Ads on the Internet

I don't know about you, but I really dislike advertisements. I hate them.

They're very distracting, more often then not, the "X" to close the ad is too small to press and you end up clicking on the ad. You don't want that. No one does.

Except, those companies that want to make money, that is one of the only ways to make money, by using advertisements.

The screenshot from above is the New York Post, I imagine they're a pretty reputable company having been in business for quite some time.

Disclosure

Before I continue, I have no issue with the New York Post or anything like that. I was researching something and found their site and I thought of this post after coming to their site. If you'd like to visit the site for yourself, please do: here.

Difficulty Getting the Info

I've only been on the internet for the past 9 years really, and I don't really remember much before this explosion in web advertizing. It's like, if I want to play a free game on my phone (iPhone btw) I have to deal with an ad that could last up to 30 seconds between every level of the game. Or, if I want to scroll through a certain feed of news, I get to see what my friends post but then between every third or fourth post I have a slough of videos to watch or ads to see from brands I "might like". This is madness.

Back to this screenshot, here is the screenshot from the title of the post.

Got it, how much of this screen in pertaining to the article you're reading?

Here is a more blatant example, I've added some helpful colored boxes to show what is vital information and what is not.

What you can read on this page is like 20%. Compared to the space taken by ads or other information.

Am I any Different?

Now, this is not me saying that I'm any better than the New York Post because I have no ads on my site. First off, I don't know how to integrate advertisements onto my site; ergo the ", yet" in the title of this post. Second off, I don't know that I ever will integrate advertisements. And third off, I make zero money from my website and the New York Post makes a lot of money from their website.

Doing some quick research, I have absolutely no numbers to back that up. All I can show you is this link to the Media Index by Kochava: link. This is something that I found very interesting, it shows you all the relevant advertizing information that has every been on the New York Post. How many views they get, clicks, downloads, and so much more. That's all I can really show you.

Now for my site, this is what we see today (September 5, 2022).

This is what you see today. A lot of relevant content, and the ability to click anywhere on the site from this one page. This is the desktop view by the way, mobile is a little smaller.

This is mobile, a much tighter experience.

Extra Space

The reason why there is so much extra space on my website is because according to some research the optimal size for a blog to read is approximately 600 pixels across. And that's where my blog is at. I think it's pretty easy to read to not get distracted from your surroundings.

But I've been making improvements throughout my site to make it more user friendly and easier to read. I hope you see that.

Closing Thoughts

Well, that's all I've got. Thank you for reading and I hope to keep you around as long as I can keep advertisements to a manageable level on my site.

I don't really have a goal of making money from this site specifically, but more on the whole of computer programming. If I can make this site profitable, I'd love that, but I'm imaging that I'll eventually add a hire me button somewhere and I'll be your personal web developer. But, all in good time.

Thanks for reading!