Announcement: No More Google Ads on Front Page or In VAF Forums

[DeltaRomeo]

Happy Friday!

Donations have been up this year, I suspect because more folks know that this is now our family's full time job. If a handful more folks continue to donate, I think I can live without the (pretty small actually) amount of money that these Google ads generated.

I like the idea of a site with all the ads being RV-related anyway. Could possibly make the forums load faster, but I have no proof of this (initial indications seem to suggest it's faster). There might still be a review or article a couple levels off the front page with a GoogleAd or two in it, but I'll get those deleted over the next whenever - the forums accounted for 99% of the hits anyway.

Anywho, no need to reply....just letting you know. The ads are now gone (as of about 15 minutes ago).

Enjoy and thanks again for helping the whole thing fly (pun).

[Mike S]

So, what are Google ads???

Were they those the annoying random things that kept showing up to the left of the threads-------almost never about RV aircraft?????

It seemed that there was something going on that picked a word out of a thread title, and put up ads based on the title.

For instance, if RV was in the thread title, you might see ads for Winnebagos.

[RVAddict]

yep,
that's adsense. It uses keywords from this site to generate ads from advertisers that are supposed to be related to this site but generally not. To "normal" people, "RV" and "Winnabago" are one in the same. As for me, when somebody says "look at that RV!", I look up..,

[RVbySDI]

Since this thread is talking about adds I would like to offer up my .02 worth. For some time now I have used Firefox to browse the internet. It is so much more enjoyable to use than IE (Internet Explorer). Before making the switch I was constantly battling pop ups and loosing the battle. That was the original reason I made the switch. I highly recommend it for that reason alone as I have rarely seen a pop up add at all since making the switch.

For those interested here is the link to download the program for free:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

One of the other wonderful discoveries I found while using Firefox was their add-ons.

The absolute best add-on is one called:
Adblock Plus.

It is a fantastic tool for blocking unwanted adds. There are probably some of you out there that may feel this is unfair but I for one do not want to be constantly bombarded with people always trying to sell me something. With this tool I have total control over what advertisements I want to see or don't want to see. I can turn off the blocker on individual web sites if I want to see adds. I chose to do so on this site for example. I do want to see the adds on this forum because I know they are advertising items I am interested in. On other sites such as Yahoo, MSN, Google or any others I frequent, I choose to block the adds so I am not constantly having to look through or around adds, or trying to figure out how to get them off of the screen so I can see the content of the web site they may be blocking. It is one of the best internet tools I have found.

Check it out if it interests you. If not, well, then perhaps one of those adds will appeal to you. Then you could finally get around to buying that widget that you had no idea you needed so badly.

Live Long and Prosper!