Thanks. It is very interesting to hear about the ads you are seeing.
Also, you should see the VS ads go away.
There are some complicated issues at play here. The short version is that (1) advertising makes YLF possible, but (2) advertising is a horribly complicated model with some definite problems. We're evolving our approach and I'm sure we'll do better over time.
For the brave, here is the long version...
There are two ad networks on YLF. The first is Google AdSense, which is using all kinds of automagical cleverness to serve you an add that is relevant to you AND relevant to YLF. We have some high level control over the categories of ads that display, but these controls are not always effective. For example, there should be nothing about dermatology or credit card debt. I have blocked those categories, yet the ads appear. But since I didn't see them, I wasn't complaining to Google. Even the ads I do see from Google are often annoying because they are clearly targeted at me based on some other site I visited (this is what is happening in dianthus's case). In general the lack of control over the AdSense ads is a real problem for us and in the long term I hope that we can move away from them completely.
The second network is Federated Media. Here we have complete control. I approve every campaign that comes through, and these campaigns generate more revenue. Sometimes they are closely linked to particular content (the "sponsored posts" that Angie does). These advertisers NEVER dictate our content or even see our posts before we publish them, but they do get to put their ads against exactly the types of articles they want to be associated with, and they pay a premium for this. Everybody wins: We earn more revenue, they get better placement, you see nicer ads.
Unfortunately, we can only fill some of our ad slots with these more premium ads. The rest goes to AdSense. And given that we have some months with very few premium campaigns, we just can't afford to kick AdSense to the curb.
Ironically, the Victoria Secret ads are part of a Federated Media campaign that I approved. More than that, I was excited that we got the campaign because it is a good brand and, although racy, the creative is not *ugly*. That said, I totally understand the reaction. Luckily I could talk to the folks at FM and get them to opt us out of the campaign after the fact.
We are always thinking about ways that we can make the advertising more useful. One example of this was the Karen Kane campaign. We loved the idea of working with them to tell their story. We thought the "behind the scenes" posts would be very interesting to you, and the exposure good for them. Unfortunately, it really went sour.
People seemed to enjoy the posts, but then we started getting some really negative feedback (through the contact form, but also as comments on other blogs) that we had sold out to KK and were now essentially a Karen Kane mouthpiece. Angie took this really hard because it challenged her ethics and her credibility. She had written literally thousands of posts, but 5 or 6 posts on Karen Kane were enough for people to get ugly.
In addition to all of this, the ads have a big impact on the performance of the site (the time it takes a page to load). I have spent hundreds of hours optimizing the heck out of the code, and all of that goes down the drain because the systems serving the ads (totally outside of my control) sometimes have terrible performance. I can't tell you how much this frustrates me.
So to answer Lyn's question, YES, we have thought about a paid version of YLF that allows you to turn off the ads. We've gone beyond that to actually build it. In fact, I have been using it for a while. Right now I am actually paying a monthly subscription and I can go to my profile page and turn off ads.
The reason we haven't launched it is that we're not sure what to charge. We're on a bit of a tightrope and if we charge too little we could take the business into territory where it no longer supports us. Too much, and it might make people angry. We're also worried about the impact on the community of having "premium" users. We are doing some work on figuring this out, but it has taken a back seat to other things recently.
If you got this far, thanks for reading my rant. Although it sounds negative, these are interesting problems to work on. And we will definitely learn more over time. I just thought that those of you who are interested in the ad supported aspect of the site might enjoy a little glimpse into my world.
Finally, if you have an opinion about what we should charge for an ad free option, or what you would be prepared to pay for that option, then please let me know. If not below then in a private message or by email.
