You know, after 17 years on the Internet, I’m pretty good at ignoring banner ads. But there is one kind that infuriates me. And I’m not sure whether I should direct my anger at the advertisers, or at the sites that host them. Because I’m becoming convinced that the sites that display the ads encourage this type of ad.
You’re reading an article on a site that decides the best way to present information is in the form of a slideshow. And positioned under each slide, but above the navigation buttons, is a banner ad that contains a button graphic with a right-pointing arrow, implying “next”.
Every slide has a banner ad with a right-arrow button on it. Clearly intended to fool you into clicking the ad instead of the actual “next” button below it.
That was just the most recent example. I actually know next to nothing about Russell Brand, having never seen any of his work. But he seems like a decent guy, judging by this article:
I never click anything. I’m off the grid, brother: keyboard-only. All I see are command prompts. Maybe a MOTD. If you serenade me, it better be in .ogg format.
I hate repeatedly clicking on slideshows, so I usually avoid them.
One I do like is the UK Telegraph’s Pictures of the Day. There’s often something amazing in there. To avoid the clicking, I open up a new tab with the Deslidefied HTML page, copy the Telegraph’s URL (as an example) and pop it in there. It extracts the pictures (and captions) to one long page and I can easily scroll through all twenty-something slides without any more clicking.