the air

Almost every website that I visit regularly has some form of advertising in it. Everyday, I am bombarded with Flash based ads and Google Adsense Ads. I even see those ads which “underline” words and when your mouse hovers on top of them, a little window appears by your mouse pointer offering more information and links to another site/vendor. Now I understand that many websites use these advertisements as additional revenue and use the funds to further offer content for free to visitors. However, I do sincerely wish that they would put their ads in a nicer form and with less distractions from the main content. What I really don’t like are ads that take up the whole screen for a couple seconds and then shrink to a normal banner ad. This can be commonly found on C|Net News.

My blog doesn’t really generate much traffic. And that is something that I really don’t mind. I have no plans to introduce Google Adsense Ads or any other form of advertising on my blog. I am a huge supporter of free content on the internet. However, I also realize that much of the free content has to be supported by advertising as nothing in this world comes free. As we have all been taught, there is a price for everything and nothing is truly free. On that note, I wish that many websites would adhere to a more conservative approach to advertising, rather than being flamboyant and obtrusive advertising.

With Mozilla’s Firefox, I do not have to put up with pop-ups or pop-unders. Very rarely will I ever get an advertisement window that sneaks past Firefox’s pop-up blocker. It’s refreshing to see many websites adopting Google’s text based ads on their sites. In fact, I prefer text-based ads to picture ads for the fact that it really creates a comfortable browsing experience. Flashing ads or too colorful banners simply divert the readers’ attention from the actual content. Even with more and more site administrators moving towards text-based ads, they simply do not know how to position their ads in a good manner. Most sites simply have these text-based ads in random places and inserted at awkward points in their websites.

I’m no expert on ad placement or even how to drive people to your website. However, as just another surfer out there, I think I am well qualified to state what I like to see on a webpage. I think it would be awesome if ads could be neatly arranged to the side or in a nice discreet manner at the top. In most cases, I’m usually against ads on a website. I feel that they drive down the professionalism and creativity of the content. However, I do realize that these ads are what keeping the content free. All I ask is that people at least pay attention to how their ads are placed and make them look nice and discreet. That way, they don’t annoy anyone, like those stupid Flash animated ads that take up half the webpage.

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