When I stated this blog way back in May, 2009 I did so with the firm belief that I would never attempt to make money from it, or carry paid advertising. The odd business promotion I do here for local enterprises is upfront and in good faith, and it’s important to me that readers and contributors know that this is a community spirited thing which will never exploit or commercialise either it’s content or audience.
This site is hosted by WordPress. WordPress are ace, and I love them to bits – they provide a great, free service unhindered by traffic restrictions and other tomfoolery, and provide a reliable, innovative and continuously improving service to folk like me. I can’t fault that at all.
These adverts apparently appeared at the foot of a recent post, inserted automatically by WordPress. Jason Sheldon took a screen shot, and drew them to my attention.
WordPress have always reserved the right to add advertisements to blogs they host; this they generally do subtly at the foot of posts. Of late, it’s been drawn to my attention that these have been increasingly intrusive and some may not have been appropriate for the audience. This caused me some discomfort, if I’m honest; the only control I have is to pay a subscription to remove them. Unlike Google Ads, I can’t control their content.
After a bit of soul searching, I have paid the subscription, and no further advertisements should appear here from WordPress. Obviously, I can’t control stuff that may be added by third party readers, if you use them, or malware, but you really shouldn’t see any more ads here in future, and if you do, I’d like to hear about them.
I do this for the love of it; it is very important to me that the people participating and reading have faith in it.
If you have any queries, comment here please or BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com. Cheers.
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An admirable stance to take but a disgrace you have to pay
Thanks, but I’m relaxed about it. What we get effectively for free is a huge amount. They have to make it back somehow.
Bob
Come on Aiden, they have to pay for the servers and bandwidth somehow.
As usual, Bob, you’ve done the right thing. I never noticed any ads, certainly nothing disagreeable, but I think we are all very thankful for the time, energy, courage and brain power you put into this blog.
Hi Bob
Fully agree with Andy’s thanks for all your time etc.
best wishes
David
Hi Bob,
Andy’s comment completely hits the spot. Sincere thanks.
Hi Bob,
I have an Ad blocker installed maybe that’s why i’m having a problem posting my blog at the moment. Although i aint seen nothing which says you can;t use one. I may have to remove it if i can’t sort out my probs
I only ever saw ads when not logged in. Bob, you’ve done the right thing, of course, and it will only add to the already high quality, but if you hadn’t, well, meh. It’s adverts. We’ll see more, and more intrusive ones as time goes by: it costs real money to host servers, and while the price is always dropping, it’s never going to be zero.
Hadn’t really noticed any adverts, but like everyone said, many thanks Bob.