About My Advertising
Advertising on the internet is out of control.
Now, I do believe that advertising is an important element of capitalism. It’s been around for as long as print and television. Companies find customers, customers find products, and third parties (like TipTopSecurity) are supported in the process.
However, the internet has been extremely irresponsible with it. As the internet grew, sites realized that all it took to boost their revenue a few points was to host another ad on their page. And another. And another. And as the number of ads grew, so diminished their effectiveness, requiring more and cheaper ad space to maintain their bottom lines.
Enter modern times. Now you can hardly visit a site without a bunch of obnoxious pop-ups and flashing banners. Ads became so ubiquitous that we’ve actually trained ourselves not to look at them, so sites resort to putting them in our way to get our attention. It’s no wonder that ad blockers are becoming so popular.
From this site’s beginning back in 2013, I vowed that TipTopSecurity would be a responsible advertising host. I believe that it’s possible to host relevant, useful advertisements while also being respectful to my readers. In that spirit, I developed two rules which I follow religiously:
1. No “trick clicking”
Some types of ads are designed to look like regular links in order to trick visitors into clicking them (it’s just a more benign form of clickjacking). I abhor this method of advertising. It’s just disrespectful to visitors and undermines their trust. That is why I don’t use them, while also labeling my ads as such because there should be no question as to what you’re clicking on.
My visitors will never be intentionally fooled into clicking on anything they don’t actually want to click on.
2. No obstructive ads
There are several types of ads that are designed to get our attention by being shoved in our faces:
- Pop-ups
Ads that appear on the page and require you to dismiss them before you can see the actual content. - Page takeovers
Like pop-up ads, except they fill the entire screen. - Hover ads
Ads that pop up when you hover over certain elements on the page, like words or images. - In-line ads
These ads are placed within the content you’re reading so that you’re forced to look at them as you scan the page. They’re not as bad as the rest, but they still get in the way.
What this type of advertising is not-so-subtly communicating is that the ad is more important than the actual content. It cheapens the site. TipTopSecurity is not a cheap site. That is why these types of ads do not exist here.
My visitors will never be forced to interact with ads that they don’t want to.
The Result
As you probably expect, this rigid philosophy does not lend well to gainful ad revenue. It does, however, let me sleep at night. I know that my visitors are enjoying a clutter-free experience, yet may still find value in advertised products that could be of use to them. It’s really not rocket science. That’s the way it should work.
I believe that I’ve struck a good balance with my ad policy. It’s proved successful in generating just enough revenue to cover the cost of site hosting. It does not, however, cover the tremendous amount of my time it takes to maintain this site. So if you’d like to help further support TipTopSecurity, you can find out more with the link below.