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Your Blog In A World Without Ads
Author: Hock16 Feb
This could be the Google AdSense killer - it’s called AdBlock Plus. Install the Firefox plugin and you can block 99% of the ads you see around the internet from Google AdSense to banner ads. PC World chose Adblock Plus as one of the 100 best products of 2007. It has got an estimated 2.5 million users and growing.
But it still doesn’t block the AdSense ads appearing on the SERPs. In place of the ads, you see white space where the ads used to be. So can it kill the revenue streams of people who make a living from selling ads off their blogs and sites?
When you first install it, you can load up the default settings for ads that you want to block. After that you can block other ads by training the plugin to do so.
When you right click on a mouse, you will see the “Adblock Image…” option that you can select to block any new banners that you don’t want to see.
For example…
I took that example from Shoemoney’s blog (I don’t have anything against the man, just using his blog as an example since he’s well-known among the make money blogging circles)
Here’s Shoemoney with AdBlock Plus disabled….
Enable AdBlock Plus and POOF!… no more ads.
Want to see more examples?
Okay, let’s take a look at JohnChow minus the ads.
Looks nice and clean doesn’t it? Suddenly there’s all this free space.
So how does your blog stack up with AdBlock Plus?
How are you going to modify your monetization strategy when more users start to block out ads?
Technorati Tags: ad blockers, blocking ads
Popularity: 34% [?]
8 Responses for "Your Blog In A World Without Ads"
There are some tricks you can use to display ads anyway when an adblocker is in use up to refusing to display the page’s content. It all depends on how far you want to go with it.
I’ve also notice adblocking depends a lot on the niche. In tech niches it’s as high as 60% of Adsense being blocked but on hobby niches with fewer tech savvy folks visiting it’s only about 5%.
I would be more concerned about this plugin for IE users. Most Firefox users are more likely to already be bloggers and I would not expect them to click an ad anyway.
Eventually, internet advertising will have to become more entertaining to catch the viewer like TV ads have become.
Hi Frank,
First off, thanks for visiting and for posting your comment. As with any type of technology, there are always two sides to it. Adblockers and unblockers, spyware and anti-spyware, etc.
I can refer interested readers to this Wikipedia entry about AdBlock Plus and if you look under the criticism section, you’ll see how people are trying to combat it.
Hello James,
I agree with you. Advertisers have to become more creative to reach the intended audience. Look at pop-up ads and where it has ended up. Someday, something else will probably replace the 125×125 ads spots that you see are so prevalent with bloggers in this niche now.
There isn’t a plugin like this for IE yet?
For IE7 there is IE7Pro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IE7pro
It essentially turns IE7 into Firefox with several popular plugins functionality-wise.
As for the future, I think you’ll see a lot of product placement like ads. I use this on a few of my niche blogs that bring in a product feed that blends with the original content.
I used this plug in since the day one I used Firefox.
After being a blogger though, I realise how I had hurt the blogging communities :{ I took it off now
Hi Michael,
You can easily enable or disable the plugin by doing ctrl+shift+A.
Adblock will only ever be used by the tech-savvy niche of folks. These people don’t generally click on ads anyway, so I would be inclined to say that it won’t affect anyone’s income at all.
Fully 100% of my online income comes from advertising revenues, and I won’t be making any changes due to this.
Principally, I advise students to use text advertising instead of image ads. (I.e., linking to, for example, affiliate programs within the text.) #1 they don’t scream, #2 they’re in the flow of the visitor’s eye, and #3 if done well, many visitors do not notice it’s an ad.
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