Web Sites Designed To Maximize Click Revenue

[Huntn]

Have you ever seen a web page that has a tradional article at the top, but along the bottom are 9 or more small boxes with either hook images or titles? And when you click on one of these links, you travel to another page full of more hook images and advertising links, and regarding the subject you clicked on such as See what Victoria Principle looks like today, or Bride Photos They Wish Were Never Taken, there will be a slideshow, and on each new page, another slew of hook images and advertising, and for that picture of Victoria Principle you wanted to see? It will be near the end of a slideshow covering a group of aging celebrities, meaning that you will have navigated 10 or more pages of advertisements to see the topic that attracted you in the first place. Here is an example (link recently seen in this forum): Daily News.

For myself, I've already figured this out, I am irritated by this, and as a rule I avoid such hooks. Does anyone know if this kind of web advertising structure has an official name/label? I sincerely hope as a rule, this is not what the web turns into.

 

[chown33]

... Does anyone know if this kind of web advertising structure has an official name/label?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait

 

[rhett7660]

@chown33 beat me to it. Yup that is exactly what it is! My favorites (sarcasm) are articles that are spread out over 15 pages and you have to click "next" to go to the next page and you are served up with a whole new slew of ads or better yet your entire screen is taken over by ads and you have to wait for the "x" or "close" to pop up so you can get out of it! I just love those!

 

[Huntn]

Thanks guys, I'm really detesting theses kind of sites, but at least they are easy to spot.

 

[BarracksSi]

To go along with "clickbait", a still-burgeoning phenomenon is what Daring Fireball's author, John Gruber, calls "dickbars":
https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars

It's a little different from banner ads that persist onscreen and cover the content you want to see (and I'll bet most of their click-throughs are by accident), but they're almost worse (IMO) because the site owner wants to block the content in the name of making you "engage" with others and "share" what you're reading. Which, when you think about it, is making users boost the page's view count -- which makes them more valuable to advertisers.

 

[Huntn]

To go along with "clickbait", a still-burgeoning phenomenon is what Daring Fireball's author, John Gruber, calls "dickbars":
https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars

It's a little different from banner ads that persist onscreen and cover the content you want to see (and I'll bet most of their click-throughs are by accident), but they're almost worse (IMO) because the site owner wants to block the content in the name of making you "engage" with others and "share" what you're reading. Which, when you think about it, is making users boost the page's view count -- which makes them more valuable to advertisers.

I wonder if Safari read mode will pypass them?

 

[BarracksSi]

I wonder if Safari read mode will pypass them?

For now, yeah, I think it does.

The main point, however, is that it shouldn't require a browser trick to get past the cluttered UI. Advertisers don't like Reader Mode because their ads aren't getting seen, and the sites hosting those ads would rather not let you use Reader Mode for that reason. Some websites aren't viewable in Reader Mode, either.

 

[rhett7660]

To go along with "clickbait", a still-burgeoning phenomenon is what Daring Fireball's author, John Gruber, calls "dickbars":
https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars

It's a little different from banner ads that persist onscreen and cover the content you want to see (and I'll bet most of their click-throughs are by accident), but they're almost worse (IMO) because the site owner wants to block the content in the name of making you "engage" with others and "share" what you're reading. Which, when you think about it, is making users boost the page's view count -- which makes them more valuable to advertisers.

Yup those are also freaking annoying as hell. I have found that mobile websites = "lets bombard our viewers with ads, unnecessary clicks, and let's make it so bad for them they will never want to come to our website again, but we will hold them hostage via disabling the close button!"

 

[MacNut]

A lot of these sites are dirt slow because of all of the ads being served. And then you can't click out of them without closing the whole page. Greedy bastards.

 

[samiwas]

You can try to use DeSlideifier. It works for a lot of those sites, although not all of them. It will take all 15 pages or whatever, and turn it into one single page with just the relevant content...no ads or anything else. For the sites it works on, it's fantastic.

I hate these types of websites. I hate any website which is designed primarily to trick you into clicking ads. The content is always entertaining, but they make it so hard to actually consume it, that it becomes more trouble than it's worth. Even worse are the types of sites who offer some sort of downloadable content, but the download button is tiny and hidden amongst 20 flashing ads, almost all of which have a fake download button on them.

What'a worse is even legitimate news sites are starting to do this. I opened an article on a a local TV news station's website earlier today, and the content kept moving as it loaded numerous ads and videos.