Hi Folks,
Just under 1 year ago, we explained how different adverts are shown on StatCounter in different parts of the world. This means that here in StatCounter HQ, we don’t actually get to see every single advert shown to our members.
We like to think of StatCounter as a “family show” so we do our best to screen out any nasty adverts. Despite our efforts, however, we had a report last night of another nasty advert being shown on our site to a member in the United States… so now we are asking for your help to eliminate these offensive ads!
If you spot a nasty advert on StatCounter here’s what to do:
- Right click on the advert and select either Copy Shortcut (IE) or Copy Link Location (Netscape) to capture the URL of the advert.
(Please make sure only to RIGHT CLICK on the advert – left clicking would result in you inadvertently supporting the ad.)
- Paste this link or URL into a text editor (e.g. Word or Notepad) to keep it safe until you’re ready to paste it in our blog.
- Please then come here to our blog and post a comment and tell us:
- The type of advert i.e. what’s offensive about it.
- Where the advert was on the StatCounter site e.g. on the left hand side of the homepage.
- Paste the URL info you captured earlier into the comment also. (This allows us to block the advert)
As we explained last year, StatCounter advertising revenue is used to fund our free service – but we only want the nicest, best behaved ads on our site…
Many thanks for your help folks – together let’s stamp out these nasty ads!
By the way, when we say “nasty” adverts we mean any adverts that contain nudity, suggestive poses, sex, sex phonelines, escort services etc. All the kind of things that WE don’t want and YOU don’t expect to stumble upon when you are looking at StatCounter!
Update August 2008
Hi all,
Due to the amount of spam comments we’re receiving on this post, we’re now closing off the comments.
If you spot any nasty adverts, please post the details in the comments to any of our latest blog posts and we will be happy to take care of them.
Thank you!
Nice move, but so far i haven’t since any.
Nowadays I’m seeing more webmaster / hosting ads shown which is definitely acceptable. Good job in weeding the rest out though.
We like to think of StatCounter as a “family show”
this is the best sentence
Good for you! Thank you for addressing this… several times I have seen ads that made me upset, and I have children in the house who like to look over my shoulder. Now I know it wasn’t your company doing it! I recommend your site to my friends.
-Elizabeth H.
Today the forum had one of this adverts.
We understand that, statcounter is not reponsable for this.
It was removed right away.
Some advertising programs that people unknownly get installed in their pc can find the the banner ad in a web page and replace it with their own so they put what ever nasty advert they want and never pay for the ad space.
wait one moment…
Not all s*x-related ads are ‘nasty’.
Like it or not, it is on everyone’s mind – it is a part of who we are. 😉
Just ignore the ads, if you are NOT in the mood to face it
I have been using Statcounter for a few years, don’t ever remember seeing these type of ads, but glad you decided to remove them.. Just goes to show you how high you hold your standards.. 🙂
I have never seen any offensive ads since I started using SC; I appreciate & understand your stand against them; you want to maintain the professionalism of the site…nothing wrong with that.
BTW, StatCounter kicks Google Analytics’s butt!!
I’ve never seen any nasty ads on StatCounter. Maybe some vaguely irritating ads, but never any nasty ones. And the irritating ads I just ignore.
The Ads in S.C has been of great use to me…and I haven’t noticed any bad ones till now…If any such offensive ads come, then i will be pretty happy to notify you people.
Great, i suppport your good moral values!!
I love Statcounter 🙂
Good job guys! Will let you know!
God Bless!
Sorry about the link not working above
Only major issue I have with them is super slow ad loading at times. Usually just ignore them though, so I haven’t noticed any bad ones.
Statcounter rocks. 😀
Optimator, why do you advise not to use adblockers? And why are they dangerous for computer? I think they are useful, they cut nasty ads. Isn’t it?
Sorry if someone above already posted this solution but I couldn’t read every 23 responses, only a few. 🙂
One solution to avoid most of nasty ads is to turn off the Adsense image ads and show only text ads. This is the way I do it in my sites. Most image ads are garbage and annoying, just the opposite as the almost unobtrusive only text ads.
Regards.
you can use the adsense preview tool to get an idea on what ads will show for a country, then block the undesirables in the adsense competitive ad filter.
This is a hard work but you can start by filtering those countries with more traffic to your site.
This is what I do in my sites and it works for a few weeks then I have to check the system again…
You also have the http://www.adsblacklist.com/ this site will give you a list of MFA and Low paying ads for your keywords.
The best solution I found was to use a little of both methods. but be careful and do the tests step by step, NOT all at once.
Another thing, the statcounter site is not getting the best out of adsense, you should rethink the site´s layout so the large rectangle could be included. The best solution I found was to use only one large rectangle in the center left of the page. Less ad space more competition for the space consequently more revenue per click. This is not 100% correct but will increase your revenue for sure.
Hey! Thanks for the starcounter 🙂
good luck
fred
I understand that “Free” in this sense means that we have to look at advertising.
However, many of those Google Syndication ads are hideously flickering, bouncing monstrosities which I would include in the definition of “nasty” (a lovely, old-school adjective that, by the way!). Someone with epilepsy would find it dangerous looking at a page with so much rapid movement, and the rest of us are distracted by the offside animation.
I know StatCounter has to find some way of distributing the revenue and staying in business, and that animated images are common on other sites, but is would there be any option to filter out the animated banners?