Discussion
All I ever seem to see on the PH Aston forum is the advert at the top of the section for a certain main dealer in the south west trying to buy/sell AM's.
As I have got bored of seeing it I decided to see what other profiling wizardry I would get on the other sub-sections!!
I decided for a start to go to the Morgan section to see what amazing advert I would get there ... after a bit of a pause - the system decided that as a Morgan driver/enthusiast what I really needed was - checked shirts
Then on the Mclaren page apparently what I really need is a new suit with 30% off from some dodgy suit company I have never heard of...
Given I never shop for suits online, and never look at the AM dealer in question or wear/buy check shirts I guess its not linked to any cookie I have stored - more likely what is best match for that subsection based upon paid sponsorship?
Is everyone seeing the same ....
As I have got bored of seeing it I decided to see what other profiling wizardry I would get on the other sub-sections!!
I decided for a start to go to the Morgan section to see what amazing advert I would get there ... after a bit of a pause - the system decided that as a Morgan driver/enthusiast what I really needed was - checked shirts
Then on the Mclaren page apparently what I really need is a new suit with 30% off from some dodgy suit company I have never heard of...
Given I never shop for suits online, and never look at the AM dealer in question or wear/buy check shirts I guess its not linked to any cookie I have stored - more likely what is best match for that subsection based upon paid sponsorship?
Is everyone seeing the same ....
oilit said:
why would they take it down?
Really?Ok, I'll bite. Who pays for the website? The journalism, moderation, hosting and so on?
Advertising...
Stop the adverts being displayed and how do Pistonheads get paid?
Whether you personally don't pay attention to the advertising does not matter - it's number of adverts served up (in part) that drives the payments to Pistonheads.
Would you expect a Vodafone website to host a thread about how to cut your mobile phone bill?
hmm, sorry you think it was some sort of bait like comment - that wasn't the intention!
I'd be surprised, your comments about revenues are of course valid (although I suspect the real revenues come from selling car adverts which is not affected by said tools) but as its a forum for expression of speech /opinions and to help each other.
In the same way they get revenues from main dealers who advertise - but they don't sensor discussions about self / home / DIY repairs - and it's not got any offensive commentary on it.
It's a bit like when I used to work for a video conferencing company back in the 1990s - we used to advertise in the back of High Life magazine on BA and other similar publications - they did ban us from advertising as they saw VC as a cometitor to air travel - but the truth is that only until the pandemic has the uptake of VC been really prolific to affect the revenues of airlines - and I bet once there is a proven vaccine business travelers will return to the skies - they like their airmiles too much.
Anyway - let's move on to more interesting subjects !
I'd be surprised, your comments about revenues are of course valid (although I suspect the real revenues come from selling car adverts which is not affected by said tools) but as its a forum for expression of speech /opinions and to help each other.
In the same way they get revenues from main dealers who advertise - but they don't sensor discussions about self / home / DIY repairs - and it's not got any offensive commentary on it.
It's a bit like when I used to work for a video conferencing company back in the 1990s - we used to advertise in the back of High Life magazine on BA and other similar publications - they did ban us from advertising as they saw VC as a cometitor to air travel - but the truth is that only until the pandemic has the uptake of VC been really prolific to affect the revenues of airlines - and I bet once there is a proven vaccine business travelers will return to the skies - they like their airmiles too much.
Anyway - let's move on to more interesting subjects !
Edited by oilit on Saturday 5th December 06:26
JohnG1 said:
Whether you personally don't pay attention to the advertising does not matter - it's number of adverts served up (in part) that drives the payments to Pistonheads.
As a mechanical thingy I'm going to go out on a limb here and potentially expose a lack of actual knowledge (you show me electrons moving and then I'll believe in them), but I'm going to guess that, unless you actually click on the ads to "click through" to the website so their analytics know where you came from, or your browser has picked up tracking cookies that the destination website can read (you do have tracking cookies disabled, don't you?) the advertiser's website won't know where you came from. Similarly, as the page loads I doubt (but willing to be proved wrong) that the advertiser won't know the ad has been blocked because it's there, on the page, it's just your browser didn't display it.As somebody I can't recall and am too lazy to Google once said, "50% of all money spent on advertising is wasted; the only problem is nobody knows which 50%"
And whisper it - if PH thought this was a real problem you'd see a welcome page saying "We see you're using an adblocker.....". This is usually my signal to move to the next item in the Google search. Anyway, it's all ones and noughts...ones and noughts. Unless you put a hex on it.
JohnG1 said:
Really?
Ok, I'll bite. Who pays for the website? The journalism, moderation, hosting and so on?
Advertising...
Stop the adverts being displayed and how do Pistonheads get paid?
Whether you personally don't pay attention to the advertising does not matter - it's number of adverts served up (in part) that drives the payments to Pistonheads.
This. The internet is not free, so having a few banners appear on a page doesn’t bother me and gets them some revenues. If you need a blocker to stop the irresistible urge to click and buy then you must have been taking shopping lessons from my wife.Ok, I'll bite. Who pays for the website? The journalism, moderation, hosting and so on?
Advertising...
Stop the adverts being displayed and how do Pistonheads get paid?
Whether you personally don't pay attention to the advertising does not matter - it's number of adverts served up (in part) that drives the payments to Pistonheads.
I get the same dealer banner as the op on the aston pages.
soofsayer said:
The internet is not free, so having a few banners appear on a page doesn’t bother me and gets them some revenues. If you need a blocker to stop the irresistible urge to click and buy then you must have been taking shopping lessons from my wife.
I get the same dealer banner as the op on the aston pages.
And that's all very well as long as the webpage works properly with the ads showing. However, it was probably a year or two ago, PH changed something and the forum became unusably slow for me because of the adverts. Pages just wouldn't load in an acceptable time (good laptop, 200 mbps internet). That's when I started using my adblocker and it has remained in use since. Now PH may or may not have since improved whatever it was that was making it unusable with ads but I'm afraid they've burnt their bridges with me. I don't mind ignoring the odd ad but I need the forum to work. I get the same dealer banner as the op on the aston pages.
V8V Pete said:
...... I don't mind ignoring the odd ad but I need the forum to work.
I think they must have fixed that problem Pete, because it seems to work fairly rapidly now.
I used to have an adblocker running, but since doing a factory reset, have not restarted it.
You have probably noticed, that there are now far more adverts on YouTube, since Google purchased the company.
My attention though is always focused on the bottom right hand corner, watching the countdown to 'Skip Ad'.
Who the advertisers are, I never know.
Fortunately, after their videos are downloaded, you never see any adverts when playing those videos.
In the US and I sure elsewhere, internet access prices and speeds vary widely. In more populated areas the prices are relatively low and speeds high. In rural areas the opposite is often true where the internet access price is high and the speeds are pathetically slow.
As an example: In Maine I pay $69.00 for 1000 kbps. In Georgia it is $80.00 for 50 kbps.
If you live in one of the drastically more expensive internet areas and the maximum speed available is only 50 kbps, the absolute last thing you want is useless ads sucking up your already limited bandwidth.
As an example: In Maine I pay $69.00 for 1000 kbps. In Georgia it is $80.00 for 50 kbps.
If you live in one of the drastically more expensive internet areas and the maximum speed available is only 50 kbps, the absolute last thing you want is useless ads sucking up your already limited bandwidth.
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