Ads: How Low Would You Sink?

Pop-ups piss me off and I'm sure they'd annoy my readers as well, so I'd never sink that low. I don't mind seeing ads on sites, sometimes they're even useful. However, I can't stand when they get in your face. I don't think there is anything wrong with some unobtrusive ads or affiliate links.

Yesterday a company I had been discussing some adverts with for my htmlcenter.com web site finally came to us with a proposal. They offered some nice money (I left full time employment to work for myself so any money is good money). I asked them to send me examples of the ads they want to run and basically all of the links went to adsense spam type sites. You know the kind with no content but tons of adsense ads.... well I thought about it long and hard and decided to turn down the ads. Even though I could have used the money, in 10 years of running htmlcenter, I refuse to run any crap ads and will continue to do so.

I hate them myself so I would not want my visitors to get pissed off with them. And it may drive away some visitors.

As a security guru of sorts, I would strongly advise against pop up,down,sideways or however one would try to push the advertisement in a consumers face. I build and tweak computers for people and they all will not accept any of that type junk. My focus in browser security is two sided , I like playing with javascript and using it on web sites however if you were to ask me about it I can tell horror stories with scripts as im sure many of you can. I agree with the adsense or static advertisement. Trust me if its eye catching and of interest to the person they will click....I do all the time. Spyware is a bad thing as well. I had many hours of conversations with companies who get upset when I call their product spyware. Most notably Weatherbug, which I believe now doesnt contain the spyware. Also beware of firefox extensions installing spyware, one I can think of is "my web search" its spyware pure and simple and ive notified them who by the way could care less what I think:) Weatherbug thought that way too at 1st until the word got out. I own an online security forum with a substantial member base and word spreads fast...lol Make ads nice and they will work, try to trick and the trust leaves.

Ron

Worst I have done is place an Adsense generated "get Firefox" plus "Join Adsense"
button on one blog, and a video collection from Revver, which monetizes user
uploaded videos by placing ads at the end of same, on a second.