[Blocking our Pops] Let's fight back [Solution]

[washjob]

I don't have my own server. My web site is hosted on Verio. Is there any way I can install software to block the ad blockers with a Verio web server?

Thanks
Jerry
Washington Employment Web

[anile8]

That heavy regex you guys are using for Apache will kill any webserver that's remotely popular.

[qball0213]

What about showing one of those invue ads instead of a pop under when you detect a user using a popup blocker?

[OC]

BIG WARNING.

I just noticed the post that started this thread disallowed "Slurp" ... that's Inktomi's spider's name.

Do not block Inktomi... they give results to at least MSN, Looksmart, HotBot and iWon.



Edit:
http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html

You might want to thoroughly Google the rest of the bot names before banning them

[PinkyandtheBrain]

Does anyone know if the pop-up blockers block layer ads like the type used by www.toplayerads.com? Thanks

[SGA]

Originally posted by mcsebraindumps
Here's a nice little php command for those of you wanting to use it:
<?php $user_agents = array('Flashget', 'Offline', 'Teleport', 'Downloader', 'reaper', 'WebZIP', 'Website Quester',
'MSIECrawler', 'FAST-WebCrawler', 'Gulliver', 'WebCapture', 'HTTrack', 'Fetch API Request', 'NetAnts', 'SuperBot',
'WebCopier', 'Web********'); foreach ($user_agents as $usr_agt) if (preg_match("/$usr_agt/i", $HTTP_USER_AGENT)) die("Sorry,
these bots destroy our bandwidth and webserver, please refrain from using them on our site"); ?>

mcsebraindumps or anybody
Does this php script block people with Ad blockers installed from reading your pages?

Do I need to put this in the header or just below the body tag?

I would prefer to use a simple script like this added to my individual pages instead of needing to install something on my webserver.

[keavin]

I've noticed a pretty drastic decline in popups being shown lately. So it does appear that more people are adapting blockers. One option that might be worth looking into is using a javascript that actually launches the main content of your site in a popup window. Shouldn't be too hard to write.

Has anyone tried this yet? If so how well has it worked for you. This might be a viable option that doesn't have a high server overhead. I know if I used regex the server would be overloaded in no time due to traffic levels.

But in the end we might be fighting a losing battle and have to start looking for options to popups.

[JFS]

hmmm i read this thread about 4 times now...and i reached to some conclusions:

1) yes if the visitor doesn't want to view the ads (popups or not, don't forget that opera can cancel the pics downloading...another kind of ad blocking) we should be able to stop them from entering our site, all my corrent income is from popuptraffic, i had about 400 pop's a day with about 800 uniques, now i have 200 pop's and about 1200 uniques, my income is falling, fortunally i already receive enought money to build another site

2) it's almost impossivel to block all the ad-blokers without afecting the speed of our site , due the time that scripts take to check the browser and so on.

Personally i use a php script to protect my pages from those mass downloaders, it's a scriple script but so far have show very good results, cause i use frames:

<?



/* Anti-leech bandwidth protecter by Corey Milner, http://www.odey.com.

Turn the refererring URL into a variable */

$from = getenv("HTTP_REFERER");



/* Check to see if the URL in the variable is a valid referrer. Add the page URL which you would like people to arrive from here. */

if ($from != "http://referral.menu.htm")



/* If the URL is valid, page loads now */



/* If URL is invalid the following error message and proper link appears, enter your custom error message and a hyperlink to the valid URL you entered above here*/

{print(" Sorry you have tried to link to a page which does not accept visitors directly. <br>

<a href=http://your.url.com>CLICK HERE</a> to visit us!");



/* Prevent the rest of the page from loading */

exit;**



?>


as u can see the script is way simple.
i tried with many offline browsers and the page wheren't saved
used this instead of using htacess to block the offline browsers and downloaders, it's faster and more reliable.

hope this helps anyone.

[wsz]

My 2 cents...

There might be situations where blocking could be counter-productive.

One of my sites has a fairly active forum (50+ posts/day.) Those people might never click on an ad, but they contribute lots and lots of content, which gets onto search engines, which draws more visitors (who might click the ads, or contribute more content.)

Much of my income is from CPA/affiliate text links. So totally diverting/blocking someone with a graphic-size-based blocker could also prevent them from reaching and clicking "informative" text link ads. (Although text-link blockers definately present a danger - if they got too popular, I would implement a click-redirect script.)


SpamBots/Harvesters should, of course, go right to the bit-bucket. Some spammers are not smart enough to cover it - I recall once getting hammered all day by something clearly identified as, "EmailSiphon."

So my concern is, let the banner-blockers come, but shut out the spambots. Just my opinion.

If anybody has (or can refer me to) a spambot list, I will be happy to confirm the listings and then repost/link-to it on my anti-spam site - http://www.MinistryOfPrivacy.com/

[dwergs]

Here's an idea:

- Add a pop-up [eg. as default] that shows exclusive (inside) information -or- a link to a secret part of your site -or- something else your visitors would be interested in.

- Tell them about it on the homepage and try to motivate to "look for the secret pop-up".

Hopefully, this will increase exposure to your advertisers (no 1 milisecond window-closing) and decrease the use of blockers, all depending on the type of visitors you get.

[SGA]

JFS,

Where do you add this? between the head tags? Just after the body?

[JFS]

well u can add that anywhere, and it will just load untill the script after it isn't loaded, i use that after the <body> for eg.

 <html>



<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="pt">

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">

<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

<title>Games Section</title>

<style type=text/css>

<!--HTML

{scrollbar-DarkShadow-Color:#000000;

scrollbar-Track-Color:#000000;

scrollbar-Face-Color:#000000;

scrollbar-Shadow-Color:#ffffff;

scrollbar-Highlight-Color:#ffffff;

scrollbar-3dLight-Color:#000000;

scrollbar-Arrow-Color:#ffffff **

-->

A:link {color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none;**

A:Visited  { color : #ffffff; text-decoration: none; **

A:Active { color : #ffffff; text-decoration: none; **

</style>



<base target="_blank">



</head>



<body oncontextmenu="return false" bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFFFF" vlink="#FFFFFF" alink="#FFFFFF" background="backgroundweb.jpg"  bgproperties=fixed>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" src="http://www.popuptraffic.com popup code "></script> 

<?



               /* Anti-leech bandwidth protecter by Corey Milner, http://www.odey.com. 

               Turn the refererring URL into a variable */

$from = getenv("HTTP_REFERER");



               /* Check to see if the URL in the variable is a valid referrer. Add the page URL which you would like people to arrive from here. */

if ($from != "http://www.fateless.f2s.com/main_menu.htm")



               /* If the URL is valid, page loads now */



               /* If URL is invalid the following error message and proper link appears, enter your custom error message and a hyperlink to the valid URL                you               entered above here*/

{print(" Sorry you have tried to link to a page which does not accept visitors directly. <br>

<a href=http://www.warez2live.f2s.com>CLICK HERE</a> to visit us!");



               /* Prevent the rest of the page from loading */

exit;**



?>

just don't forget to rename the extension to *.php

[1lit]

Originally posted by mcsebraindumps
Here's a nice little php command for those of you wanting to use it:
<?php $user_agents = array('Flashget', 'Offline', 'Teleport', 'Downloader', 'reaper', 'WebZIP', 'Website Quester',
'MSIECrawler', 'FAST-WebCrawler', 'Gulliver', 'WebCapture', 'HTTrack', 'Fetch API Request', 'NetAnts', 'SuperBot',
'WebCopier', 'Web********'); foreach ($user_agents as $usr_agt) if (preg_match("/$usr_agt/i", $HTTP_USER_AGENT)) die("Sorry,
these bots destroy our bandwidth and webserver, please refrain from using them on our site"); ?>

You said that is works about 75% of the time. I'm not an expert with these things, but what exactly does it block please?

Is there any script that is more effective?

Thinking of adding it to all our pages, but just want to make sure what it does before we start...

Thank you

[SGA]

Bump. Ralph will botbuster block popup-blockers also?

[hammer]

Add another blocker to the growing list..
ALEXA has added a free pop-up blocker to their toolbar, which will probably mean a whole lot more less pop revenue.