Even More Annoying

November 30th, 2009

Screen Shot 2009-11-30 At 2.53.39 PmJust when you though web ads couldn’t get more annoying. Already, it’s annoying enough for YouTube videos to have those ads that pop up at the bottom and have to be clicked away, but at least there you figure that they have to make revenue somehow. But now the same ads are appearing on regular web sites over photographs. Accidentally mouse over them and ads pop up. This easily clears the “unnecessarily annoying ad” hurdle.

The ads pop back down again only when you mouse over a new one. You can train yourself to avoid them, like you do when you see a double-underlined link–but you first have to discover them, and with photos, they are not apparent.

Google text ads I like fine, and I even follow them sometimes (a big thing for me, as I tend to hate ads–I only follow non-offensive ones). But any ad that moves, even a little, is enough to drive me away from a site. I figure I’m not alone in that.

  1. November 30th, 2009 at 16:57 | #1

    Been meaning to ask how you feel about the video ad on my site. I tried to make it unobtrusive as possible by tucking it away in the top right corner, but just curious on your thoughts on it.

  2. Luis
    November 30th, 2009 at 17:04 | #2

    You have a video ad? Can’t see it, even on my browser with no ad blocking. The Netflix ad changes minutely, didn’t even notice until I looked closely. There is a big blank space above the smaller square ads, below the search bar, which doesn’t even show up on Chrome or Firefox, neither of which I block ads for. Which one is the video ad? If it’s Flash, I have ClicktoFlash on Safari–but dont see any Flash areas, either.

  3. November 30th, 2009 at 17:07 | #3

    @Luis
    hmm The Netflix ad isn’t supposed to change, I’ll have to look into that. The 125×125 ads are all supposed to be static.

    Yep, the blank spot you are seeing is the ad, and it’s in Flash, so it is obviously not bothering you 😛

  4. Luis
    November 30th, 2009 at 17:11 | #4

    Sean: The Netflix ad changes only subtly–the white text stripe in the middle goes from, “Free Shipping,” to “No Late Fees,” to “Only $8.99 a month,” and then the “Click here” button acquires a yellowish outer glow. Hard to notice.

    As for the video ad, it’s odd–if Flash shows up on Safari for me, I see a Click-to-Flash frame, and on Chrome and Firefox, Flash is supposed to play. There’s nothing else blocking those, and yet on all three browsers, the area comes up blank. So it’s not my ad blocking that’s making it not appear.

    Is it somehow optimized for IE?

  5. November 30th, 2009 at 17:13 | #5

    @Luis
    That is really odd as I see it in Chrome, Safari and Firefox and I have no ad blockers in place either. Very odd. Might be a Mac issue, will have to look into it.

    Glad I asked now!

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