We all see these ads on a multitude of sites: heavily Photoshopped images with crazy or stupid headlines that make checkout tabloids seem legitimate. Mostly they’re delivered via ad networks that makes it easy for the site operator to place ads on their site, but difficult to control what gets advertised.
My question is this: is it worth it? Why trade convenience for reputation?
One of the constant mantras in Internet Marketing and Internet Business is Authority and establishing authority in your space. How does this type of sleaze do anything but damage that?
When I land on a site with these types of ads, I question the site’s legitimacy. Why would they want that trash on their site? Some of these sites have quality information and lots of traffic. The site I took the screenshot from for the image that accompanies this post is a very, very prominent person in national security and politics. (Note: I didn’t screenshot any of the really disgusting ads I see on some sites).
It’s paramount to having a hooker as the hostess at a nice restaurant or doorman at a 5 star hotel!
In the past, I’ve tried different ad networks to display ads on some sites, but in each case eventually removed them.
The ads you see on this site are either my own products, or, links to products I use that I’m an affiliate. I do not use ad networks or even offer paid ads.
If a site has high enough traffic to make money from ad network ads, they would be better off in reputation and revenue to manage their own ads, or, use an ad network that only displays high quality ads.
In addition to the reputation hit taken by sites displaying these trashy ads, there are security and performance issues. Malware and viruses are commonly delivered via some ad networks. Some ad networks and ads load slowly and make your site unresponsive and that causes people to leave your site.
Like so many other areas in life, people readily trade convenience for pretty much anything (security, freedom, etc.). You have to ask yourself if it’s worth the cost.
Until next time,
Fred
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