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'Better' is entirely subjective. It depends on the type of blogging you're doing, the kind of audience you want, the amount of money you're able to spend, your skill level, and numerous other factors.
If you're an open-source advocate with an aversion to ads you might find dreamwidth.org interesting, though.
Or, try the self-hosted version of WordPress from http://wordpress.org/
Moving to self hosting is a solution but purchasing a No-Ads upgrade is less expensive than hiring good web hosting is.
Can someone explain to me the reason these ads do NOT appear when logged in? Seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead users into thinking they don't have ads.
I'm in agreement, these ads are offensive in content & visual placement. How date you place ads within a post. Headers, footers, sidebar, very clearly UNDER a post, sure. But within the boundaries of my actual post? Goodbye WordPress. What a joke you've become.
*dare*
The agreement for us to run ads on your blog has been in the terms of service (which you agreed to before signing up) since 2006. There's nothing misleading about it.
In the early days, users expressed interest in not seeing ads on their own blog, though they didn't mind running ads to help "pay the bills" for their free blog. In response to that feedback, we hid them from logged in users.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you on that.
Considering the Terms of Service state the following:
- Our service is designed to give you as much control and ownership over what goes on your site as possible and encourage you to express yourself freely. However, be responsible in what you publish. In particular, make sure that none of the prohibited items listed below appear on your site or get linked to from your site (things like spam, viruses, or hate content).
- By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:(...) the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing)
Also considering that WordPress have also stated a number of times in a number of places, including this message thread, that:
"To support the service (and keep free features free), we sometimes run advertisements. We try hard to only run them in limited places."
and
"The ad code tries very hard to not intrude or show ads to logged-in readers, which means only a very small percentage of your page views will actually contain ads."
I'd say that
1) We're not allowed to create spam, inappropriate or unethical posts, but the advertising that is placed on our site is exactly that? Clearly, when money is involved, WordPress has a content policy with much lower standards.
2) I don't disagree with having ads per say. I disagree with having ads that look like I deliberately included them in my own post. It looks like I support these ads, companies products. It looks like I'm telling my readers to "check this out"! This is not what I would classify as "not intrusive".
3) Most of my readers are not wordpress members. Therefore, most of my readers see ads. To say that only a small percentage of page views will see these ads is factually incorrect. As is the statement that they are in limited places, although I suppose that one depends on your interpretation of the word limited.
It's for these reasons that I am terminating my WordPress blogs and moving them elsewhere, and moving my privately hosted WordPress.org blog to another platform. I have no interest in being associated with a company which has one level of content policy for the users, and another for the advertisers, nor a company which misleads and deceives it's users and readers.
Advertisements. Automattic reserves the right to display advertisements on your blog unless you have purchased an Ad-free Upgrade or a VIP Services account. http://en.wordpress.com/tos/
1. If you see inappropriate or unethical advertisements, please feel free to report it by sending a screenshot to support@wordpress.com
2 and 3 are mainly matters of perception. I don't make these decisions myself, but the ads are included and placed to make money so that we can continue to provide you a blog for free without hosting fees or bandwidth limitations.
If you feel that you have been deceived, I am sorry, but that was not our intent.
I've added the following to the right column of my blog:
If you see any ads on this blog, they were not put there by me. You can make them disappear by signing on to wordpress.com.
Actually as so many do use ad-blockers on their browsers they don't need to register a WordPress.com account not to witness ads.
Example: Adblock Plus for Firefox - 9,437,225 users
or using firefox with adblock plus
@johnlvs2run
AdBlock is also the most popular extension for Google Chrome browsers.
@timethief
Thank you, however I don't use google. : )
@johnlvs2run
Umm ... this isn't about you, right? You are placing a text widget message in your sidebar for your visitors, correct? If you are logged in then you will not see ads on your blog or any other WordPress.com blogs. if your visitors are (1) not registered at WordPress.com and/or they are but (2) aren't are not logged in then they will see ads.
The two most popular browsers are Firefox and Chrome and they both have ad-blockers that can be added to them.
@timethief
Thank you for your helpful suggestions.
Any ads (put there by wp, not me), will disappear by using the firefox browser with adblock plus, or by signing on to wordpress.com.
I see no reason to advertise google, especially since they're the cause of the ads. Also if google is not working for people, they should probably switch.
I see no reason to advertise google, especially since they're the cause of the ads.
I don't where you get that "especially since they're the cause of the ads" idea from because it's not substantiated by the facts.
(1) Only some of the ads on free hosted WordPress.com are Google Adsense ads. WordPress.com chose to contract with Google Adsense and other advertisers as well.
(2) The Google Adsense ads aren't the ads that of the most members who have complained have complained about.
In summary - there is no such thing as a free lunch.
In summary -- if you expect to get a free lunch from someone, you have to eat whatever rubbish they decide to feed you, and if you don't like it, you'd better be prepared to buy your own.
But if I'd known to start with that WordPress fed people this kind of rubbish, I'd have probably gone to lunch with someone else....
In the early days, users expressed interest in not seeing ads on their own blog, though they didn't mind running ads to help "pay the bills" for their free blog. In response to that feedback, we hid them from logged in users.
I was actually here in the early days; they were always hidden from logged-in users and initial user feedback consisted mainly of 'my readers have told me there are ads on my blog, please give me the option to get rid of them.' Hiding ads from logged-in users was a smart strategy which substantially reduced user resistance to ads on their blogs, simply because the majority didn't (and still don't) realise they were there.
I think the big problem at the moment is the ongoing refusal to label all advertisements as such. I completely understand that ads are more effective if they can be passed off as user-placed rather than auto-inserted, but it is misleading to stick a video clip at the end of someone's post with no indication that it is has not been put there by the poster. Regardless of whether users are happy with ads being displayed on their blog, that shouldn't be happening. Period.
We do have some labeled as "Advertisement" right now, but some of the other ad providers involve a little bit more than just slapping a label on it. We're still actively looking into alternatives for those.
OK. I have a site with kids involved. I have notified WordPress about inappropriate ads. There was a post about hooking up with Ukrainian women just today inserted in the post. HORRIBLE.
Again, there are kids under 12 coming to the blog. Does this seem right?
Now, I'm especially concerned because people have been complaining in the forums about inappropriate ads for months. I'm not opposed to WordPress making some money to run their business, but something is broken with the model.
I should not have to contact you to keep this kind of ad content from appearing in a blog. I knew about the advertising, but I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, WordPress had a way to police itself. I'm not set up to police for you. It's a simple kid's blog.
@patpenguin
If you feel an ad is inappropriate please take a screenshot of it and send it to Staff by emailing support@wordpress.com or upload it into your Media Library and contact Staff and let them know it's there for them to view.
It is inappropriate. Do I really need to send this to WordPress? Why don't they catch it? I'm concerned that the model for filtering ad content is broken within WordPress.
I'd like to hear about the process in place, honestly. I feel lucky to have even become aware of it since I just happened to see it on someone else's compute because the user pointed it out.
All ad content is screened from me when I'm logged in and it's a random occurrence. I don't have the placing capabilities, nor can I do anything in real time.
A very concerned parent and WordPress user...
Yes you need to send it to Staff, otherwise I would not have posted what I did post above. Frankly, as you have a kids blog I recommend doing what I did ie. purchasing a No-Ads Upgrade and eliminating all ads from your blog.
I did report it. And I'm communicating with them. I'd like to hear from WordPress that my options are "pay them" or face the risk of adult-oriented (and that is a euphemism) ads being place on your kid's blog occasionally.
I'm not writing to get lectured on how to report inappropriate content. I'm writing to let others know that this is happening and to discover if WordPress might be taking aggressive steps to stop it.
All I'm getting now, from here and in email from support, is a canned response to send them a screen shot.
By the way, I've already paid quite a bit for a custom site and domain name ( all for a blog with relatively low traffic). I'm not happy about the prospect of having to move. But I'm not going to support this kind of policy further financially.
I did report it. And I'm communicating with them. ... I'm not writing to get lectured on how to report inappropriate content. I'm writing to let others know that this is happening and to discover if WordPress might be taking aggressive steps to stop it.
It's good to know that you already contacted Staff as this is a peer support forum where Volunteers answering support questions are expected to tell members how to report issues that only Staff can deal with directly to Staff.
For the curious and concerned about the use of adult advertising on WordPress blogs, I can relay the responses I have received so far from WordPress support via email:
1. Send a screen shot.
My Response: I don't personally monitor my site like this. I only saw it because it was on another machine. I'm not sure how that helps me anyway. I wish I had known about the risk of the adult content appearing in the first place.
2. They don't condone this sort of advertising.
My Response: It's happening though, and they don't seem to know it or acknowledge it in the correspondence I have had.
3. If the user/viewer is from another country, WordPress outsources those ads and definitely requires a screen shot to seek resolution.
My Response: First, it took place in California. And, huh? It's still inappropriate to advertise about hooking up with Ukranian women on a kid's blog regardless of location. Now, I have an even bigger concern. What is being shown outside of the U.S.?
Patpenguin, thanks for your posts.
This makes me wonder if all the spam getting by my email filters has been from wordpress.com/.
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