Google AI... and this web site

[bray]

Yes seems to be back to normal. Thanks for all you do for us.
I have been on other hobby related forums that were just loaded with ads, and it made it hard to visit the site. This site is a pleasure without the overbearing ads.
I think I need to donate. Note to self.

 

[snowman04]

This was NOT me. I think Google may be in panic mode, and rightfully so. I woke up this morning and suddenly there were spam ads all over the site. Without my permission or knowledge, Google turned on "auto ads" on the site - spamming ads all over the place.

When I first started using Google, it was very straightforward. I reserved real estate on the web site for advertising. I also defined the categories of products that I would like to see ads for (gardening products and services, etc). Google would sell the advertising real estate and pocket a commission for the service. First Google removed my ability to define product categories, so that I no longer had any say on the ads you might see. Now they seem hell-bent on removing the static ad banners... which might be ok if I could swap out one ad for another ad... but they are layering the new ads ON TOP OF already existing ads.

Google is going out of its way to push this crap, and it will have some repercussions at some point!

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Google is going out of its way to push this crap, and it will have some repercussions at some point!

They don't seem to understand that there is a balance between ads that support a site... and ads that annoy your users, and/or impact site functionality.

Sure, you can have pop-up ads with a timer count-down until people can close them. You will get a great click-through rate.... while turning away 90% of your potential site traffic. If you are a sports gambling site, or something similar, maybe your users are ok with it. But a casual / fun bonsai community site? No way.

 

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

My first encounter with this site was so full of ads that I decided not to visit. Then someone on reddit told me to join and log in and the ads were gone.

I have not seen another ad since. Maybe its my browser.. I use Brave - No ads yesterday or today.

 

[dotme]

I wanted to share this topic with all the members, since I am trying to manage this as best as I can...

As everyone knows, this site is paid for with Google ad revenues, and I try to keep the ads as low as possible. In the last six months ad revenues have collapsed. Site traffic is up, the number of people visiting the site is up, but all of the key Google ad diagnostics are down across the board... the ad rates being paid per view... the ad rates per click... all down about 40%. I have read about some of this being the effect of Google's "AI search engine" which scrapes content from the web, regurgitates it as Google content, and drops ad revenues along the way, however I'm not 100% sure what's going on. I will continue to monitor the situation, and may explore other options - perhaps dumping Google and going with another ad publisher. Never a dull moment...

At least on my end, I am seeing very low-end ads being served to this site (I don't know what y'all are seeing). Low-end ads equals low-end revenues... so are big advertisers dumping Google?

Anecdotal, but the ads I’m seeing are like 90% scam/hustle/grift or at best, something like spam.

 

[TwilightTrees]

I think you should move from Google to a closed forums with big wall, and make sure they didn't steal all the members content to train their AI for future AI copy cat. It's called theft and is imoral and very illegal, however your problem is that the US MAGA government is okay with US companies doing crimes openly. Only European Union is trying to protect our intellectual property. It's a crazy world

 

[DonielDoom]

Anecdotal, but the ads I’m seeing are like 90% scam/hustle/grift or at best, something like spam.

My results are very similar. I had a post drafted here saying the same thing in different words - the quality of ads is commonly atrocious. At times it feels scammy or otherwise seemingly-malicious behavior from the ad source. What they're serving is commonly low effort at best, to me.

It's not always scam-level-quality. Likely ~50-60% of the time it's of decent quality.

It also doesn't impact my use of this site or perspective of it in a negative way. It makes me raise a brow at Google and those providing such ads.

All that said, I do see the larger issue of this revenue stream drying up. The quality of ads served does impact the site.

 

[stubmle]

Might be worthwhile to look into AI "tarpit" traps that prevent scrapers from working, but allow regular user access. Anubis is one, but I don't know if it still works.
I'm happy to pay a membership fee, but the idea of closing off the site to the public makes me a bit uncomfortable just on principle.
On the other hand, what else could we do? The current state of affairs is untenable and it will only get worse. Probably better to lock the barn doors BEFORE the horses have all bolted...

What's the main driver of site expenses at this point? Bots, or human users?