TalkBass runs one ad at the foot of the page. It's a targeted, either Google Adsense, or in-house TB ad, 728x90 pixels in dimension. The ad used to be below all content at the very bottom of the page, and was pretty much worthless, as nobody's eyes bothered going below all content, into the footer. Any webmaster would tell you that an ad needs to be close to content to be worth anything... so that's why it was moved.
There is always a balance that every webmaster must strike, when trying to place ads that are 'unabrusive' but yet are still visible enough to be of value to their website.
I appreciate your comments, and if it is truly a source of great concern I respect that. But I would ask that you please consider, is a 1" high standard footer banner, requiring one more click on the mouse wheel to get to the 'quick reply' box, so much of an inconvenience that I should set about removing all footer banners from TalkBass? Many websites these days have moving Flash ads that blow up over your screen, requiring you to click to make them go away. Others have 'intermediate ad pages', requiring you to click past the ad to "continue to xyz.com". These are both extremely effective ad vehicles, and bring in much revenue. Webmasters who justify these kinds of ads would argue that even though more obtrusive than banners, this is the natural evolution of web publishing. One look through a print magazine and I tend to agree...
The Vbulletin 'customization' forums are full of hacks to put ads after x posts, an ad after every first post in a thread, a "sponsored by" ad atop every forum's threadlist, etc etc. Anything to get ads out of the periphery and next to content where repeat visitors eyeballs gravitate. This makes the advertising 10x more effective. And many many big boards are currently using these measures to sustain themselves (christianforums.com, bigsoccer.com, etc etc ([Invalid or Expired Link Removed], take a look at how ads appear after the first post, and also in every threadlisting)).
There is truly change occuring in the web publishing market, and I'm afraid to say the luxury of having 100% uninterrupted content from the top of a page's content to the bottom might soon be a thing of the past. Anyway I'm rambling...
Our Supporting Member program is truly a gift, and I appreciate each and every supporter. If the time ever comes that TalkBass needs to consider putting an ad after every first post or other 'in-your-face' advertising, I will certainly see about making a "ad-free" forum style that Supporters can choose to bypass ads.
Thanks again for your comments, I will consider them all.
