Forums without ads

[MasterA]

For those of you who don't put ads on your forums, why do you do so? If you generate money, you will be able to spend the money back onto the community providing contests with good prizes and make further development to the forum. What are you views on this?

 

[GSquadron]

I did not put any ads on my forums mainly because the revenue was mediocre.
If we are talking about 10.000 views per month than it might be a good idea, but you can make contests even without any money at all, if you know how.

 

[Tucker933]

I only show ads to unregistered users, mainly because I think it's tacky for members to see, and because it's also an incentive to register or stay signed in.

 

[Thomasss]

I only show the ads to guests, simply because they are guests. However everyone else does not get to see the irritating ads; like Tucker said there's really no point to show ads to members, since they are supporting your forum just by registering and signing in.

I have thought about moving inactive users or users that don't really contribute to the forum all that much into a separate group and show ad's to that group, and then once they start becoming more active move them back into the ad-free group.

 

[drucrazy]

One ad, that's all.

I am not going to spam everyone with an ad here and ad there. It's a new forum, but I will still place an ad on there just to receive something!

Forum's are free (to the user, duh), I am providing people a place to post and advertise their own website or niche, It's everyone's community but I deserve some right to put an ad there to make the experience better.

 

[pandaa]

I did not put any ads on my forums mainly because the revenue was mediocre.

This is a great point. A lot of younger sites flood their site with ads, but they only end up making $10 or so per month if they're lucky. I'd rather wait and put ads on the site once there is an established memberbase. Some members would probably raise a fit if you did this, but they've got to understand that websites need money and that's just the way it has to be.

 

[Ashley z]

I did not put any ads on my forums mainly because the revenue was mediocre.

This is a great point. A lot of younger sites flood their site with ads, but they only end up making $10 or so per month if they're lucky. I'd rather wait and put ads on the site once there is an established memberbase. Some members would probably raise a fit if you did this, but they've got to understand that websites need money and that's just the way it has to be.

Depends what you use that monthly $10 for. If you are using it to directly improve the website in a noticeable way (for your members), I don't see why it would be such a bad idea. If the $10 is going to go into your pocket though, hold off on advertisements until the site is much larger and requires a % of profits to expand. That way you can at least justify it to the members.

 

[pandaa]

Depends what you use that monthly $10 for. If you are using it to directly improve the website in a noticeable way (for your members), I don't see why it would be such a bad idea. If the $10 is going to go into your pocket though, hold off on advertisements until the site is much larger and requires a % of profits to expand. That way you can at least justify it to the members.

True. It just all boils down to who you are and what you have in mind for your forum. All I know is that $10 is quite a bit of money to a young webmaster, and if I was in the position in the past, I would have had a hard time passing up on that. 😛

 

[Ashley z]

True. It just all boils down to who you are and what you have in mind for your forum. All I know is that $10 is quite a bit of money to a young webmaster, and if I was in the position in the past, I would have had a hard time passing up on that. 😛

I am sure all of us have been at an age at which $10 is enough to get us to give up our standards and put ads on a site 🙂
Good thing both you and I are past that.

I'm fortunate enough at the moment to make enough money in real life to not need to load any online projects with ads. It's definitely tempting though. I had a project bringing in around $200 per month, but I let that project go a few months back. I wasn't interested in it anymore. The monthly direct deposit was nice, but time was limited so I don't regret that decision.

Pandaa's right, it's all about perspective and proportional to how much money you have/need.

 

[bradleyhaughin]

Some viewers find the ads on my forum annoying as with the forum builder it has a wealth of pre built ads so i need pay to remove them.

 

[Allenafaith]

I don't put ads on my forum because I hate ads so I know other people do too. 😛

 

[CM30]

I don't include ads because of two things:

1. Activity is too low to justify them.

2. My eventual plan is to charge for subscriptions for exclusive content, not rely on advertising revenue. The latter just isn't sustainable.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

I don't use advertisements. I despise advertisements. I'd rather visitors enjoyed speedy loading times and clean content, without having to click past annoying banners. Also, who doesn't use ad-blockers these days?

 

[Teapot]

I never use advertisements, mainly because I just never had gotten around to it. I really don't think I would use it too much in the future either, despite how nice the money would be.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I don't use advertisements. I despise advertisements. I'd rather visitors enjoyed speedy loading times and clean content, without having to click past annoying banners. Also, who doesn't use ad-blockers these days?

You'd be surprised how many people don't have adblockers.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

I don't use advertisements. I despise advertisements. I'd rather visitors enjoyed speedy loading times and clean content, without having to click past annoying banners. Also, who doesn't use ad-blockers these days?

You'd be surprised how many people don't have adblockers.

That is why it has always been our mission to change the world, Joshy my man!

 

[Lone Ranger]

One or two Ads only