Turn challenge banners on the homepage into direct links
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When CodeProject hosts a challenge, the banners on the homepage tend to not be a direct link to the challenge, but rather a link to doubleclick.net which redirects you to the challenge. Because I whitelisted CodeProject in uBlock Origin, the banner still shows up, but once I click it, uBlock will block the page and warn me, and I either have to temporarily allow doubleclick.net or get to the challenge page through some other extra clicks (Features -> Competitons etc.). This is rather annoying in my experience. Can the homepage banners please turned into direct links? (In additon to a better user experience for those who whitelisted CP in their adblocker, you'll also have a bigger reach for adblocker users who DON'T whitelist CP, because they just won't see the banner at all.)
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the
Lazy<Dog>. -
When CodeProject hosts a challenge, the banners on the homepage tend to not be a direct link to the challenge, but rather a link to doubleclick.net which redirects you to the challenge. Because I whitelisted CodeProject in uBlock Origin, the banner still shows up, but once I click it, uBlock will block the page and warn me, and I either have to temporarily allow doubleclick.net or get to the challenge page through some other extra clicks (Features -> Competitons etc.). This is rather annoying in my experience. Can the homepage banners please turned into direct links? (In additon to a better user experience for those who whitelisted CP in their adblocker, you'll also have a bigger reach for adblocker users who DON'T whitelist CP, because they just won't see the banner at all.)
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the
Lazy<Dog>.I get that other sites can have such awful (and intrusive) ads that you are compelled to use an ad-blocker, but we spend an awful lot of time trying to ensure ads on CodeProject are sensible and safe. Using an adblocker directly affects our ability to pay for our servers and bandwidth. With regards to links to the competition, we're doing a lot of experimentation with our contests and contest system and we need to know how we're going. Where are people clicking? What's the most effective way to let people know about a contest? What works, what doesn't. For the tracking we're using DFP (Google's ad technology which we've bent to our will) because it allows us to integrate everything in one place: homepage, ads, email mentions, everything. So our options are: write a tracking system from scratch to work around those who use ad-blockers, or use a solid, reliable, tamper-proof system that is unobtrusive and works for the majority of people. I have to admit that sinking resources into a system that will help those who have chosen to actively avoid helping us pay the bills is a tough call to make. I mean no offense in this, but we need to put our resources into those things that will (a) help the community, and (b) help keep is going.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I get that other sites can have such awful (and intrusive) ads that you are compelled to use an ad-blocker, but we spend an awful lot of time trying to ensure ads on CodeProject are sensible and safe. Using an adblocker directly affects our ability to pay for our servers and bandwidth. With regards to links to the competition, we're doing a lot of experimentation with our contests and contest system and we need to know how we're going. Where are people clicking? What's the most effective way to let people know about a contest? What works, what doesn't. For the tracking we're using DFP (Google's ad technology which we've bent to our will) because it allows us to integrate everything in one place: homepage, ads, email mentions, everything. So our options are: write a tracking system from scratch to work around those who use ad-blockers, or use a solid, reliable, tamper-proof system that is unobtrusive and works for the majority of people. I have to admit that sinking resources into a system that will help those who have chosen to actively avoid helping us pay the bills is a tough call to make. I mean no offense in this, but we need to put our resources into those things that will (a) help the community, and (b) help keep is going.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
Using an adblocker directly affects our ability to pay for our servers and bandwidth.
CodeProject is whitelisted in my adblocker, for the reason you mentioned. But the banner directly goes to doubleclick.net and once I'm on that domain, uBlock Origin jumps in. And when someone visits the site using an adblocker but does not whitelist CP, they won't get to see the challenge banner at all. I wonder if the number of eyes that have seen the banner would rise if it would be made a direct link.
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the
Lazy<Dog>.