Sidebar ads getting out of hand???

[pazios2002]

It is annoying but I think its good that they are wasting money advertising to people that won't buy what they are selling. Could you imagine how much better things would be if PETA magazines were full of McDonald's adds while barbeque magazines were full of tofurkey advertisements. It does really stink but its good that they are spending money trying to sell things to us that none of us will ever purchase...they could be using that money to get meat eaters to buy that crap...and it would work

 

I was thinking that too.

 

I never really pay attention to the ads. I guess that side bar ads are so present in so many places that I just tune them out.

 

I guess there is a price to be paid for a free board

[robert]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I am making this a top priority because I know many people are bothered by the Google Ads. I am bothered by them as well, and it is something that needs to be addressed. I’m not content with how the Google Ads have worked out on our website forum and I’m working to create positive change.

 

Here is how it all began.

 

Every single aspect of Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness is funded by me. That includes keeping our 4 websites up and running, paying website designers to work on and maintain the websites, paying to host the websites, and other website related work. I also fund all the money/items given to athletes we sponsor, organize and pay for all of the events like the Vegan Vacation, the Vegan Holiday Festival and many other smaller events, buy all the t-shirts, ship things out, pay for all the advertising and marketing, and all the other things involved in Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness operations. And of course I should, it’s my company, my project, and my vision. I should be responsible for all the expenses involved. And I am.

 

Google Ads were brought to my attention by a friend of mine as a way to help pay for the website (hosting and website designer fees, etc.). They were an easy choice because it requires no work, time or energy from me, or from anyone else for that matter. They only generate or produce money for me (Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness) when they are clicked on, which requires pretty much no work from anyone else, just a simple click. If certain ads (like non-vegan ones) don’t get clicked on, there is a less likely chance they will show up again. No research for sponsors and trying to come up with agreed upon terms for cost of banner space, etc. was needed. That would require a ton of time and energy from someone, and I certainly don’t have the time, energy, or resources to pay someone who does have that time.

 

I was also under the impression that I could filter them to only be vegan-friendly ads, therefore actually helping to support our fellow vegan businesses, companies and organizations. The main attraction about the Google Ads for me was that it wouldn’t require any additional work, which many other methods would. I just don’t have the time anymore. Basically I signed up, filled out some sort of contract saying the Google Ads would be up there for X amount of time (a certain period required before I actually receive any funds from Google), and all the other work is taken care of by a computer system. At first, it seemed most ads were vegan related and I tried to filter out the non-vegan ones. Now, I realize it may be impossible to filter out all the non-vegan ads that show up.

 

Other methods such as asking for donations, won’t work for me. I’m not a 501 © (3) Non-Profit organization, and accepting donations from people can lead to problems, such as assumed ownership (“I donated X amount of money, therefore you should do things this way”).

 

I do really like the idea of putting up useful banners such as Vegan Essentials, Food Fight!, Moo Shoes, VegNews Magazine, and things like that along the forum sidebar, rather than the Google Ads. The problem is finding someone to create all the details including banner size, banner length of time being displayed, which pages it will be one, at what height of the page, how much the company will pay per click, or per month to be on our forum, etc. It can actually be a pretty big, detailed, and time-consuming project.

 

Could I put those banners up there for free? I don’t do website technical work. Therefore, I have to hire people to do all of these tasks for me. Some of my website designers have been with me since the beginning, so offering the job to a forum-member volunteer rather that those who helped create Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness and Robert Cheeke’s image, would be somewhat of a disrespectful move on my part.

 

I have also spent the last 5 years completely dedicated to promoting and growing Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness. I’ve spent all of my money, resources, time and energy on this, so to not put value on that, is unfair to me. I’m in a position now, where our reputation has grown so much because of an insane amount of work I put into it, that I can’t just give things out for free anymore. It is just unfair to me and totally overlooks what I’ve done over the past half decade, and even the 5 years before that leading up to starting my own company.

 

I am all about promoting other vegan companies, organizations, and individuals, and I do that everyday, for free. Google Ads were just a way to help me, as a struggling business owner, trying to make a difference and work for a worthy cause, make ends meet.

 

The ads didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned, but I’m not a bad guy, with bad motives. I’m just stuck at a crossroad and I’m working to resolve an issue that is a concern of many forum members, including myself. I do take your comments and feedback seriously. I understand that although I build the community, everyone here keeps it going and I want everyone here to be happy and trust that I will do what I can to work things out, the way they should be.

 

I am open to suggestions and more feedback. I’m sure after reading this many of you can understand where I’m coming from.

 

Thanks again for the continued support and understanding. I respect and value everyone's opinions.

 

Robert Cheeke

[andgbr]

It is annoying but I think its good that they are wasting money advertising to people that won't buy what they are selling. Could you imagine how much better things would be if PETA magazines were full of McDonald's adds while barbeque magazines were full of tofurkey advertisements. It does really stink but its good that they are spending money trying to sell things to us that none of us will ever purchase...they could be using that money to get meat eaters to buy that crap...and it would work

 

well, for that, a lot of people would think peta is supporting that kind of stuff, that'd confuse a lot of peta members..they might even go back to omnivorism, who knows?

[Astrocat]

Hey there Robert,

I think that everyone will appreciated that very considerate, extensive and well articulated response about this situation.

 

I'm sure that nobody doubts your motivation or integrity, well.... I dunno, for all i know maybe a few very new people might but surely once they see some of your posts here they'd be likely to feel reassured where that is concerned.

 

When i read this topic and had my attention drawn to the Google-ads, I definitely didn;t think "what the - and I thought this was such a NICE forum - i am appalled !" , I just thought "man that sucks to have to try and fund the website using Google adverts.... I thought those things were meant to automatically be semi-relevant, but I've heard of other people having similar problems to this" ...

 

I'm lucky in that VegansRock is woefully unpopular, especially after the phenomenal host-going-AWOL-and-breaking-stuff situation recently.... so it has never grown big enough to require paid hosting, and probably won;t for some time yet. It's presently hosted by the dude with VegCom, so i intend to give him a donation sometime as so far the hosting seems to be fine (apart from FTP access, which is a bit wobbly) but it isn't an issue for me to have to make the forum pay for itself due to its popularity or size.

However, this means that i am entirely incapable of reccommending any potentially effective money-accumulation strategies other than those which you've considered yourself already.

 

I find it incredible , the amount of different events which you arrange, all different websites which you set up, places you go, people you see, etc etc... the amount of work you invest in things, and so forth.

 

I know what it can be like when a friend tries something, finds it to be good, reccommends it, but then when you try it things are rather different....

I had a similar (but really entirely different) situation with the first host for VegansRock..... my brother tried this one free-hosting package from this one hosting company and had a fine time with them , he had two websites and both ran excellently.... but when i tried the same hosting provision with the same people it was really bumtastic.... stuff was forever 500-erroring and timing out and stuff like that, until with a momentuous headache i eventually moved to a different host altogether.

My brother was mystified by the whole scenario, as his two forums were still chugging along to themselves quite happily.

And so it is, that things can be like that sometimes, i think.

 

Hey, I hope that your journey home wasn't too arduous, and that you're settling back in happily.

 

The adverts seem to be really trying not to offend me as much nowadays.

Whether this is a coincidence, or the result of your diligent labour, I am not sure.

 

For example, just now I have one for a vegan hotel, one for a customised vegan diet plan from Tescos (which is a customisable vegetarian one, including having a vegan one if you'd like) , one for one-stop vegan shopping, and well one for the whey powder, but 3 out of 4 being relevant is an improvement.

[michaelhobson]

What Astrocat said. Your efforts are appreciate Rob, I don't think anyone here ever doubted your integrity.

 

But, like you said in a recent post, you direct hundreds of people here and hundreds more just happen by. You also direct business people here, presumably often vegan business people. What will they think/assume about you and this site?

 

Did you adjust the filters? The ads seem a little more tolerable today after having gotten really bad over the weekend. There are Google ads on our vegan meetup.com site. We don't control them, meetup.com does, but I have yet to see a single ad that is offensive or non-vegan in any way. That being the case, there must be more that can be done with the filters. There is probably someone at Google who could help you figure that out.

[Odidnetne]

To be honest, I haven't seen as many non-vegan ones as of late (and I've been posting a LOT), but it seems to be other things that I wouldn't want to buy though.

[robert]

What Astrocat said. Your efforts are appreciate Rob, I don't think anyone here ever doubted your integrity.

 

But, like you said in a recent post, you direct hundreds of people here and hundreds more just happen by. You also direct business people here, presumably often vegan business people. What will they think/assume about you and this site?

 

Did you adjust the filters? The ads seem a little more tolerable today after having gotten really bad over the weekend. There are Google ads on our vegan meetup.com site. We don't control them, meetup.com does, but I have yet to see a single ad that is offensive or non-vegan in any way. That being the case, there must be more that can be done with the filters. There is probably someone at Google who could help you figure that out.

 

Thanks for understanding my intent is positive, I'm working on a fix. I have done more work with filtering and I will continue until we totally sort this thing out.

 

I'm really not pleased, and I don't like the ads coming up. I also don't want to yank them yet, per my Google Contract because I've accumulated some funds that haven't been collected. I do have concerns about other people seeing them and it annoys me that they are not always relevant as I hope they are.

 

It's late tonight and I've been gone nearly all day, but I will work for the next hour or so to filter more out. I hope it improves quickly for the duration of the ads until we hopefully begin to eliminate this whole thing and try something else.

 

Im still up for suggestions based on the long post I made earlier today.

 

I will look into the filtering thing more, and I'll check out other sites who use the Google Ads and contact them for strategies to get relevant ads. I may contact the meet-up.com people too.

 

I hope everyone knows I am taking this very seriously, I do have a ton of things on my plate, I wasn't even in the this past week until yesterday, but I'm addressing this issue head-on and will make it a top priority.

 

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, feedback and for bringing this topic up and expressing concerns. Ok, time for me to go filter some more.

[Guest]

Maybe we should click on the non-vegan adds so they keep showing up...it would be nice if McDonalds wasted lots of money trying to sell to us.

[Astrocat]

Just now, I have 2 adverts for free (thus no doubt sketchy) dating websites, another one for the same vegan diet which i clicked on before to find out what it was about, and one which i find bizarrely incoherent :

 

Bullworker Is Back

And Better! 4 New Models Now, For Fast Effective Gains, Remember?

 

only the actual URL gave me the faintest idea what is trying to be advertised by this -

www.gymworld.co.uk

 

I will make a hazarded guess that Bullworker might be some type of bodybuilding equipment ? I found the phrasing of the advert to be unusually "japlish"-style, so I could be entirely wrong about that though.

 

At any rate, there aren't any more unveganly ones for me, just now.

[robert]

Thanks for the feedback,

 

I worked on it for hours, up until around 1AM filtering ads.

 

I've discovered something that makes a lot of sense, at least to me.

 

The reason why some ads are so easy to control on some sites is because they are on static pages. If all the pages are about vegan things, only vegan ads will come up.

 

We are faced with the problem that we are a forum. Thousands of different topics come up and ads pop up to correspond with them. For example, today Jonathan posted photos of the Scottish Highlands. Sure enough, ads came up about the highlands, and about traveling in Scotland. Very helpful for the topic indeed. But say, someone asks a question about Eggs, or Whey. Ads for those things will most likely come up.

 

So what I'm doing is for the duration that the ads are up here, I'm filtering out whatever I can based on what pops up. Once filtered they are not supposed to return.

 

I've noticed that once filtering an add, some go away within an hour, others take up to 24 hours, even though Google says it should be only 3-4 hours until they go away.

 

So feel free to continue to give me URLs for the ones that come up, and I'll keep blocking them, so while the ads last, most should be helpful.

 

Thanks for your patience and assistance with this.

[Odidnetne]

That's a ridiculous problem...we'll have to censor such words, and make them e**s or w**y, or (You know what).

[robert]

Yeah, it is a problem, but we'll work around it the best we can (I'll filter stuff) until they're gone or moved or something is done with them. I'm waiting for some contract stuff to finish out, which I believe should be shortly.

[Astrocat]

I worked on it for hours, up until around 1AM filtering ads.

 

Aw.......

 

http://media.funsmileys.com/smileys/big_hug.gif

 

Man, that's a tricky situation if simply mentioning something like hen menses or bodily fluid extract incites Google to enthusiastically pimp such nonsense in our general direction I think you've been doing really well, I've noticed a big difference from when i first noticed the adverts.

 

I now have one for weight loss products, one for the Thor raw vegan organic powder, one advert promoting the vegetarian meals on campus at a university, and the last one is for uhhhh.... maybe it's like..... um.... some sort of stuff you can get sent to a PDA...

Anyway, I'm not sure what the last one is for.... but whatever it is reckons that it "Includes 700+ exercise videos and pre-planned workouts for your PDA" .... so once again, there are no irrelevant ones and even at least one particularly relevant one.

 

You also achieved more in the last 24 hours than some people make the effort to achieve in their entire lives !

 

Doin' well, my friend, doin' well....

[willpeavy]

I don't even notice the ads. I tune them out

[Odidnetne]

I don't even notice the ads. I tune them out

 

Exactly, my eyes look for the orange post to see what new conversation has been going on, that's it.

[Guest]

Oddly...I've never even seen a single add

[Richard]

Oddly...I've never even seen a single add

 

What browsing software are you using? I don't see em either :s

[Guest]

I just use regular old internet explorer...maybe its the aol thing or something causing the trouble

[EatRaw]

I don't even notice the ads. I tune them out

 

Exactly, my eyes look for the orange post to see what new conversation has been going on, that's it.

 

Me too! Although I ignore the ads, I want to thank Robert for all he does, not only with the forum, but EVERYTHING!!!! You are awesome!!!

[Astrocat]

I wouldn;t touch AOL with a barge-pole.

Even if it were the barge-pole of someone who I didn;t like very much.

I certainly wouldn;t touch them with MY barge-pole, anyway.

They have cooties.