How many ads should be in a sidebar for a forum or blog?

[froggyboy604]

I think 1-5 ads are a decent number of ads in the sidebar, but I seen people stuff their sidebar full of ads which make their forum or blog kind of hard to navigate since their ads uses the same color as their regular links or they use super tall vertical banners which are set to text. I also dislike pages which require me to scroll a lot because of a super long sidebar full of ads.

I guest having too many ads in the sidebar can also make some users distracted since some ads uses flashy animation, or weird colors which are nice to look at. I also read ads can slow down the loading of a website or make it feel slow if you have too many.

 

[JayJACKEL!]

I have 2 on my site, 1 when a user is browing threads, so it just depends on how professional you feel you need to be.

More ads = less concentration on forum IMO.

 

[OscarG]

I don't like sidebars at all. 🙂 I would rather an ad be stuck in an appropriate spot like inside a topic.

I do have a sidebar on my blog, but I wouldn't want one on my forum. I just like forums in straight lines up to down, not up down left right.

 

[USHost247]

I have 1 on my sidebar on my forum.

 

[Uphoreka]

Four 125x125 in a sidebar is pretty necessary.