META: These ads, man...
[ED: As I've commented in threads like this before, there's a scuzzy company (currently repping Realtor.com) that is somehow getting around our system by replacing approved ads with theirs. Know this: *WE HAVE ALL SOUND ADS TURNED OFF*. If you get autoplay sound, it's not supporting the site; it's an attack ON the site.
There was a similar problem 2 years ago with Trump ads that drew a ton of complaints. They're illegal, and we aren't making any money off of them beyond the pennies we should be making from the ads that should be served in their stead. Our ad partners are doing their best to get rid of them, but it's like playing whack-a-mole. Please believe me: I'm experiencing this too and it's driving me more nuts than you because I feel responsible for fixing it. --seth]
Hey all,
So I love this blog and this community for many reasons but these ads are just killing me.
Exhibit A:
I get that money is needed and ads make the world go round but lately it's been like trying to get around Hutchinson on left and Ojabo on the right. It's not too bad on mobile but on a PC or Mac it just becomes redundant. If I wanted to click on anything on the right hand of the screen, I must fight Ads by Google to trial by combat to see the board. Also I bring this to the attention of the mods because I know how hard they work to support MGo and I think they do appreciate the feedback. This is an issue like ~99% of my visits which is like 20x a day... I know, I have a problem...
Also pretty cool news about Harbaugh, right? That seemed to work out.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:44 PM ^
and auto play video ads
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:46 PM ^
Yeah and I get that there are ways to turn those off but let's just say I'm from the Mavis Beacon school of typing and that ain't my jam.
Again, love the blog and our people. Just thinking any way we could make this more user-friendly?
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:48 PM ^
That's the part that's annoying me. I 100% do not mind ads (I specifically have my adblocker off for MGoBlog to help support the site), but the autoplay video ads with randomly loud audio that I can't click to mute are super annoying.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
Beat me to it. I appreciate the site's responsibility to generate revenue, but I'd pay a sub fee to keep the video ads from blasting my office when I forget to mute the volume.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:45 PM ^
Might you consider installing an ad-blocker on your devices and then donating some $$$ to the cause using PayPal once a quarter? Saves me quite a bit of irritation. Just a suggestion.
February 3rd, 2022 at 9:00 PM ^
This is what I have turned to. I left ad blocker off for a long time, but my reading experience was seriously hampered. I emailed Seth about it and suggested a subscription, but he was not impressed with many of the other models out there. Seemed like it was an idea under consideration, but I don't know that the MGo team has the bandwidth for major site revisions.
So Ad Blocker it is!
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:46 PM ^
You can mute and pause those annoying ads, but you have to hover your cursor over it for a second before the pause/volume controls appear. Of course, if you scroll down off the ad and then back up to where the ad is pinned, it may just randomly start playing again. Super annoying.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
The autoplay ads are especially horrible on this site. Halfway through a page it starts BLARING and for the life of me I often cannot find the offending ad to stop the video or mute it.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
The auto play video ads scare the hell out of me if I accidentally leave my speaker on. It's creepy to hear voices and not know where they're coming from.
These ads also made "watching" the WTKA Roundtable a pretty miserable experience. The easy solution is to just listen to the Roundtable on my smartphone.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:17 PM ^
I have a few amazon alexas throughout my house. Earlier this week, I was home alone and stepped out of the shower and heard two people talking in my house. Turns out one of the Alexas somehow got turned on and put on a podcast or radio show. I don't know how or why it got turned on but talk about being creeped out. Kind of a heart stopping moment there for a second.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
I have to keep my MacBook speaker muted when on the site to stop the Realtor.com ad. I don't want the site to lose ad money with a blocker, but it's a miserable user experience.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:54 PM ^
I will never use Realtor.com again because of this. I'm not joking.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:36 PM ^
Take a few minutes to let them know. It wont take a whole lot of feedback before they realize this shitty business hurts business and it should be ended.
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:54 PM ^
I think it’s also really bad on mobile.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:34 PM ^
Adds that pop up at the top of the screen and block the navigation tools are annoying. Also the ads that cover the lower 25% of the screen
February 3rd, 2022 at 8:15 PM ^
This is no joke....
February 3rd, 2022 at 1:56 PM ^
How much money would the readers of this blog need to donate in total to make this site ad free?
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:03 PM ^
I thought that would be the case with online newspapers. Nope.
February 3rd, 2022 at 10:42 PM ^
At least what the NYT paid the Athletic bros
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:03 PM ^
I'd be curious to know how much my viewing ads is worth to MGoBlog every day. I'd at least *think* about donating that much daily and then rigging the browser with script blockers, etc.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:04 PM ^
I think we need more sports gambling, divorce lawyer, crypto, and insurance ads because those are the things I'm most interested in as a sports fan.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:14 PM ^
Where do mail order brides rank???
/asking for a friend
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:27 PM ^
Based upon the times I've listened to sports-talk radio, there also seem to be a disproportionate amount of ads for settling delinquent tax-debts with the IRS.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:11 PM ^
Do they even do Viagra and beer commercials anymore? Yeesh. Kids these days.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:10 PM ^
This spam ad got me twice while I was reading MgoBlog during a zoom.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:26 PM ^
I never get any ads. Hmmm.......
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:47 PM ^
Realtor.com is the worst. And I can confirm that I've been scouring the internet for real estate in recent months. I'm not really even in the market for new properties, but I somehow can't help continually browsing to "see what's out there". I may have a problem.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:42 PM ^
I always seem to get ads from Porn hub, sugar babes, and The Whiskey Exchange???? crazy
February 3rd, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
The Extenze ads are the worst, let me tell ya.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
Block all ads and donate directly to the site.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:05 PM ^
In chrome you can do "mute site" and then no audio from mgoblog will be heard ever
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
I just contacted realtor.com to let them know I boycott companies that have particularly intrusive and unwanted ads, like theirs. It is annoying, and Seth, I hope you can do something to get rid of this.
EDIT: I'm also annoyed at the endless ads of women wearing lingerie. They say that your ads are generated by your previous browsing or purchases. I have never purchased lingerie, nor gone to their websites. (And for that matter, I've never gone to "Amazon Fresh" or to "Realtor.com" or to many of the other ads that pop up, so it isn't necessarily previous browsing preferences that determine what comes up on your sidebar.)
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:18 PM ^
I sent $100 through beveled guilt and turned on my adblocker a few weeks ago.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:23 PM ^
as i said on a similar thread elsewhere: install the "Disable HTML5 Autoplay" extension from Chrome. It's very easy to do and stops all ads with audio from playing
chrome://extensions/?id=efdhoaajjjgckpbkoglidkeendpkolai
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:56 PM ^
I use that extension but two problems with it:
- You have to remember to turn it off a LOT. It messes with zoom and the videos I post in UFR and all sorts of things. 99% of the time when I have a problem on a site, it's that.
- It doesn't stop ESPN from auto-playing. I can't tell you how many times I want to get the play by play information for my basketball sheets, leave the tab open, and then minutes later it starts blaring a replay.
February 3rd, 2022 at 4:01 PM ^
The best is when it starts playing through your headphone during a work meeting and you spend the next minute furiously searching all your browser windows to figure out which one is blasting SportsCenter highlights at 80 db.
February 3rd, 2022 at 6:28 PM ^
My perception is that it remembers sites that you've turned it off for
And also I don't have the autoplay problems with ESPN, though sometimes CBSsports videos get through
February 3rd, 2022 at 10:47 PM ^
ESPN is the worst. Doesn't matter if you close the app. You still hear Stephen A rambling on about something stupid.
February 3rd, 2022 at 4:17 PM ^
What sort of ads would you like?
February 3rd, 2022 at 5:18 PM ^
Overtaking ass again?
February 3rd, 2022 at 5:37 PM ^
I'm using Vivaldi, which bites for some purposes, but not seeing the referenced ads.
February 3rd, 2022 at 5:58 PM ^
Normally I use Safari as my browser but I have found I can eliminate most of these annoying ads by switching over to FireFox. No ads at this time.
February 3rd, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
try brave browser
February 3rd, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
OOPs. Dup
February 3rd, 2022 at 6:45 PM ^
Realtor.com doesn't get any business from me.
February 3rd, 2022 at 7:12 PM ^
I must be doing something wrong because…women in bras and lingerie make up 90% (random guess, no actual math applied) of my ads. If those ads had volume now…?
February 4th, 2022 at 10:09 AM ^
I had a recurring one of a woman with, uh, no bra or lingerie...
I think it was for Etsy, they were trying to sell me duvets with porn images printed on them. Masturbating-girl taking up a quarter of my screen is not really what I wanted with my work tabs open and my girlfriend sitting nearby
February 3rd, 2022 at 7:33 PM ^
Yeah, since the auto play video ads started, I've had to mute my sound. But if it gives Brian and his staff more money that they deserve for making this a free site, then I have no problem muting my volume.
February 3rd, 2022 at 10:13 PM ^
Come for the Michigan info, leave with an Asian bride!?
February 4th, 2022 at 1:32 AM ^
I, like everyone else here, love this blog.
But yes, the ads have become super intrusive. And the fact that the site still goes down with lots of traffic, when people like me have volunteered their industry knowledge and proposed an inexpensive and reliable solution (a CDN!), yet no response from the mods, baffles me.
I acknowledge how difficult it is to run a business today, but please, learn from your audience, especially the ones that care and want to make the blog even better for visitors.