Will adblockers bring the end of free websites?
They are add-ons / plug-ins people can download to their web browsers. They block anything written with javascript and flash. This means they automatically block ads and in many cases interactive activities. One of these add-ons is Firefox’s biggest download. Millions more people are using adblockers every week.
The bad news
Many English language teaching websites that make materials available for free rely on ads (from Google or elsewhere) to keep going. These include sites like mine (BreakingNewsEnglish.com, Listen A Minute.com, ESL Discussions.com, etc).
Adblocking software is effectively strangling the revenue streams from these sites.
Many webmasters and materials creators are deciding to call it a day.
The bottom line is that many more sites will go offline because of the damage adblockers are doing.
What can you do?
If you have adblocking software, please “whitelist” the sites you do not want to go out of business. There are filters within the menu of the add-on / plug-in for you to allow ads on those sites. You will be really helping their survival.
What can free websites do?
Be responsible and filter the ads on your site. Below is a site that perhaps needs to think a lot more about who will potentially see these ads, and less about maximizing ad revenue from absolutely minimal content.
This particular graphic shows why many people, justifiably, have got fed up with ads and are turning to adblockers. This website page shows the famous diet and IMVU ads encircling just EIGHT words of content.
I teach young Arab women in the Middle East. Any “fleshy” ads can cause offense to them, even in cartoon / avatar-like format. I block them from appearing on all of my sites.
The future of my sites
I really don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t really be exaggerating to say the bottom fell out of my world when I came across adblockers and what they are doing to my sites. I have worked pretty hard every day for six years on my sites. I’m now wondering whether it’s worthwhile continuing, given the fact that one day (probably very) soon, everyone will have adblocking software.
I will have to make one of three choices soon:
- call it a day on my sites altogether (really can’t entertain this thought)
- start charging subscriptions (don’t really want to do this)
- ask for donations (not sure if this would work)
I’m thinking if I can make more sites, I won’t have to resort to asking people to pay.
Your comments would be very welcome. I need all the advice I can get.
Tags: Adblockers, adblocking software, free materials, free websites
Sean, as the owner of a free educational website I understand what you are saying. As a rule an educational site should always avoid having distracting ‘fleshy’ adds like the one you posted. You never know what the age of your student is. It does not matter if you teach Arab women or young students. That is why people like us may have even less revenue streams from ads as we block the more attractive and distracting ads from playing on the site.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Burcu Akyol, Henrick Oprea, Miguel Mendoza, Dominique Paci, Sean Banville and others. Sean Banville said: Just blogged: 'Will adblockers bring the end of free websites?' http://bit.ly/bblyB5 #esl #efl #elt [...]
Adding to my last comment: people do have a right to block ads on free sites. But of course that will push the website owners to look for other ways of generating revenue. I would support options 2 & 3. Option 4 would be to sell a physical product from your site. Keep your site free but show only a part of your content maybe 30-50%? And then consider making a product of the free and the hidden content. And a big NO to option 1
Thank you Faiza,
It may be too late, but more webmasters need to be more responsible in looking at which ads appear on their sites. It is so quick and easy to block an offensive URL. I block perhaps a site a month.
The graphic on my blog is a prime example of how tacky things can get without exercising this responsibility. Besides the offensive ads, it totally smacks of greed and taking site visitors for a ride. It’s little wonder surfers see stuff like that and think adblockers are a good idea. Let’s hope people understand there are decent sites out there that need to be whitelisted in the adblocking software.
Hi again Faiza and thanks for your follow-up comment.
I don’t really agree that people have a right to block ads on free sites. Blocking ads is tampering with our pages. Each visit to our site adds to the bandwidth costs we have to pay. People who block ads to our site are increasing our costs and at the same time eliminating a potential source of income.
Thank you for option 4 – It looks a good one. Many ESL materials sites give a token per cent or two of stuff free and sell the 98%+ as their product. They also seem to be able to get away with charging $50 or more per year. I’ll keep you posted.
In my naivete I haven’t come across these. This resonates with our talk last Tuesday about the future of free resources. I think it’s all beginning to come to a head. I’ve noticed sites (like Reuters) jump through lots of hoops with their ads (they now have very gentle movement and no sound) obviously in response to complaints from users. I agree entirely with your comments on the ads above they are everywhere, greatly lacking in taste and lacking relevance to most sites they appear on.
I think we must realise that we can’t have it all ways. If you don’t want ads you’ll have to pay something and if you want it free you’ll have to put up with the ads. If we continue want both we’ll get nothing!
Am with you on this one, Sean.
As anyone who runs an education website will tell you, it’s is a very long way off from being a lucrative advertising niche; however, the small amount of revenue that the ads generate helps offset the cost of running a site and the considerable time and effort that goes into producing good quality educational materials.
Although we have Google ads on our site, we try to keep them unobtrusive and we block any categories that visitors might find inappropriate. I use our site to teach my own students and have not seen inappropriate ads displaying, but if anybody did spot one I would hope that they would email us and let us know. As Faiza points out, blocking offensive URL’s is a fairly simple process.
Like you, I also think it’s bad form to use adblockers, & I would not use them myself for the reasons you’ve already stated.
Personally, I think giving feedback on inappropriate ads is a much better way of dealing with the issue than the “taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut” approach. I also think that the best way to deal with spammy sites that bombard you with pop-ups or in-your-face advertising is very simple; don’t use them! Patronise the sites that are tailored to offering a good quality visitor experience rather than simply making money out of you, instead.
Sue
Sean, I hope you don’t decide to give up your websites – they`re a fantastic source of materials for both students and teachers alike. As a TEFL teacher in a language academy I often turn to websites like yours for materials more appropriate than the course book. I’ve noted a trend away from the “sharing” culture that we have been lucky to have over the past few years as more ESL sites offer a small percentage for free and charge for the “premium” services. I’m not surprised by this – and as a materials writer myself (for my own academy) I know how much thought and time it can take to research and create each activity. I think that your Option 4 (as suggested by FaizaK) seems like a fair option and something that you should consider – if this is what it takes to keep going. You could perhaps have a sliding scale of charges. For example, apart from the percentage of free stuff, a starting point of, say, 20 dollars for x amount of activities per year up to 50+ dollars for full access with the option that the “subscriber” can upgrade as and when required? I don’t know how easy that might be to manage. It might exclude some existing and potential customers who do not have the resources to pay but it if this is the solution then so be it. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
ps. Creating more websites – didn’t I read that you have had health problems in one of your recent posts? That might not be a good idea if this is the case…
Hey Sean,
first of all ad blockers are already around for about two or three years now and honestly who ever uses an app like this is only driving around with a car with the handbreak on. As you said, it’s not only blocking ads but all kind of interactive content. So after most people get frustrated enough that “the internet does not work anymore” they will turn this stuff off again. Downloads do not mean active apps as subscribers do not mean active users.
Secondly, advertisements are not really a revenue model. They might pay for the hosting and a nice dinner once a month but to expect more is hard these days with dropping CPC and CPM rates. And those rates were never great for educational sites anyway.
So what to do? Get sponsors. You are one of the most renown guys in ESL with a huge base of users. Just start selling ad spaces on your sites on your own and then you might actually be able to go out for dinner twice a week or more
. You are sitting on a very solid webestate and this is something you can easily monetize on.
Hi Berni – I only came across adblockers a few months ago. This entry posted on a blog in 2005 shows how long they’ve been around:
DoubleClick Warns Against Ad-Blocking Browsers
“The end of free Internet content will come when Web browsers start blocking online advertisements by default, a DoubleClick executive has warned. Bennie Smith, the online advertising network’s privacy chief, said the popularity of tools like Adblock — an extension to the Mozilla Firefox browser — which makes blocking online ads simple was tied to ‘a negative vibe against advertising in general’.”
The problem for the moment is that millions of web surfers want it all ways – They want the free materials without the ads. I don’t really see the problem going away. It is in fact becoming bigger and bigger and the above quote looks like becoming reality (at least in part).
Thank you for posting this Sue,
I think all we can do is to try and show our visitors we are blocking offensive ads and requesting them to white-list us. I have blocked several sites at the request of visitors. It is becoming increasingly hard to operate with so many sledgehammers around.
Hello Sean,
Thanks for posting this. You help us non-site creating people to understand this particular issue with a clear and concise explanation.
I remember you sending me a message on Twitter after I retweeted something that had been shown at IATEFL – one of the ad blocking sites you mention above. I’m glad you did that, as it’s really opened my eyes.
Personally I don’t use any ad-blockers, partly because I wouldn’t want to hurt the sites of anyone like yourself, but also because I find a lot about the web as more add-ons, downloads, etc etc and find it too fiddly. I’ve taken to subscribing to a resource site myself, and my college has an institutional subscription to Handoutsonline.
That’s my 2p worth =)
All the best
Mike
Hi Helen,
Thanks for your comment. There’s almost no chance of me giving up any of my sites – I enjoy everything connected with them.
It’s difficult to know what to do. There is a possibility that with more sites starting to charge, more people will use my sites and more visitors might compensate for the damage adblockers are doing… until the day everyone has the software. I will look into subscriptions.
As for the other websites, I’ll do those at a slower pace.
Thanks again for your good wishes – much appreciated.
We talked about this when you were here and it was rather interesting to me. I’d never thought about the effect of ad-blocking software before.
Personally, I don’t use ad-blocking software, but I also never click on ads. I think that many people out there may be like me. They never click on ads, so why have them pop up? Maybe you aren’t losing as much revenue as you think because people wouldn’t click on the ads anyway. Not sure about that though.
Perhaps it’s time to look at alternate revenue streams. But, since Sue didn’t come up with that answer, maybe it doesn’t exist. Your best bet might be memberships, like you suggested. The goal of your sites is to make some money and the way it is now you have a lot of people using your site, but probably only a fraction of them are clicking on ads and generating revenue for you. Make it a pay site, even if it’s 12 dollars a year, and you’ll probably increase profit.
Another option, and I’m pretty sure this is what the boys over at penny-arcade.com do, is charge related companies a high fee to place ads. I think this is a great idea. They only accept ads for products they personally have tried out and endorse and their opinion is very respected within the gaming community. Because of this, they have a very high click rate on ads from the tens of thousands s of users who visit the site every week. They then take their click-rate information and site hits to related product companies and sell ad space. They make a lot o money off of just posting the ad regardless of clicks. Maybe you should talk to a marketing or advertising company and see what they can recommend in this direction.
Hi Sean
The only ad blocking I use is Adout, which I wrote about recently here: http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/get-rid-of-embarrassing-ads.html
I only use this when I know there’s a site that has images that I don’t want to have to display. Of course the fact that I do this doesn’t solve your problem.
The problem of generating income from producing free websites is one that I’ve given a lot of thought, as I produce quite a few myself. I tried Google ads and in the end didn’t really feel that the revenue I generated was worth it and I really didn’t like some of the ads appearing. They weren’t things that I would want to recommend or endorse.
I think the answer to this problem is to start getting proper advertising of quality products and services just like paper based publications do. This is potentially a much better earner too. Most paper based ELT publications have a MUCH smaller cirulation and readership than an established ELT blog and yet they charge VASTLY more for avertising space.
As these publications gradually go out of business, (and they are) ELT marketing people will finally wake up to the fact that they should be advertising on blogs (as that is what most people are reading these days) and websites and that this is a far more effective, economically viable and infact measurable form of advertising.
Of course in the meantime we have to hang in there, keep building the quality and reputation with good content and personally I belive we should start to reject the Google monopoly on advertising, so that if companies, universities, schools etc want to advertise on our sites, they realise thay have to pay a fair price.
So, instead of launching another site, I think you should look at collecting up your stats along with any endorsements recommendations, awards etc you get and start going round the ELT marketing people and telling tem what you can do for them.
For me personally, I would avoid charging teachers or students for a subscription service. Many at present just don’t have the means to pay, by which I don’t mean the amount of money, I mean that in many countries it’s very difficult to get access to hard currency bank accounts / Paypal accounts etc, so many people couldn’t pay even if they wanted to.
Anyway, hope this is food for thought. Hang in there and good luck.
Best
Nik Peachey
Thank you very much Kirsten for your comment. I love the handbrake analogy. I hope you’re right that people will tire of adblockers. I expect they will when they realize they block most of the quizzes and online activities on websites.
Sponsorship is one thing I have thought of, but it seems like a full-time job. It’s such an attractive idea – I could avoid charging people for my materials and the adblockers would not touch the ads if they were in jpg/gif format. It’s definitely something to think about, so thank you for the idea,
I have around 8,000 pages online. To look after ads on them would be very time-consuming. I guess it’d be easier were I to switch to a content management system like Joomla??
Thanks for your comment Mike – a welcome 2p worth. I downloaded the Firefox add-on for a test drive and couldn’t get it to work. It is fiddly and unintuitive. Hopefully this happens to lots of people
Thank you Nick for your comment. I think we talked just after I discovered what adblockers were and the harm they were doing to my sites. They have had a definite income, effectively halving my revenue.
It only takes 1-2% of people to click on an ad to make having them worthwhile (at least for me). Adblockers have proliferated in the past two years and in that time the percentage of clicks on my pages has reduced drastically. The same has happened to other webmasters I’ve spoken to.
There will be a time that I will have to look at other revenue sources but I hope to avoid charging for my materials. I’ll check out penny-arcade.com. Thanks for that.
The problem with advertisements is that they have ulterior motives by definition. People don’t want to have something distracting them that they aren’t interested in, so I think adblockers are here to stay. Kevin Kelly in his article “Better than Free” suggests eight ways besides advertising that you can make money with free material that you provide: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
Hi Sean
You’ve raised an interesting issue. Although I don’t use an adblocker as such (and I do click on advertisements in websites if I see something interesting), I do have a popup blocker which functions as a partial adblocker. There are some plugins which are very aggressive and block static ads too but static ads don’t worry me.
What does irritate me are these floating windows in front of the content I’ve just called up. Frankly, I can’t ever remember clicking on one of these ads, and since using the popup blocker, I rarely have a problem with them. Also popup blockers make it reasonably easy to add exceptions. This is particularly important for moodle sites.
I see it as a design challenge. Can you design your websites without popups? And if you use AdSense, have you got the right keywords for your static ads? Another alternative would be to directly offer advertising space to companies. If you have enough traffic (which probably isn’t an issue in your case!) then offering space to related companies may bring in as much as click revenue.
Just some thoughts, and keep us posted on your progress.