What are all these underlined things ....

I think they are annoying and if I just found TCS I don't think I would even join. You can ignore the banner ads but these are in your face and you can accidently click on them. Of course the paying members would say that they don't see a problem with them..because they can turn them off...no offence.

I also wanted to add that if I could afford to be a paying member that I would but I can't afford it right now.

The main forum page is link galore - http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/index.php

And no, they don't jump out at you, but they ARE distracting. I don't like to read a post and have to be careful not to accidentally roll over certain words.

Any sort of advertising should be visible, but it should not distract the user from reading the content.

I don't really get HOW it's effective either? If I start a thread about cat brushes, and it links cat brushes, I can't imagine I'd ever go back and hover on that word just to see if the link it comes up with is useful? With the Google targeted ads (which I do click on in while at TCS), they are less obtrusive, they are relevant, and I can see the topic of the ad, a blurb about that website, and the web address without having to hover or get annoyed while reading the post itself.

Look at Nikki's thread here for example - http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=128457. There's 5 content links in her post, and the words linked to are adoption, love, surgery, leg, and physical therapy. And when you hover on the links, not one of them is cat or animal related!! None of them will get clicked on (or probably even hovered over since they are random words), and they distract you while reading the post.

At the moment, there's big visual ads, the Google ads AND the sponsored ads, do you really need to put MORE advertising into the forum? If you're just trialling it to see how it does against the other ads, then decide to take down the worst performing ad, then fine. But if you plan to keep 4 different sorts of advertising, then I really do think you're starting to ruin the user experience.

I'm sorry to be knocking what you're trying, but this is the sort of advertising that should be discouraged from all webpages, otherwise before we know it, the web is just going to be one big advertisement, and no content.

I'm finding -- and it's possibly just that I use an incredibly aged, incredibly slow computer at work -- that the ads slow my computer down quite a bit. The screens are slower to load, and when I'm scrolling from the top of a thread to the bottom, it seems to take forever. It's sort of like the pages are sticky, if you know what I mean? (And this doesn't just happen when I mouse over an underlined word.) If I weren't actually quite interested in reading what TCS posters have written, I probably wouldn't bother sticking around -- I'd go to another website that doesn't take forever to load/scroll through. (But, as I said, it could just be my craptastic work computer and connection ... if that's the case, however, other people with equally lousy computers/connections will have the same problem. Unless it's just me having these problems? I'm known for having unique computer issues. )

Its lagging mine quite a bit too and my computer isn't slow.

Originally Posted by sarahp

I don't really get HOW it's effective either? If I start a thread about cat brushes, and it links cat brushes, I can't imagine I'd ever go back and hover on that word just to see if the link it comes up with is useful? With the Google targeted ads (which I do click on in while at TCS), they are less obtrusive, they are relevant, and I can see the topic of the ad, a blurb about that website, and the web address without having to hover or get annoyed while reading the post itself.

Click to expand...

I agree... it's make much more sense (and possibly be less annoying) if it actually linked to cat related sites.

The add links don't bother me at all, now that I know what they are. At first I thought that I'd turned on some kind of helper object in my browser that I wasn't aware of. .

But I do noticed my browser being a bit slower than it was before, and only on TCS pages.

Yeah I definetly think TCS is alot slower today, compared to usual....

I am a paying member. So I thought I would click off my advertisement button for the day to see what was going on.

It really hasn't bother me at all. I don't normally use my mouse to scroll along as I'm reading so it hasn't caused me to have the ads pop up. I can do it deliberately but as soon as I move the mouse it goes back. Normally my mouse is over the page button at the bottom of a thread waiting for me to click to the next page.

The only difference I can tell is the speed of loading. It is slower.

I've been getting lots of error messages at work today when I come on here - I've never had them before so assume they are caused by the new advertising. I do find them rather distracting. I don't deliberately hover my cursor over them but it happens accidentally and I find balloon messages popping up when I'm trying to read a message. I also found one very inapproprate one in a thread (will pm about that).

Just a word about the relevance of the ads. These ad programs ARE supposed to deliver ads relevant to the context, BUT -- they have to "learn" the context before they can select for it. That means that at first the ads will be random, and only after it has "lived with us" a bit will it "know" what to send us. It SHOULD get better, though.

Ok, here's another annoying thread - http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=128473

Ok, so the THREAD isn't annoying, but the amount of links is!!!

Okay, they are even showing up in the v bulletin messages, and here in the "reply to thread" the word "Fonts" in colored and double underlined . Honestly, I thought I had a "trojan" or something and ran my ad aware program while trying not to freak! One of our administrators on my dog forums had one and she had to put up a thread saying "don't click on the '.' " in her posts until the computer guy got it fixed!

My (cable internet) pages are running slower- a lot slower- and occasionally doing the "sticking" thing when I'm scrolling down. And sometimes I use my cursor to keep my place when I'm reading, and I keep bumping the highlighted words and getting the "balloon". Kinda aggravating to have to remember not to go over those words with the cursor...

And I saw that post of Nikki's too- they were all over place and were very distracting. It jumps out at you, like if someone had typed it in all caps- I lose the continuity of the post when I have to take that split second to adjust that there is no emphasis on or special significance of that word, it is just an ad...I don't think that will change.


I think it may also be aggravating people because it puts something in their posts that they didn't type- kinda infers that whatever comes up is something they have something to do with, since they typed the post; even if they would never recommend that product, service, etc. for whatever reason... Not to mention, it is easy to get irked if you think "someone" is messing with what you put in your posts...

I hate to throw cold water on this idea; I understand that this site is here to raise support for the cats through the ads , but I just don't see this as being a good thing for TCS...

Oh, and I understand that it will have to "learn", but I don't remember hovering over one that has to do with cats, yet. "Computer Support in Las Vegas", "Got Fat?" but no cats...or even animal related...

My computer isn't normally slow either, but now when I come here it takes ages for a page to load...it even took awhile for me to even open the website.

Originally Posted by catsallover

I hate to throw cold water on this idea; I understand that this site is here to raise support for the cats through the ads

, but I just don't see this as being a good thing for TCS...

Click to expand...

Mostly, I'm finding that it's making my browser run extremely slowly (and only on TCS pages, so I know it's not just a "slow Internet" day), to the point where it becomes a chore to read through long threads. I was also one of those people who had a panic attack, thinking I had a trojan or some adware on my computer, because I've seen trojans/adware that looked like this.

I appreciate the need to raise support for the site, but I can see this as being very off-putting for new members. It's great for those of you who aren't having any problems, but if I came here as a newbie and had my computer slow down this drastically -- or suddenly look like it had a virus, just from visiting this site! -- I would just leave. I am definitely finding the new ads to be a deterrent.

I find them visually distracting. I was really surprised to see them here. When I'm doing general surfing, and I visit a new site...if I see those double underlined ads, I normally hit the back button.

It hasn't caused a huge lag for me, but I do see how that could happen.

They need Javascript to work. If JS is disabled in your browser, it may speed things up for you.

Can the people that complain about the number of links served by this agency please be more specific about number of links per post and per page? These are probably geo-targetted so maybe I'm not seeing what you are seeing. Linking to a thread doesn't help much, I'm afraid, as I could be seeing a different picture in terms of ads delivered.

Also, as has been said before by myself and by Fran here, there's a learning curve for this system, and what you see today isn't what you're going to be seeing two weeks from now (so I'm told). That said, weight loss ads on a page dealing with weight loss and diets would be considered relevant, even if they are not about cats.

I will be leaving this thread open for a few more hours. Do post if you have more to add. I am looking for reports about problems more than anything. If you want to share your general dissatisfaction about the amount of advertising on this site or anything else, please PM me instead of posting here - it's not too constructive in this thread and it's not a matter for community debate. Thank you

I have to admit that I find them very distracting as well. When reading a post my eye gets "hung" on that word until I remember why its underlined. While its something that I will eventually get used to and overlook, I'm afraid that it will turn off new members coming to the site.



A little off point, but this one has me chuckling. When you roll over "pregnant" on the main forum page it says:

"Looking for pregnant?? Find it cheaper at yaddayadda.com!!"

I don't mind. It is a bit odd but if it is what is needed to keep the site alive and well. I doubt it would keep me from posting