Annoying Web Advertisements

9th January 2012

It seems obvious that interrupting someone with an advertisement whilst they are trying to read an article on your site is going to really irritate them.

Yet lots of sites still do this on a regular basis – and it’s not just “spammy” or low quality sites – I’ve seen several popular news and technology websites doing the same thing.

These ads take many guises with one of the most frustrating being the overlay advertisement. This is where the ad intentionally obscures the content you’re trying to read to show you a video or some “great” offer you’re missing out on.

The most irritating thing with overlay ads is that it’s always so difficult to find the damn “close” button. As a result you often end up clicking on the ad and being directed to a site you had no intention of ever visiting.

Another similar example to the overlay technique are those annoying ads (usually stored in a sidebar) that pop out whenever you accidentally hover over them. They again end up covering up the text you’re trying to read and normally hang around for several seconds.

Misleading links in articles are also particularly frustrating – you go to click on a link and as soon as you hover over it an advertisement appears. These ads are typically displayed for at least a few seconds and can be really distracting.

Is displaying advertisements in this way good for these brands (both the site serving the ad and the company who is promoting something)? I tend to avoid sites that regularly use intrusive advertising techniques and I’m sure others are the same.

So why do site owners and advertisers still continue to use approaches like these?

Some advertisers will argue that overlays and the other techniques touched on above are significantly more effective than traditional “static” ads as they get clicked on more often.

But simply measuring the number of clicks an ad gets is not a good measure of how effective it is – especially when intrusive techniques are used and people are sent to sites that they never had any intention of visiting.

Attempting to force or trick users into viewing and clicking on advertisements is counter productive – you’ll simply end up irritating and annoying them. Are the extra pennies you earn in ad revenue really worth that?