXT / Vibrant Media and like ad services whose entire business depends on polluting your content, confusing your audience, and tricking them into clicking on ads that just won't go away. Seriously, stop supporting these shysters that advertise by generating fake links and popovers on your content. Obviously I'm all for giving your content away for free by advertising on your site, but there are limits. For example, on Engadget we have an extremely strict stance on popups (not allowed. It's not perfect, but it allows us to stay in business and support our staff without completely ruining the reading experience (when not in RSS). These kinds ads are absolutely abhorrent, and just because you can run them doesn't mean you should. The scary thing is keyword popovers are only getting more popular. I thought that after, what, a year since these ads started showing up, site owners would have started to realize that keyword popovers are possibly the most obnoxious and obtrusive form of web advertising around (no, spam isn't web advertising, it's email advertising). Yes, it's even worse than popups, because at least those can quickly be cleared out with an alt-F4 / Apple-W. The keyword popover opt-outs are a joke, and often don't work -- and that's IF you can find the opt-out page. So it's up to you: exercise your choice to shut those ads off for your readers by not supporting that model of web advertising. Here's a pledge: as long as I'm in charge of Engadget you will NEVER see keyword popover ads on the site.
Theres javascripts you can find online that will cancel the ads from displaying. I found one and made it into a favorites button for Firefox and when i see a page littered with those ads I just hit the button and they go away.
They often use double underlining, so it's not hard to tell the difference between a normal link and said "keyword popover ads". I hate them just as much as the next guy, but they are easily avoidable, especially with a simple firefox plugin.
Anyone remember when MS threatened to build something like this into IE? Seems their loss is our "gain" and I'm ready to turn the gain down to -11. Yes, they should stop and I wanna thank you Ryan for putting your foot down.
YOur main thrust is that you are okay with ads but you don't want them to interfere with and trample all over the content. Yet at the same time you seem to think that in-column ads are okay? Advertisements that are: - unavoidable - right in the content - intended to fool people into thinking they are content This is hypocritical dood. Engadget's main page is a plain column punctuated with pictures of gadgets and some plain text underneath. Putting an ad in (and you guys do this *all* the time), that is a picture of a gadget the same size as your article pictures is totally the same as an in-text link masquerading as a reference or regular link.
The top banner on Engadget is unavoidable when you hit the page -- that doesn't make it intrusive. Our in-column ads are clearly delineated and marked as advertisements. But most importantly, they don't ever change or obscure the site in any way when moused over. I think what you're mad about is ads that slip through look too much like editorial. Those make us mad too, and I complain to our sales team when that happens. If that's what you mean, then I think we're on the same page.
I think that everyone that hates the ads has a responsibility to let it be known. When I come to a page that has them, I always leave a short note on how I came to the site, but due to the ads I will unfortunately not be returning. If enough people did that so the webmaster knew how many people hate them, it would go a long way to helping them get removed from sites with good content.
I am also getting sick on no "con"tent web sites that seem to get on the front page of a google search. Those ones that are nothing but ads and *gasp* the aforementioned popover ads. Hosting is so cheap, having a blog is not going to run you into the bank so quit trying to make money.
com, I think that the way we do things is one of the right ways. Basically, we still feel the Internet should be like it was - if you can't afford to run your site using legitimate content and out of your / your company's pocket, then you need to look at just why it is you have a site up on the Internet. Anyway, the sort of site visitor we attract is probably going to be blocking ads by default.
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