Monday
Aug262013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Ads
Aug 26, 2013 Blogs OK, I did it. Put ads on the site. No, I don't like it either, but the effort I put into it needs to pay, so this is the way it will have to be. (If anyone wants to offer me large sums of money to take the ads off again, I'm all ears!)
For me, it looks OK in Firefox and IE10. If anyone has problems let me know in the comments here, telling me which browser and version you are using.
Reader Comments (78)
Ads won't stop me from visiting Andrew.
Bish, if I win the lottery this Wednesday you'll be getting a good chunk of it. Between you, Watts, McIntyre, Mckitrick, Nelson, Laframboise, Curry, Delingpole and all the other usual suspects I've been both comically and tragically entertained for the last 4 years.
Andrew, unfortunately ads have become a fact of life in our wired world ... but like others I have no problem with your decision ... and I'll even try to remember to click on some of the more egregious ones, so that they generate some revenue for you :-)
On the browser-aesthetic front though ...
The major suggestion I would make is that your top level menu and flyouts (with black on dark blue) are somewhat challenging for my aging eyes (except on my iPad, for some reason!) On my "big" screen (using XP Media Centre Edition SP3 regardless of browser) - and even on my Win7 laptops - it's a struggle! Perhaps you might consider swapping out the dark blue bg for the lighter blue you use in the comments bg. And if you could make this menu bar a little taller, that would also help, I think.
Ad visibility (and other anomalies)
XP + Chrome [28.0.1500.95 m] or Firefox [23.0.1]; Win 7 Ultimate +Chrome or Firefox or IE 10; and iPad +Chrome or iPad +Safari
Ads appear fine (although as others have noted, position of second ad aligned right throws things somewhat off-kilter ... if possible, perhaps you could try single row for your "thumbs up", FB like, Tweet and (radical suggestion alert!) View Printer Friendly Version; then place second ad in centre of a merged row below (adding some cell-padding to give some "breathing space"
Your second level navigation (e.g. Main | The Lib Dem energy policy document) appears fine below top banner, but becomes quite munged when ads do not appear [pls see below]
XP +IE 8.x and Win 7 Enterprise +IE8x (Don't ask!)
Ads do not display but (as noted above) second level navigation is munged - i.e. really scrunched up tight to the Nav bar.
Can't see 'em. Don't care. Do what you have to do. Firefox/ubuntu.
Time for honesty.
The ads and their placement look awful. And bring down the overall experience of the site.
The ad under the menu is very bad placement. It actually makes the ad more important than the site.
The large square ads after articles break up the flow.
Many people have ads, I really do not think this is a pleasing solution.
I would even go so far as to say it looks more like a site designed to trap people with ads (you know the type) than actually having important content.
A personal opinion.
Ads are messing up the top navigation bar for me (using Chrome) if they are enabled, so, I'll continue to block them, however, have dropped a few quid into the tip jar as compensation.
Keep up the good work,
Cheers
Norman
What ads? I'm using the latest version of Firefox, don't see anything. Just the usual ads for a couple of books. Maybe they don't appear for those of us on the west coast of Canada?
I'll turn off AdBlock on BH and click on a few links then :)
We need to click them occasionally to get Bish the money.
Australian ads coming up fine in IE10 ver 10.0.9200.16660 with Windows 7 ultimate. This is good because I live in Melbourne. Quite happy to have the ads, have little play money left for tip jar, this is a good outcome.
Don't apologise.
Your work has value. You have a right to it and it helps keep you valuable content on the web.
Leave the shaming of profit to the Watermelons, who, if in your shoes, would have probably been lobbying for a government grant instead.
On my computer I got an ad from Green Peace against Shell´s drilling for oil in the Arctics and - some what comforting - an encouragement to go to Rome, where the price of the hotel is denoted in New Zeeland dollars. Not very relevant for a Swede.
Looks just the same to me - but then I use AdBlock!
Where's the "Login" button gone? I thought that maybe AdBlock had mistakenly blocked it, but even with AdBlock off, it's gone. Mind you, I can't see any adverts either apart from the usual book ones!
@Aug 27, 2013 at 9:31 AM | Unregistered CommenterJeremy Poynton
Yeah that got me too, the Login is under the Admin heading, better to be a heading on its own I reckon?
Header's much clearer with Arial (Verdana?) than with TNR and a lot more professional in my opinion. Thanks for that.
Since I have AdBlock permanently enabled I shall make a regular contribution to the Tip Jar instead.
Can I suggest others who prefer not to have advertising think about doing the same?
In the long run it's that or the ads or no Bishop Hill — and in the light of this from the DT that doesn't bear thinking about.
I'm on Firefox and run the ad-filtering chunk of ZoneAlarmPro.. Don't see any adverts other than those for the Bish's books. However, in the interests of providing finance (slight though it may be) I'll access the site through my "open" workstation and click a few ads every day before reverting to my "working" workstation to actually read it! :-)
@DrDean on Aug 26, 2013 at 7:14 PM
It must be my age; the contextual advertising is giving me ads for Shed World.
You should be so lucky! On Facebook all I get in the sidebar are ads for "Funeral Insurance", "Equity Release" and "The Discrete Catheter for Men"!!! :-)
No 'Shed World' for me, I'm being invited to invest in Brazilian Forests (and play some game called 'Dark Orbit')
Ad's are a necessary evil nowadays, do what you have to do Bish.
Much improved navigation bar at top (changed font and possibly size as well). Also an improvement to have a separate "Login" choice.
IE 8.0 still having problems with the right sidebar, missing the "Twitter" heading and most of the first tweet.
Somewhat off topic, it's a little disconcerting to see an ad informing me that I can see my arrest record (presumably for a price). What do they know that I don't?
I have Adblock plus but can't figure out how to allow ads for Bish's site. Can anyone tell me how or provide a link to something that tells me how? TIA
Weird. I've tried the site in Opera 12.16 with and without advert blocking extensions installed (Adblock and Adblock Plus) and the furthest I can get is disabling the extension and seeing a space where adverts should be. I can see that Adblock should be letting the advert through as I added bishophill.squarespace.com and bishop-hill.net to the filter. Tried it in Internet Explorer 8.0.6001 without any adblocking plugins and also see no adverts.
Tried it with Chrome version 28.0.1500.72 m with Adblock installed and this site added to the filter list so it shows adverts and... it works!
In Firefox with ABP, I made an exception for "googlesyndication" which made a space for adverts (spaces have also appeared at WUWT - I don't know why), and then I made an exception for "googleads" which results in one small ad per page.
Stepping out of our bubble a little...
I asked for a few independent opinions. Non-visitors, explaining what the site was about.
The feedback on presentation was negative.
Building up a reputation is hard, losing it is easy.
Considering the important audience (not us) I would recommend suspending the ads, and ask people for help in making a better presentation layer. For example, asking Josh for some site banner to take the eye away from that awful top advert space (your eye is just drawn to it.)
It should be possible to make a preview site?
Anyway my last "personal opinion" word.
can anyone beat this for weird?
I am using Safari. When I open the Bishophill blog using a bookmark, no ads but blank spaces where they should be. If I then click on one of the links to comments in the righthand margin it opens in a new window and hey presto we have ads.
Off-topic, but related to the format change...
I seem to recall that formerly, the entries under "Twitter" were click-able such that one could jump to the tweet's URL. That seems to be missing now, both in Firefox and IE. An oversight?
I can't see the "A dissentient afflicted by the malady of thought" line any more. That was such a good introduction to the blog, any chance of bringing it back?
Adverts for cheap auto insurance ,high performance luxury cars and airlines to far away exotic places in the pages of the Guardian.Bish why worry ,Russbridger is grateful for all the advertizing he can get.
Ads on BH shows the Eco Snobs they are having to deal with a class outfit that's getting massive numbers of hits.They have to take you seriously.
Since I enabled ads here, I can't post on any other Wordpress blog without disabling ABP for them, too.