Re: Pop-up blockers - what to do about it?

From: Sean Dillon <sean_at_telegraph.co.uk>
Date: Tue 30 Apr 2002 12:38:24 -0600

> Some time ago, I noticed something strange... it seems like a lot of my
> visitors (which usually are members, who visit an average of 250 pages /
> day) use a pop-up killer..

How do you know, are you simply comparing page request with popup requests
or are you using some other technique.


> Now, my question is... does anyone knows what to do about this?

Hmmm....

Theoreticlly, yes... practically (depending on your setup) No.

Most popup killers interefere with the javasscript engine and usually
disable the window.open() method of popping up windows. Now, whether
or not you could get away with popping them up using VBScript or
ECMAScript I don't know, I've never had the time to investigate it.

You could try a simple script on the home page that uses the
window.open() method to open up a small 100x100 window somewhere off
the screen. Then check to see if the window exists, if it does then
let them through, otherwise point them to a page explaining that you
require them to not run ad-blockers.

I did read recently that a German company (can't recall the name)
was working on an integarted system to check for adblocking software.

In my own experience (I serve approx 150,000,000 ads per month)
you could lose anything up to 35% of inventory to popup killers.

I agree it's something that needs to be tackled, I fail to see why
we should provide free content and not even have the ability
to (god I hate using this buzz-word) 'monetise' it.

What you need to do is make it clear in your T&Cs that using
adblocking software on your site is in contravention of YOUR
terms and conditions, and that a useris then either liable to
pay an additional fee to offset the revenue that would have been
accrued through the advertising, or their account will be
suspended until such time they stop using it or pay-up.


Sean


Sean Dillon
Traffic Manager
www.telegraph.co.uk

e: sean_at_telegraph.co.uk
t: 020-7531-3236
f: 020-7538-7236




Received on Tue Apr 30 2002 - 13:38:24 CDT