This can’t be rocket science! It’s been done on hundreds of millions of other web sites without the bugs. And… who’s going to click through on an ad that just pissed them off? Nobody!
3 Likes
Yes, it’s extremely irritating getting the “Oops, this page doesn’t exist”, which isn’t even true, when trying to navigate here. Makes it take twice as long to read and post. When trying to log out, I get a full page ad, then the “Oops” page, then have to go back to “Log out”.
2 Likes
It’s quite annoying. Daily engagement, posts, log ins are all down over the previous measurement period (30 days). Looking on a computer I get the oops page when I close the ad that pops up in the middle of the page preventing me from reading anything. Then I get an ad across the bottom that covers the reply button. Once I close that I can reply.
2 Likes
Sometimes I get stubborn and keep trying until I finally get in… all the time thinking “What a f***ing waste of time…” – but more and more I just close the tab.
Yes, engagement here has really taken a dive. I don’t understand how that can be beneficial to the site owners or their advertisers.
Personally, I never click through on any ads anywhere. But if I understand correctly how ad revenue works, the site owners get paid just for ads appearing on their site, regardless of whether you just x out the ad or not.
I get full page ads on other sites I frequent, but when I x them out, it immediately takes me back to the site page I was on, so yes, there seems to be no good reason for the ads here to cause these glitches except bad software.
I must say that ads for hotels, on a hosting forum, seems like pretty strange product placement.
1 Like
I’m new here and agree the ads make the forum unusable (at least on Google Chrome). I had to use the dev tools to inspect the page and hide the ads to reply to a message. I think it’s the placement where they are forced on the bottom of the page.
Most my ads are based on other stuff I’ve looked at. Like right now I have an ad for a signed Joni Mitchell album I looked at on etsy and something labeled “ArtWorks.”
I just wanted to comment that I tried to reply to someone on this forum for a couple of days. The ad at the bottom on the page covered the reply button and nothing I could do to get rid of it. I’m on a MacBook Air for what that’s worth.
This site has become a nightmare. When you can’t even respond to someone that’s considered ok?
I am not getting an ad covering the reply button when using my Motorola phone, in Chrome, just the full page ads that revert to the “Oops” page every time I x them out. (There is a small ad on the bottom of the thread pages, but it isn’t overlaid on the reply button)
On my laptop, there are no ads because I use adblock. I didn’t just put it on my laptop because of these glitches, I’ve always used it.
Oh, interesting- I just had a message pop up on my phone screen that said “This ad used too many resources for your device, so Chrome blocked it.”
Yes, I’ve seen the “X” to close the ad, the problem is in the last couple days there was not an “X”. Today there was.
About 4-5 days ago there weren’t ads at the bottom and I thought, great, it’s been fixed, then it happened again.
1 Like
While it may just be some strange co-incidence, ever since these glitches started, this site also disappears from my site “favorites” every time I clear my browser history.
This doesn’t happen with any other of my most viewed sites- they are all still there after I clear browser history. Only this one disappears and it started happening exactly when this site became so glitched out.
@tom2 I know you don’t owe us anything and I really appreciate you hosting this site, but it has been over a month now that the new ad software has been making this forum really frustrating to use and there have been no improvements. You did say 2 weeks ago you were trying to work with the software folks and if nothing changed, you would go back to how it was before. Any updates?
3 Likes
Hi Muddy
Yes we’ve been trying to work with the ad provider and we’ve decided to part ways with them and restore our site to the previous settings. That will happen today. Thanks for being patient and I apologize for the inconvenience
5 Likes
I don’t know if it’s the power of suggestion or something like that after @tom2’s message but the site is behaving perfectly for me now. 
2 Likes
Yes, annoying ads are gone.
2 Likes
Thank you, @tom2. I realize ad revenue is crucial to running a free site, so maybe you can find some other ad software that doesn’t insist on being so annoyingly intrusive.
1 Like
Thank you for the support! We are testing out Google Ads which may show up from time to time on the bottom, but at least it’s not as intrusive as the previous provider!
4 Likes