Eagle-eyed readers — at least those who don’t use adblock — may notice something a little different about We Hunted the Mammoth today. Those giant banner ads that used to sit atop the page are gone! As are the ones following the posts. Indeed, all the Taboola ads are gone from the site.
Nope, I didn’t get kicked off of the ad network. They’re gone for a very happy reason: A very generous fan of the site — who is not a fan of the advertising on the site — has donated enough money for me to be able to get rid of the most obtrusive ads, those from Taboola, for the rest of this year and next. Enjoy!
The Google AdSense ads will remain, at least for now, but if enough of you can dig deeply in your pockets during the next fund drive, which I’ll be launching shortly, I may be able to make them go away as well. That will clear away even more of the annoying clutter and free up space in the sidebar to promote stuff that’s more in line with the values of the site, for free.
I cannot thank enough the very generous anonymous donor who made this possible! But I will try to make a start with this animated gif I just made on Blingee.
Ooglyboggles:
Its also being written by Warren Ellis so I’m quite excited.
Thank you, anonymous benefactor!! <3
Netflix also has plans for a series based on the Karl Urban Judge Dredd movie as well as a series based on The Witcher Novels
@Zatar
@Fabe
http://68.media.tumblr.com/fa8360dd3435a7324c30c29d1ef88342/tumblr_nquy96IjJQ1urgbe1o1_500.jpg
This plus seasons 2&3 confirmed for A Series of Unfortunate Events is like Super Lunar News Years Festival for me right now.
“you won’t believe what blah blah celebrity looks like now?”
Oh, Taboola is even worse than that.
Start with provocative image of some sort. Put clickbaity headline on bottom. Link to something that is basically a server full of ad farms, and might just barely be related to the headline. Image is generally unrelated. Outbrain is even worse. These things all link to “content farms”, which all interconnect into each other in hopes of increasing page rank before google tweaks the algorithm again.
Those two are like a recommendation engine that only cares whether you’re intrigued enough to click on the link.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
One of the worst forms of advertising, almost as bad as the original X-10 pop over/under/side-to-side/anywhere really ads. Let me just say, as a person with electrical engineering degree, X10 is the worst method of power control ever. Start with 60Hz. Add higher frequency spikes to the line to signal various things. Fail to notice that a cheap circuit that detects these spikes to switch lamps… will also detect lightning (and other) surges and fail within a year or so. Or worse, design it that way so you can sell the next “new model” next year.
They funded the Mammoth for us! All hail!
But what DOES Elizabeth Shue look like nowadays?
DID the lion eat the baby deer?
WHY was the crowd cheering?
These important questions will continue to vex me, it seems.
I used to mainly get ads for funeral parlors, life insurance and making a will. So thanks anon for getting rid of that!
If Soros didn’t donate the money directly, it was probably done via a “professional donor” in his pay. I’m sure we all know by now that no so-called “SJW” actually has any agency; only nazis and libertarians have that.
Thank you, Saul Alinsky!
Oh, thank goodness. This makes the site infinitely more browseable on mobile.
When I go to WHTM on my phone, I often try to click the title of the most recent post. Every single time I do that, the taboola as loads in just before I tap the screen, so that I accidentally click the ad instead.
No more of that bullshit!
Thank you, whoever you are, anonymous donor!
Not only was I dealing with the same clickbait issues IP was on my iPod Touch, I could feel myself becoming stupider just reading the headlines. I have Facebook comments for that already. *twitches*
Thank you, anonymous donor NOT name of SOROS!
Re Montana: prominent Montanan Chuck Tingle is covering this issue:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/867587722864611328
If you want an ad network that isn’t horrible, btw, try Project Wonderful. They don’t pay nearly as well as Google, but they’re pretty nice with a non-reprehensible clientele and 0 malware incidents to date. I strongly advocate ad blockers as a security safety measure, and I specifically unblocked Project Wonderful and sites that use them.
I will miss finding out the top ten secrets funeral directors didn’t want me to know.
(Number seven shocked me!)
*emerges*
Woah huh. Never felt that good about blocking ads here but it seems I might be able to whitelist WHTM now without my computer exploding.
Fingers crossed.
Thanks anonymous donor.
Oh, the ads… the ads….
I was searching up the web site for a client in Russia, and I somehow ran afoul of an ad for a Russian dating site… I got “date hot Russian girls” emails for TWO YEARS!! And, 5 years later, any site that has those sidebar ads will likely have an ad or two… I work in an engineering office, so it can be… awkward.
Thank you, Anonymous. I’ve been a big fan of your work over the years.
thank you to that donor, I hated those ads, sometimes they showed gross things or offensive things lol
Thank you anonymous donor! I’m at peace with my belly fat anyway. 🙂
Hey so, can I ask how much it cost to get rid of those ads for a year? In my imagination it must have been fairly significant, but I also know that ads pay next to diddly squat per view, so I’m wondering if I could afford to follow Anonymous’s example on another site.
Thank you Anonymous Donor.
Not sure I can live without that one simple facelift trick that has doctors furious, but I’ll do my best.
Alan:
But you survived? No wonder they didn’t want you to see THAT secret.