Hey all,

My apologies for the new separate boxes for the ads on the site and the increased visibility of the ads. Unfortunately Google has asked me to remove the ads from within the various content boxes becuase those boxes were labeled "Latest 20 tutorials", "User Dock" etc... I personally think it's ridiculous seeing as that means I can not blend ads in with content in the slightest and I now have to add more bulk to everything with separate content boxes for everything and pretty much kills the ads. We're sort of giving this all a band-aid fix because I have been told to change everything within 3 days and I am leaving for a couple of days as of tomorrow. NG and I are basically scrambling to patch this now and we'll see what we can do in the coming weeks.

So again, sorry guys, it's a necessary evil and Google decided it needed to be completely in your face more than it already was.

Dan

Oh well... at least the forum ads are still fine - still using Yahoo on them hey?

Hell talk about picky.

Yep... I couldn't friggin believe what I was reading. I wrote them back a big WTF so we'll see.

i remember reading up on this......because it is in googles fine print that they don't want you to "confuse" your users, making them think they are links on your site. I think its stupid...but....Google can do what they want....we can't stop them..lol

but the p2l ad placements aren't confusing, its pretty easy too see where the ads begin and the tutorials end.

Arutha

If im completely honest.. I don't care where you stick your ads.. So long as they dont make any sounds like.. "OH MY GOD! NO WAY!" Or "SAY SOMETHING!! WHAT?" So friggin irritating lol..

So, imo.. No sounds = No problem xD

Haha - you get those ads on MySpace all the time

Yeah I know, totally irritating!

haha yeah those and popups are the worst. It'll be a cold day in hell when I start using those...



Yeah and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the category ones... I could have made a separate box under the TOTW area, but it would have driven the latest 20 tuts so far down the page it would have been stupid.

Like I said, for now this is emergency measures until I have time to sit down and look at this a bit better and plan it with NG instead of running around with our heads cut off.

That's pretty dumb... Now I think they look fine but I think it looks better when they blend into the layout.

Yep, it looked better and all this goofing around hasn't changed the CTR so really it's just been a silly tail chasing game. Ah well, that's all part of the terms... "Thou shalt bend when we wish".

Heh how long until Google rules the universe I wonder.... Their T&C's are so strict it's unbelievable. Every site on the web that uses AdSense must be breaking one of them.

Pretty much... and I love how they come after me when there are huge blatant term breakers out there with garbage sites.

Looks fine but google really get to far up their own ass in my opinion.

I am amazed Google have the time to deal with all this anyways. It just seems such a waste. Your not doing false clicks or anything.

I think my site is breaking the same rule then. I dunno. Oh well. I see many many sites to the same thing and have been for a long time.

Ever thought of using YPN instead? Maybe MIVA?

Just a suggestion. I'm going to use Google until their rules force me out of Googleia (their fake country I just created)

Googleia? Wow google can be dum sometimes.... I expect we will get used to the new layout as long as Google don't get it moved again.

i was just "interested" in some of the ads on your website so i visited them

Nothing personal, but people like you got me kicked out

I can't believe Google is coming up with such bullshit rules tho. I guess they just want you to put the ads in a popup or with a 10px border around so people just ignore them

No they would ban you for that though. Apparently your not allowed to make the ads too noticable.

Why are half the ads I am seeing all about love and dating anyways?

Because we're all "wussy geeks"? Honestly I have no clue, since there wasn't anything about love or dating in the context of the pages, so there's no reason for Google to show those.

I must admit, Dan, that when I noticed all of a sudden ads everywhere (they were pretty transparent until you looked for them) from Google. I experienced my first, "WTH, P2L has ads coming out their ears!", moment. If Google is going to nitpick and be retarded, well then, why do we need them?

I'm not a frequent commenter on anything here, but ads in abundance do get my attention, since out of respect to P2L I whitelisted this site.

Well we need the ads if you want me to continue to run this site lol! If I'm not making money here, that means I have to do it elsewhere and not spend all my time on P2L. And despite there being tons of Adsense alternatives, none of them pay as well as Adsense does, so for now I am at their mercy lol! We may go back to YPN, we'll see what happens... Personally I would like to create or buy a site with a better income stream so I can back off on the P2L ads. I'd rather have a few sites making a few bucks than relying on one site alone with tons of ads. Trust me, I hate ads and I hate having to put them up, but it's a necessary evil. I draw the line though at popups and interstitials... I REFUSE to put those up.

Anyhow, we're going to try and fix this all up and test various formats... we'll see what spots do the best and drop the crappy ones that are just taking up room.

Basically google wants the ads to be NOTICEABLY ads, thus just making people ignore them. It boggles my mind that Google won't acknowledge that people are so used to the standard look of their text boxes that they are automatically subconsiously ignored. I mean, when you look at a site, you don't go "Oh look there's an ad, I'll just ignore it." You actually just mentally skip it completely without a thought. It's pretty much as natural as breathing.

Joe - No idea why you are seeing dating ads... everything I see is about Photoshop, 3D Studio max etc...

Dan

Oh and I am looking at removing the category ads, meaning the very top box you see when you go into a category. This will push the tutorials up at least 3 or 4 records higher. The problem is that all these ad spots are currently purchased so I will have to play around with it. Bear with me guys while I try to get this all worked out.

I'm getting them too, actually!






Edit: Also next to Tutorial Site of the Week & Tutorial of the Week

I think you misunderstood me, Faken, I know exactly why you need ads. What I meant, is that if Google is going to nitpick over something stupid, then what makes them better than another PPC vendor? You could get another, put a different ad in, and so on. That's what I mean, not that you should drop a potentially significant part of your advertising. I'm not crazy.

@Bug, me too.

Is it not possible to just add some kind of disclaimer that states they contain both tutorial listings and the odd add, to keep the big G happy?

Whats happened to the ads on the forum? Is yahoo down? or have you guys removed them.

Not really sure actually... lol!

to be honest a few adverts is nothing considering the community and content you get in return.

Darius

Definately.

Another type of adverts I don't like are the ones DeviantArt use, where you go to another page and you get an advert and a "Click here to continue to next page"

Everything else is good

(And obviously, no pop ups thankyou please)

Thanks guy, glad you all don't mind it too much, but I still don't like going too crazy on ads... I am working with Jamie quite closely on the ad system and making changes so that our advertisers can get the most bang for their buck while not cluttering the site.

At the moment we are going to be adding new advertising options to the site for the internal ad system and getting rid of the category ad box and the extra adsense ad in the partners area. Then we're going to allow people to purchase ads where the current google ads appear and then google will only show up when the system isn't in use.

Sooooo much to do lol!

Dan

We could do the ad under the first post thing again too. As far as I know people weren't that bothered by that. Really I don't mind the ads because they're making you money to keep the site going and stuff.

dEcade

I don't think I was around at P2L when you guys did this but I used to be at another forum who did what you're suggesting, and I honestly can't say what I think about them... at first, I couldn't tell what they were lol

They wern't that bad but if i remember correctly they where removed because they wern't effective. An route you could go is changing the out links for tutorials and making it so that when your exiting the site it loads an add on the screen for 10 seconds then redirects us, im not bothered about that because when i load a tut up im usually surfing on another tab i've been waiting on.

Arutha

What if, and here's a totally bogus idea, but what about rotated ads. Something fresh here and there. I see the same ads for the same places all the time and I think that nobody either A) can't afford to advertise, or nobody WANTS to advertise.

Just a thought

That's really up to the networks to decide on the content, I don't have much control on that.

Dan

Just going to go a bit off topic... but what's YBN?

Do you mean YPN? It's Yahoo! Publisher Network, Yahoo's ad service.

dEcade