Topic: Changes in the way that advertisements are delivered and displayed ....

Folks,

I have changed the code which delivers, manages and displays advertisements on the front page.  This will have a number of benefits including, I hope, slightly better page load times as well as making them easier for me to manage.

What I need to know is what you can see .... on the main page you should see banner ad's adjacent to the board titles; so for example under "General discussion" you should see an ad for servo shop then, further down the page, some ad's will still be on the right hand side.

I especially would like to know if you're not seeing those on the left.

I have tested with a number of known browser configurations but there's nothing quite like a "live" Beta test!

Here's a slice of what I can see as a reference ...

I see what you see (on Firefox 10.0)

I also see what you've pictured, Google Chrome

i see nothing, i don't do home pages, but when i do want to post a new thread i must say that menu confuses the hell out of me

Me too.

I will try to make things clearer but right now I'm more interested in whether you can see the images?

I basicaly see what your pic shows, on an Ipad.

Tom

I see what you do, Nigel, with W7 and Google Chrome
Mike

All looks good here Wiz - Using latest Firefox and Win 7

I see what you do, with W7 and Google Chrome

CHEERS  Dave P

Wiz! Wiz!!  i can see necked wimin     no no wait,,,wrong site!!   all seems same as you here

  chris

Shhhhh Chris! Not everyone has access to that part of the forum!

I can see what you see with Google Chrome but can't say I like very much. Its a small point but I prefer the ads all to be on the right

Bob

One of the problems with ad's on the right is that it really messes things up on some mobile devices and people with small screens.

Ok - no problem then. If there's a good reason for the change that's ok. Just wasn't sure if the forum or my system was playing up!

Bob

One of the problems with ad's on the right is that it really messes things up on some mobile devices and people with small screens.

I am now seeing ads on the right!! (e.g. latest on appears to be from the Irish Tourist Board).

Also, the button to suppress the irritating shout box has disappeared - has been like this for a couple of days on Firefox and Chrome.

I think that may be my fault, I switched it off temporarily while I was testing something and clearly forgot to switch it back on. Sorry!

ok I thought I'd better say what I'm doing messing about with ad's and ad locations.  Well, I've completely changed the way in which ad's are displayed and managed behind the scenes.  This will enable me to change banner images and settings from a single control panel and also to be able to collect data on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the slots.

From a user point of view, you will notice very little difference except that for users on a slow connection or 3G, the images are delivered asynchronously, which means that the content will appear long before some of the images and you're not left waiting for a page to finish loading.  Most of the changes made have been to accommodate "mobile users" not using Tapatalk and the growing number of tablet devices using a regular browser on a small screen.  Over 20% of our traffic now comes from mobile devices so we need to make life as easy as possible for them while keeping the basic layout of the forum the same.

At the moment, you will see rather annoying "Google Ads" filling un-sold spaces.  This is a bit of an experiment but I don't like it so I can't see them staying.

I still have some updating to do but it's a fairly laborious process to get all of the ad units up to the new software but once there, it'll make life somewhat easier.

By the way, if anyone knows anyone who might like to take one of the available slots, drop me a PM and you never know, there might be some beer money it it for you if it comes to fruition

Thanks for the heads-up Wiz.