Advertising on Nexus Mods. The how, what and why, and what to do when it goes wrong.

[Crimsomrider]

Very fun and informative read ^^

 

I personally love The Nexus because it has done so much for me and plenty of other people out there, therefore I never ran Adblock on this site, but recently the stupid ads that hijacked my browser were getting out of hand, so instead of doing what most people would do, I bought the Supporter service just to stop with the ads and support the site a bit. And then a few days later someone donated me the Premium Service, so I'd say I've pretty much done everything I can for the site :D

 

Thank you Dark0ne for everything you created and the team behind you. This is a beautiful place to share creativity and I thank you for it.

 

Cheers!

Edited December 14, 2016 by crimsomrider

[worksa7]

I just gave them a few bucks and no ads- well worth it imo.

[memlapse]

In response to post #45637070.

soupdragon1234 wrote:

What gives you the right to show us ads? Because you own the site? It is an open internet and you've made this site as a free resource. Some people pay for their bandwidth (such as mobile internet), and would probably not want to pay for the advertisements themselves given the choice. Is it right to push advertisements on them? And if we have the magic switch that says "no thanks", is it right for others to slander them because they don't give out money instead? Should we be expected to hand out cash for sites in exchange for ad-free nature? Ads that they push themselves.

 

Yes, because he owns the site. Secondly, it has to be paid for. What you think stuff like this comes for free? Really? The mobile argument might have some value if they paid for this site as well as their internet service but they didn't, and since when did you last contribute anything towards this site, its maintenance or its content?

 

Because from where I'm sitting you're a freeloader and I'll tell you this, when the balance of costs vs. advertising reaches a tipping point that more people use adblock than not, when those expenses can no longer be covered, it'll mean either the end of free sites like this or they'll become a paid up subscription model membership only. Its only the ads that pay for peoples free membership and the hosting costs of free mods and the law of ever diminishing returns applies here. :ermm:

edited: I should have read the whole post. I took it out of context.

Edited December 14, 2016 by memlapse

[bigbull21]

Very interesting read! If you don't mind me asking, how much does it cost to run that database cluster for just one average month?

[Blinkytheoneeyedpirate]

I just want to say that I've had a few ads with a painfully loud volume and I reported them. They were gone within a day or two which is pretty amazing. I really appreciate that you guys work so hard to keep the negative impacts of such an important revenue stream in check. Good work Nexus peoples :D

[Gibbson]

Thanks for another good read and for taking the time to explain it to us. I'm just wondering is it possible to re-enable ads for premium or supporter accounts?

[u1rsos2]

I dont use adblock on this site , its just not cool to use adblock here, i hate ads buut i wanna keep this site running.

[Triaxx2]

I notice, that if you're running Avast and have it blocking Double-Click, it seems to completely remove all ads from the site. Which I don't want, but if it's not blocked, I get background changing ads for Hearthstone. So ugh.

[Aahzmandias]

I block adds on general principle. They are the blight of the web.

 

Because they are too dangerous, containing often malicious software, the website owner has no control over them at all, he can only react after something bad things happen. I do not block adds from the site itself, though, only third party sites.

 

But there is no way in hell I deactivate "uBlock Origin" or "noscript". Never ever.

 

But I payed via paypal in the past, for this website ... more than one time. Because, like I said before, I don't do any exceptions for any 3rd party advertises in existance, but I have to pay for that privilige. At least I am feeling that way.

 

Please understand my point of view.

 

We can talk about a more regular payment, because I think this site is very important for the modding community and the mod users in general.

Edited December 14, 2016 by mkess

[MrJohn]

In response to post #45634790. #45635625 is also a reply to the same post.

MrJohn wrote: Interesting article, much better content than the others I would commend.

The problem I have with the advertisements are mostly their annoyance. As far as I knew, you had removed the "lifetime membership" option back when you announced the "final sale" of them. But my opinion is not gained a positive spur from this article.

Viewing picture 5 and 6, I would like to say a few things. Beginning with picture 5, the banner advertisements aren't too bad. The bright background mitigates my first issue, which is contrast. The second square ad really breaks this. The first thing that pops up on the site is a bright white box, clearly disrupting the otherwise gray and pleasant to look at information, trying to squeeze my eyes to look at it, interrupting my viewer experience to push their product. It doesn't fit, and thereby becomes an anomaly in an otherwise good site.

We scroll down, and see what you see in picture 6. Not too bad. Banner ad holds the color of the page, it can be ignored successfully. But there it is again. Bright colors, clearly attempting to gut at you. "Look at me!!!!" it screams.

Which is the purpose of an advertisement, to gain attention. But right now my attention wants to be on modding.

Which brings me to the 2nd point, targeted advertisement. I am not condoning the art of cookie tracking, am quite strongly against it and any form of advertisements, even though their "wooo eviiiiil" is necessary. But there are a few simple steps that could help. Using your examples for picture 5 and 6, only one advertisement could be uniformly helpful to anyone viewing your site. The first banner ad, Discord. Something for the gamers. The rest are about christmas presents or traveling, nothing that you would come to the Nexus for. I doubt Github would have as much success putting up ads for puppies as you would for traveling. Understandably, you do not control the ads yourself as you've said, but it doesn't help.

A minor tweak would be to add more focus on gaming related advertisement, or to push your ad-provider for more things closer to home. Gaming equipment (keyboards, mice, Logitech/Razer etc.), computers (such as Origin PC), games or games media. These things would be interesting to your demographic (gamers/modders), and would maybe persuade more to help out. What I would rather fear is that it would cost your bottom line to restrict advertisement content. As far as I am concerned, most of these ads are just as bad as any other "bad ads", only "less frowned upon" so to speak.

I can only speak for myself of course. Generally, pages without ads are just better, cleaner and smoother. Less bandwidth is used, if you are on a metered connection, than if not. It all eventually boils down to ethics and morals.

What gives you the right to show us ads? Because you own the site? It is an open internet and you've made this site as a free resource. Some people pay for their bandwidth (such as mobile internet), and would probably not want to pay for the advertisements themselves given the choice. Is it right to push advertisements on them? And if we have the magic switch that says "no thanks", is it right for others to slander them because they don't give out money instead? Should we be expected to hand out cash for sites in exchange for ad-free nature? Ads that they push themselves.

In closing, I commend you for this article. The look into the backside of Nexus is always interesting, not always positive, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. You also avoided the "we needs monies, pls help" side of the story, though whenever a site mentions the "ads", they usually want to spark some feeling of "Maybe I should help", which is quite cheap. Personally I am torn on the issue regarding finances, as I know it is difficult.

Ethreon wrote: "What gives you the right to show us ads? Because you own the site?"

Exactly. He owns it, and he would have to pay for it from his pocket. Even if he'd be a rich man, doubt you'd get the same amazing offer if there were no ads. Rest of your argument might be based and intelligent, but that there is a dumb statement.

A fair point. But there are other variables than just ownership. Consider it an open house. To enter you need to bring posters. But the house is open for all. No entry fee. So you arrive without grabbing that poster. Does he have the right to smack you for not taking the poster? The house is open, after all. He could plead you to bring the poster. A form of begging, if you are cynical.

But the fact is this that the road you use to travel to said house, the car/transport you use and so forth you cover yourself. Only the end-point is "owned", so to speak. But ads are like a baggage that rides along with you. Like a poster you need to bring with you.

This boils down to opinions, but really I don't think ownership of a site would also give you right to force ads people do not want to see. What would be a great idea would be choice of ads, where you could see the ad options and tailor the ads based on color, contrast, type and so forth, to actually give a personalized ad service that could be unintrusive and maybe even helpful.

I don't blame the users of ads, but rather the ads themselves. It's like producers like EA f*#@ing companies over, the same as advertisers f*#@ the companies using them over. It's all greed.