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

[Steve_S]

Some interesting reading in these old posts:

http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...light=block%2A


http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...light=block%2A

http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

Manos, why not consider instructions in your noads page to help your visitors remove the ad blocker from their system AND to tell their friends to do the same Along with the technical issue it helps "paint" "you" as a really nice person who wants them to return and want's them to view your great site.

[Steve_S]

I'm bumping this thread up with this series of questions:

1. Does anyone have a current list of user agents?

2. Who uses this technique and could you please share your results?

<Note: A duplicate of this thread appears in our archive of best posts.>

Please note the date of the first post in this thread

[WildComputer]

Bucks are more important if you're running a business based on banners, etc. (incidentally this isn't really me - but I understand the issue)

Why would you want to spend bandwidth, CPU resources etc on accommodating people who generate zero revenue?

Why would you want repeat use of your bandwidth, CPU resources, etc. for these people? If they don't come back - so much the better

[Czar]

What you are doing is interfering with people's wishes to not view ads. That is their choice. If you force them to view them with these scripts, you are going to lose them and lose possible referrals to their friends who maybe don't have adblockers.

It's mainly an educational issue. My understanding of the intent of this subject header is not "let's fight back against our cheap surfers", but rather "let's fight back against the greedy and unethical manufacturers of ad blocking software".

I'd be willing to bet that most of the users of such software do not realise that what they're doing is wrong, and a threat to the free internet that we've all come to love. By directing such users to a page explaining that the site in question cannot survive unless they agree to view the ads (ie radio, free-to-air TV), or pay for the right to access the site (ie cable, press), one may win the user's empathy or, at the very least, understanding.

If you view the sites promoting ad-blocking software, you'll find that they're so full of propagander and false claims inferrring that ad blocking doesn't hurt anyone, but allows users to avoid an unnecessary evil of the net. As publishers, we have a vested interest in ensuring that users don't believe this to be true.

Let's face it, the media giants will be able to endure small threats such as this, but the indies who add real flavor to the web are at risk when this is compounded with what is already a weak ad market.

[Czar]

Any idea why the Mozilla agents and ia_archiver are in there?

Alexa may block pops, but I thought ia_archiver was the crawler for the Internet Archive.

[Czar]

Originally posted by Reese
If anybody is truly losing much revenue from this, maybe I can help out in exchange for some promotions for sites I am trying to get going, or something.

Reese, welcome to Geek/Talk and thanks for the offer. Please note that this forum supports a free exchange of information for the betterment of the community as a whole. If you'd like to establish a service-based exchange, please feel free to post a thread within Geek/Marketplace. Otherwise, it would be preferable if your solution was outlined here.

Incidentally, feel free to use the 'Edit' feature to adjust posts that you have made so as to avoid incidental bumping.

Thanks in advance.

[Jan]

At the risk of being shot down in flames, I would like to ask what is more important? Surfers or bucks?

What you are doing is interfering with people's wishes to not view ads. That is their choice. If you force them to view them with these scripts, you are going to lose them and lose possible referrals to their friends who maybe don't have adblockers.

This is almost like cheating, but you are cheating the surfers. If I was using adblockers and I was still forced to view ads, I most certainly wouldn't return to that site.

If those unscrupulous ad companies hadn't come up with the 5-40 spawned popups maybe not so many people would be looking for alternatives.

[Jan]

This at least gives the surfer an option

"We have determined that you are using some sort of ad-blocking software or using a browser that downloads our site to your machine.<P> Please understand that we are able to provide this content free because of our Sponsors (ads) and if you choose to block them, we will be unable to display the pages, if people continue to block our sponsors ads using ad-blocking softwares then we will be forced to charge for the content and we do not wish to do this so Please shut of your ad-blocking software and revisit our site."

If you are going to do this (anti adblockers) and maybe retain a few visitors, then put something like this in. That way there is a choice - to enter or not to enter.

Just be nice

[Owen]

Originally posted by 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.

Have the popup set a variable on the main page (using parent.document.whatever inside the popup). If it's not set when a link is clicked on, go to a "turn off the blocker please" page. I think it would work nearly perfectly if you run your own popups.

One possible future problem, of course. If many sites start doing this, then popup blockers will actually download and execute the code but not show the popup. This is 10 times worse than not showing at all because it totally screws up the stats--now you have no idea how many people have viewed your ad. Actually, this may be the way all popup blockers may go so watch out.

Owen

[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

[adland]

If you want to fight back, attack x-10. They more than any other advertiser are responsible for the increase in people using ad-blocking software.

[Ralph Slate]

Here's a tip on a program that I first read about here, but haven't seen mentioned in a while.

I bought a program called "Botbuster". Their URL is http://www.botbuster.com . It's a set of scripts that detects when a non-search engine is spidering your site, and blocks them using .htaccess.

It's been working great for me -- I block 10-20 bots per day. You have the option to block permanently, or for a specified time period.

They're working on enhancements to it where it will actually tell someone that they've been banned (instead of just blocking access), so that it will educate your users instead of just punishing them.

Try it out on my site -- hit me with a Spider and you'll see that you'll be blocked.

If you decide to buy it, mention my name so I get some brownie points!

Ralph

[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.

[SGA]

JFS,

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

[SGA]

Bump. Ralph will botbuster block popup-blockers also?