I was playing around a bit with ad blockers over the weekend and I noticed that most banners on my sides and others are being blocked completely. To see them I had to whitelist the websites but who of the casual surfer will actually do that? I think they won’t care too much for banners as they most likely visit sites for content and not for advertisements.
So do you think it still makes sense to put up banners on a website? Or is the space better used for something else?
I think it still works but you have to use good banners and make an effort, just throwing some random standard size banners probably won’t do much. However I use quite a small amount of banners and not in a way to is intrusive or distracts from the content.
Actually I also checked your site and noticed that there are no banners at all. That contributed to my question if banners are still useful. Only when I disabled the ad blocker I saw your banners. When I activate the ad blocker again, all banners are gone.
So one big question would be how many surfer use ad blockers these days? If a majority uses them I don’t see a point in putting up banners and using more text links instead.
I don’t know about ad blockers but I know the banners get clicks and sales.
Okay, thanks. That’s some useful information. I will have to monitor my banners and see how they perform. I was just very surprised how many ads and banners are actually getting blocked by some ad blockers.
Bjorn - you’d get more sales if you set up the banners in a way that they won’t be blocked. When I go to your site I also don’t see any banners and AdBlock Plus is reporting lots of elements blocked all from promo.srvzone.com
Yeah I’m sure things get blocked but it’s a simple easy solution I created. I’m not too bothered about banners really.
Not sure how I could change the current solution to avoid getting blocked.
I suspect it’s blocked because you named the subdomain promo. Years ago my banners were getting blocked so I changed the directory name from /banners/ to /bnrs/ and haven’t had a problem since.
In other words, don’t have anything in the URL that would imply that it’s a banner ad.
ironic since we changed it to promo from banners to avoid that problem. Ok, will try changing it again to see what happens.
What adblocker do you have?
My banners are not in a directory that uses the word “banner” in it, but my files are named like “website-banner.jpg”. I will change the names and see if that makes a difference.
I used to use Adblock Plus, but recently switched over to Adblocker Ultimate who seems to be much more vigilant in blocking ads. They claim that they don’t use whitelists like other adblockers.
Also sure you already considered it, but to anyone here make sure theres no “250x300” (or any reference to banner size) in the banner name/folder/domain/anywhere… Had an affiliate that had this exact issue just a few weeks back but was appending 300-square to the end of banner names… on removing its fixed
I had banners in past but now I prefer to avoid them, thanks adblockers.
I have a big banner at bottom of all pages just before the footer: www edengay dot com
it’s only a background image with a link on a button nothing more.
I think the best way to advertise is by links with an image near to link to represent the sponsor.
Or of course a review which is certanly the best way currently.
I fixed my issue with banners getting blocked, it was down to using “promo” in the URL for the image.
Daniel, that’s a very good advice. I’m going to change the banner names and hope it makes a difference. On a side note, I noted that on French Twinks, there is one of your own banners which is located in a folder named /banner and it gets blocked by my Adblocker.
Yes, it looks good now. I can see the banners now, with or without Adblocker activated. 
Thanks for checking!
haha thanks for this… Will look at getting that sorted… Need to take my own advice I think 