Sorry I did not realise that they were the forums income, it was just that I could not get to posts as they seemed to block the whole page on my smart phone.Oh dear you will not be liked for asking that question you will be told that it help keep this forum going I personally hate detest the adverts and use this software https://adblock.adguard.com/en/download.html there is software on the web to stop them tracking you ,
I do not see any ads or pop ups whatsoever, I used to make the occasional donation to the forum, but when we started having the meet up raffles instead of making a donation I make a reasonable donation to that by way of a purchase of raffle tickets 3 times a year plus I always donate a prize. Myself I think it a more efficient and enjoyable way of upkeeping the forum and is why I do not feel guilty switching off the adverts, after all adverts were one of the reasons why I stopped watching television.
Quite a few years ago - more than fifteen anyway - I used to get about 25 church newspapers each week for parishioners. Some did not sell, so we broke even or lost money. Eventually, people dying or leaving the Parish meant that the numbers ordered dropped to around five. Well we did make a very small profit on them however the administrative cost of writing and clearing cheques actually meant a loss. We now advise folk to take out a subscription to the newspaper if they want it.Lyn,
As Mort says, the site only gets revenue if you click on an ad, and it's pretty small revenue at that. My own site at its busiest period a few years ago - approximately 70 visits a day - took two years to raise £35 from ads. That's almost as much as it cost to clear the check from Greece! Far better to make the occasional donation and run an ad-blocker IMHO. Many newspaper sites either ask you to take out a paid subscription or remove your ad-blocker.
Maurice
have to say the main page now seems completely surrounded by adverts was not so bad having them just at the top of the page but now we have them at the top..the bottom and on the right hand side above where it say.."staff online"...can be a little off putting the ones i dont like popping up in my face are the date a girl from different countries.. just noticed there is a TOP BRA one at the bottom of the page..far from being a prude but i just think there is a time and place for these sort of adverts...just my opinion but as said i think there is a way of blocking them so i will be looking into that..well my son will
lyn
According to a banner that I keep getting, there are legions of beautiful Polish women eager to "date" me.
They'll soon go off the boil when they cop a load of my moosh !
for reference the ad revenue pays for the costs of running the server without them there is no site.
the costs of running the server come out of my own pocket as the site is too big to run on the cloud it uses over 150gb with nearly a tb of traffic being used every month.
the money raised in donations pays for licenses and hardware when it needs replacing.
you may not like the ads and are of course free to use a blocker but you can white list this site and click the occasional ad to help it stay online.
if everyone who came on here used an ad blocker there would be no site period.
donations are not even enough to cover the licenses myself and my Dad (Postie) already take money out of our own pocket to ensure the sites survival.
We are not the BBC we are not fully funded by the tax payer im glad everyone enjoys using the site ect but this is an argument that really involves only two people myself and postie.
Clicking on an ad costs you nothing no baby pandas die when you do it and there are worse things at sea.
neither the ads or donations combined cover the full costs of this site.
this site is on 24/7 365 days of the year and sometimes for me it's a second job that ends up costing me money to work for it.