Ads on SH

[Vadsamoht]

Just thought I'd let people know why there are still ads on SH now that we are hosted on Autumn's servers.

Google's advertising program only pays out once you reach a certain amount of revenue, and we are only about half-way there so far, and it seems like a waste to just remove them now. Revenue is only added when people click on the ads, not every time they appear, and as people become more familiar with the site it is easier for them to tune them out. I could just keep moving the ads around or replace them with large flashing images to get more accidental clicks, but that's not how I like to run things.

Barring any major changes to the site's structure, our only forseeable costs will be domain name renewal, and the revenue should cover that easily once it reaches maturation. Then I'll remove the ads and retire with the billions of dollars I've made the site will continue as usual.

NOTE: This is NOT me asking for you to click on the ads - in fact that is against Google's TOS. I just wanted people to know why they are still there.

 

[Vadsamoht]

Ok, I'm updating this because I think that it's important to be upfront about this:

We've nearly reached the point where I can get the money from Google that the ads have generated, but there are several immediate costs that will eat that up almost straight away - Domain registration for the next few years, purchase of the new streams addon, and a license for the XenPorta Addon which will be moving to a paid model in the near future.

I'm removing the ads because there's no real way of making decent profit off of a site of this size without doing things that I feel aren't particularly nice, and having ads at all is annoying for the users. That being said, it does mean that if people start requesting functionality in this site that will cost money, someone somewhere is going to have to make a donation. I can't see anything like that in the short term, but I think it's important that I've made clear the situation even if it's only in a thread that nobody will probably read.

 

[Mike_Z]

As long as you don't force us to disable Adblock like EH does, I will continue to have Adblock disabled so you can leave the ads if you want to...

 

[Number 13]

That being said, it does mean that if people start requesting functionality in this site that will cost money, someone somewhere is going to have to make a donation. I can't see anything like that in the short term, but I think it's important that I've made clear the situation even if it's only in a thread that nobody will probably read.

Does this mean the site will eventually have a "donate" link function for the purpose of site maintenance/enhancements? Also notice the streams add-on is live now so that is nice to see.

 

[Vadsamoht]

There probably won't ever be a donate button, simply because we will only be needing a one-off donation if people are asking for paid addon X, so I'll probably just let whoever is requesting the feature know how they can send the money.

 

[Vadsamoht]

Ads are no more.

 

[WrestlerGuile]

Ads are no more.

That's awesome. I'm glad to have kept my AdBlock off while they were running!

 

[ashxu]

Didn't notice they were gone even with Adblock off.

I wouldn't mind if you could donate $5 and obtain a special member status that allows you to have small benefits like animated avatars or something.

 

[Muro]

I'm already prepared for my animated avatar feature.

 

[DDB]

There were ads?

 

[Broseidon Rex]

There were ads?

I think it was those searchable keywords that appeared at the bottom of threads.

 

[Vadsamoht]

I think it was those searchable keywords that appeared at the bottom of threads.

And there were blocks on the side of the news page/forum index and a few other places as well. The idea was to make them as unintrusive as possible.

 

[Broseidon Rex]

And there were blocks on the side of the news page/forum index and a few other places as well. The idea was to make them as unintrusive as possible.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!