Anyone Else Put off by the Current Advertising on This Site Now?

I was just poking around with AdBlock Plus to see if something was messed up. I can handle seeing some ads for legit companies and such, but what I'm seeing here on Mamapedia are almost entirely scam/clickbait. The site looks so trashy that if I wasn't already familiar with it, there is no way I'd join up as a newbie.

Added: In case anyone wonders for comparing, I see 12 ads on this one question page, two of them are in the SWH. Every one of them appears to be from sites of questionable repute.

I was practically pulling my hair out over all the ads.

Thank goodness I learned...the shocking trick that restarts hair growth immediately!

At least I can multitask by getting parenting advice while learning about guaranteed business loans.

Nah I love the pictures of what I think is some rabid tomato!! Ad blocker seems to be ineffective beyond right clicking on the hideous pictures, blocking the element and then only the picture goes away. I can only hope this is some new type of ad that an update will deal with. I checked my ad blocker and it is up to date so....

What is annoying is there are four on top, four above the question, four on the side, and sometimes another four on the bottom. All kind of the same, all very lame.

I just want to add I have seem more boobs on this site in the past 24 hours than the rest of my life!! I am in no sense of the word prudish but I am tired of t and a

I'm still baffled as to what a sprouting tomato has to do with probiotics. ;)

Thanks for posting this-- I thought my adBlock had failed.
The thing is, I NEVER click on these ads. Ever. Even if something offered me a million dollars..."Better than Adderall...the new drug college students take"...um, this IS a parenting site, right? Why on earth would I come here looking for recreational prescription drugs? Know thy audience.. the audience says "fie, fie upon thee!"

This is lowest of the low for a forum...
Seriously, I'd throw that nasty tomato....old world forum style!

Yes, it's gotten out of control. The ads are even in "your answer space".

I understand the need for ads, but they do seem indiscriminate. There's one link today from GCommerce that says "How hotelier's can build brand loyalty." Aaarrrgggghhhh - it's "hoteliers" with no apostrophe, folks! You don't make a plural by adding apostrophe-s! So why would I click on something whose writers can't even spell or check their work? Are they going to be similarly inaccurate in everything else?

But the worst are the videos. You know, those black boxes with a rotating arrow that just beg you to click on them? My typing is very slow when those are on - so I hit the "X" to close it, and I get about 5 seconds to finish typing before it pops up again. Again. Again. It makes it very unpleasant and frustrating to try to answer a Mamapedia question.

Yes, yesterday - and today - the ads are awful.
I would be ok with the advertising if the images weren't gross and/or insulting. I don't mind ignoring click bait links.

If you have AdBlock and you right click on an image, you can choose "hide element". It will leave the link up, but at least get rid of the gross/insulting picture. You have to do it for each individual image though, which is going to get really old really fast.

ETA: Although, Julie S, I did once cut open a tomato in which the seeds had started to sprout inside, kind of like this picture. The picture on this site is gross, but in person it was kind of cool. I put the sprouting seeds in my garden and they grew and I had fresh tomatoes all summer. (what the picture of tomato seeds sprouting has to do with probiotics I don't know, because I'm not clicking on the link)

Glad it's not just me! It's terrible! It's a bunch of the type you should never, ever click on unless you want a guaranteed virus. "The Shocking Trick That Restarts Hair Growth Immediately!" Um...no thank you. And the photos that go with them are that just nasty looking enough that you don't want to see them. I at least got my Adblocker to hide the photos but the links are all still there. There are 14 of these things on my page at this exact moment!

I have Adblock on my MacBook and yesterday for some reason all these ads popped up. I was annoyed because it normally catches everything. I ended up having to go to my Adblock and changing a settings under Options. I unchecked the box that said "Allow some non-intrusive advertising". It was intrusive! What a pain and yes, ads that I would never be interested in nor would ever click on for fear that it would infect my machine or take me to some weirdo site.

I use u-block and they are immune to that too. I started using a blocker a while back after I kept seeing an ad for sexy asian women to chat with. Really? On a mom's site? I think these ads are just gross and do ruin the user experience here. The tomato is disgusting and the ads with someone's icky mouth are just gross. Last night there was an ad with some yucky naked old man. I, too, understand the need for ad revenue, but I can't see any of us clicking on these types of ads. Why not decent ads for baby products or women's clothing? Something that makes sense for this demographic. This really changes Mamapedia's environment and will drive away our regulars and daily traffic. Also, they are not just awful, but are too many in number and placed everywhere to the point of interfering with the content and interaction with the site. Wow.

ETA: Just noticed there are ads inside someone's "so what happened." Right in the text of her post. Also saw a new gross ad with some woman and how her husband left her after looking closely at her photo. Sorry, but none of us want to inspect the skank's body to see why her husband left. Once again, gross.

Hi C. W,

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. I'm sorry for the somewhat delayed response here, I just wanted to be sure I had an opportunity to communicate your concerns to the rest of the management team and get any feedback they might have on the topic.

So, first let me just say I'm very sorry for the frustration you, and the other members here, are having with the advertising on this site. I absolutely understand, as an internet user myself, that an overabundance of advertising, or advertising content that is not appealing or pertinent to me, can be especially annoying and adversely affect the user experience. We certainly don't want that to be the case here at Mamapedia.

However, as I'm sure you understand, like any other business we need to pay our bills. So advertising, to some extent at least, is a somewhat necessary evil that allows us to provide this community forum, and all of it's associated administrative upkeep costs, free of charge to our members. Ultimately, it becomes a balancing act between maintaining a positive ad revenue stream and protecting the quality of the user experience.

To that end, you should know that the ad layout strategy is being constantly optimized (daily) to find the best mix of placements, content, and user experience. Many factors go into this, and any one members experience might be different from another members. Unfortunately, from time to time there may be some less than ideal ads displaying, and we'll note those. Which is another reason your feedback here is so appreciated. Please know that your concerns and all of the comments posted here have been taken quite seriously. Mamapedia works with a third party to develop our ad strategy and they too will be made aware of the issues raised here.

Bottom line, this is an ongoing process and we ask for your patience as we continue to find our landing place. Again thanks C. W and thanks to all who also posted and shared their concerns as well.

-M.

Yes! They are obnoxious and taking up too much space and pretty much the only thing I can see when the page first loads.

They are HORRIBLE....my adblocker doesn't seem to block them and the images are the worst with the "click bait" type titles that only the most unaware internet users would ever actually click on.

The huge big purple-ish lips with the silver pill make me want to gag.

I know the site has to generate revenue...but good grief they are enough to make me want to stop coming around. Its not as if we have tons of great questions anymore just a couple a day. Sigh!!

I will now head over to my other mothering website where I don't have to look at hideous tomatoes that look like they are going to attack me off the screen. I am going to double check my adblocker, but it seems to be working fine everywhere else.

It's the videos for me. I sometimes forget to mute my computer before opening the site.

On my laptop I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus, NoScript and FlashBlock add ons.
On my iPad I use the AdBlock browser.
It makes the site SO much better to deal with.

I get a TON of ads because I don't use an ad blocker, but I don't see any that you guys are talking about. Now I'm curious about the creepy tomato???

I find it interesting that the ad experience is so different for everyone. My ad are for cars (which I'm not in the market for), CFA prep (from the company from which I've already purchased a package), Geico and a travel site. The 4 little cheesy ads on the side are for Fios, some click bait on fixing cracked feet, collecting 9 extra paychecks a month and a vikings game. None block the text. Anyway...no nasty tomatoes or boobs here!

The owners do not care if we click on the links or not, the adds are simply how they make money off maintaining a free site such as this, those companies pay to have their adds on the site and as a result the site stays up and running. They have never bothered me. Now, if they start having the type of pop up adds that freeze up the page, that you have to close in order to continue, or even navigate away from the site to get to go away, I will more then likely stop using the site.