I'm sure most of you have noticed a new ad on the site. This month we've implemented a "Page Peel" advertisement in the upper right hand corner of the site. Apologies for some of the performance problems early on in the week, but it has been a learning experience on both our side and the vendor side.
We have been carefully watching for feedback and saw some complaints in the forums, which we greatly appreciate the feedback. However I wanted to put out our point of view, not to be defensive, but to explain ourselves a little.
Over the years we've tried to build a site we're proud of and limit advertising. We have definitely added more over time and tried some experiments for different features. Last year we experimented with some Google AdWords, which worked out well, and this summer we tried the double underline advertisement that brought up a small hover advertisement over some keywords. We had a mixed reaction with that, so that got turned off while we tried out the "Page Peel" this month.
We want you to be happy with the site and enjoy visiting the community. The strength of this community is the members and we value each and every one of you. However this is also a business with expenses and as we try to drive more revenue to support the site and founders, we want to try some new things.
If you go check many of the other large SQL Server communities, SQLMag, SQL Server Performance, Database Journal, and others, I think you'll find that we have many fewer ads and are less intrusive on your eyeballs than other sites.
We want to be a user friendly site. We don't put advertisements on our printable articles, try to force you to click through 4 pages to read an article, or some of the other techniques that many sites continue to do in order to raise impressions and make more money. We don't like dealing with those things ourselves and so they aren't on this site. The Page Peel is intended as a monthly thing, on some months, off others, to try and help vendors stand out with their products as well as support the site.
Growing this company and continuing to provide great SQL Server information for you requires the company to grow. From time to time we'll experiment with new features and enhancements and we really do want to get your feedback. I know most of you will read this and not respond, but we'd really like to hear what you like and don't like as well as knowing which features are important and which are lacking.
And, of course, any suggestions for other revenue ideas are appreciated. We're willing to move ads around or even remove some, just need a way to make up the revenue.
Steve Jones
Well, I like the page peel ad - it's pretty easy to ignore if you don't want to view it and when you do, it's quite a nice dynamic ad to watch - different. Much better than the pop-ups that you have to click 'close' to get rid of.
I feel ads are a fact of life regardless of the medium. I'm one of those people who still enjoy going through the (physical ) junk mail in my mailbox - if I've got time I go through them as it's an easy way to keep in touch with what new products are out there and if I don't have time they just go straight to the recycling bin - my choice. Online ads are no different, ignore them if you're not interested or click through if you are - you just might find a product that will make your life easier - but without the advertising you'll never know...
The site's excellent and the ads don't bother me. I just tried out the page peeler, and it's fine, because as soon as you move the mouse away the page peels away.
Although you may not get much feedback here regarding ads, you probably will in terms of the number of hits you are getting. I'd soon abandon a site where ads made the site difficult to use. So, I'd keep an eye on those numbers as much as the feedback
This site is fantastic. Ads are a fact of life for freebie sites. I like the fact that the ads on this site are highly targeted and related to the content. I will tell you it was hard to ignore the page peel. It was a bit entertaining without being obnoxious. It's very effective.
I was more impressed that you actually included hyperlinks to your competitors. Now that's having confidence in your product! Out of curiousity, I visited them and I am sticking with this site.
Since ads are necessary to cover costs, I always expect to find them on the sites that I find most useful. For the most part, they become "background noise". The one style that you implemented that I find most annoying is the keyword ads that popup on a mouse hover. It seems like they always appear while you are trying to read something. I am glad that you have chosen other methods now.
Regards, Scott
I think most professionals will understand that the more ad money the site generates, the better content it can offer in the long run. The page peel is one of the least intrusive forms of internet ad I've seen. You would have to be pretty picky to be truly bothered by it since it's out of the way unless you hover over the top right corner to activate it.
Cheers, Scott
For those who compain about the advertising I ask this, do you call the TV networks and complain about the ads on TV that are inserted during your shows airtime? I bet not.
Nothing is free in life, even those things that are advertised as free. If you truely believe that everything should be free without any advertising or the like then you should be willing to work for free and I have a suspicous feeling that you aren't willing to work for free.
Steve,
One thing that I do like about this site is the formatting of your printed articles. As you mentioned, it's pretty painless and free of ads. I really hate all the ads filtered into every page of technical information on some of the other SQL sites. That's why I always first turn to SQL Central.
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Clark
