Ad unblocked?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

For as long as I've been here, I've never seen the ad at top of forum.  Used adblockplus for many years, more recently been using IE11 tracking protection.  Ad wasn't there earlier today, now it is.  If I disable/enable tracking protection, it sometimes disappears for one refresh, sometimes not.  Looks like it's being served from SM adserver.  Just curious, was something changed?

[LiroyvH]

Is it always a couple or even one of the same banner(s) that does end up loading? If so, that/those ad(s) is/are being served directly from our adsystem rather than from Google, and the ones you're likely not seeing upon refresh is one served from Google/DC which your plugins blocks.

If your browser does not block our adsystem (good! Make sure to whitelist *.simplemachines.org in your AdBlocker folks! Advertising income helps us run the place.) then you should have sporadically seen some NameCheap banners for example as well in those many years. However, some of the campaigns currently running do have a setup that may make it show more often than other banners would, whilst the NC banner is shown less frequently and this all combined also causes Google Ads to be loaded fewer times than normal; which is why perhaps now you're noticing it whilst you didn't notice a banner loading sometimes before as it was more sporadically. (Our adsystem is sometimes a bit slow, so...)
Unless its just you switching to IE11/IE's tracking protection that's the reason, as that's the thing that also changed.

As our adsystem is not a tracker but merely a piece of software deciding which campaign to show, I'd imagine IE11's tracking protection ignores it.
A good adblocker will likey detect our advertising system and block the banners served directly from our adsystem as well. (Which is why whitelisting our domain is such a nice idea if you're using an AdBlocker. Our adsystem is friendly.)

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I've never seen any ad on this forum except when I had blocker disabled.  I'm seeing the same ad again today, it's coming from adsystem.simplemachines.org.  IE tracking protection has, up til now, been blocking ads here 100%, same as adblockplus. 

Just reinstalled tracking protection lists from here, sometimes ad displays, sometimes it doesn't, always same ad.  Not seeing anything different on other sites that are ad heavy.  Wierd.

[SaltedWeb]

I thought it was just me, same thing... I was like now thats odd..... maybe its Ad gremlins

[LiroyvH]

Yeah so as I said: it isn't blocking our own adsystem, just Google.

[SaltedWeb]

 Shame on Google....

[Sir Osis of Liver]

There's an article on MS site that describes how Google managed to circumvent tracking protection (don't have time to find it now), but it was dated 2012, so this is something different.  I'm seeing same ad today intermittently, sometimes it's there, sometimes not.  That really shouldn't happen, either it's being blocked or it isn't.

[LiroyvH]

Ok I'll try once more.
The ads that you *are* seeing are *not* served by Google in any way, but by our own advertising system.
The ads that you can *not* see *are* served by Google's advertising system, and your browser is blocking those properly and as expected.

[SaltedWeb]

So why do we see ads on here then....................just kidding hehe

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Well, that was my original question.  Something must have changed in SMF advertising system for me to be seeing the ad.  Same ad again tonight, sometimes there, sometimes not.

[LiroyvH]

Yeah, changes I explained in my first response to this topic.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Ha!  Just saw a different ad, also from your adserver.  Only once, though, repeated refreshes display either no ad or first ad.  Been using tracking protection since Nov 2, this is first time I've ever seen ad on this site with either blocker enabled.  Oh well, so far it only happens here, so it's no big deal, just odd.

[SleePy]

Can you provide a screenshot of what you are seeing?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

This is the first (and only) ad I saw for a day or two -



Then last night I also saw this one -



Today I see one or the other, or none at all when I refresh.  If the ads, or source, are being blocked as trackers, they're on one of the tracking protection lists and should always be blocked.

Also, I just had the image proxy problem again, images don't display on first load, must be refreshed.

[Gwenwyfar]

I'm not sure if this would interfer with the ads, but on Core, with no adblockers of any kind, I also often don't see any ads.

"google_ads_frame1" body is simply empty. Just reloaded this page 15 or so times and one single ad showed up.

[Illori]

it is possible the site team is assuming everyone will use the curve theme and did not add the ad code to the core theme completely.

[vbgamer45]

Those ads that are shown are from smf's ad system and not google ads which is why they appear.

[LiroyvH]

Those ads that are shown are from smf's ad system and not google ads which is why they appear.

I've been trying to explain that for multiple posts already but it doesn't really seem to work out whilst it's so simple.

[Illori]

when you see an ad, can you right click on it and get the URL it is coming from?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I've been trying to explain that for multiple posts already but it doesn't really seem to work out whilst it's so simple.

What's not so simple is that the ads never appeared prior to a couple of days ago, so something has changed, that was my original question.  If you could determine why, you might be able to increase your ad views.