Mike posts often about the importance of ads and keeping members and supporting the site.  So I think it's relevant to post about why the site could be losing the target audience.  Porn.  We've had several female members and some young people, father/son prjects of members who had Z car projects in the past.  But they're all gone now, haven't seen a hint.  I've been at other computers where czcc.com is blocked by parental control programs.  So I have to wonder if it's not stuff like these images that are part of the problem.  Personally, when I'm in "car mode", a pair of big boobs is almost irritating.  If I want boobs I can go to Google and type "boobs" and I'll see plenty.

Posting this mainly for @Mike, so he can manage the site and make money and also just 'cause I hate an inconsistency.  But comments from other members might be informative also.

p.s. short version - I'm getting tired of seeing that pair of boobs holding the fish.  

22 hours ago, Zed Head said:

Sorry sb, I'm not sure what you're saying.  "anything like this" means what?  You don't have the fish and boobs at the bottom of your page? 

anything like this being the girl with the fish. the only place ive seen it has been in your post #148 here. i dont see it in anyone elses posts, anywhere on this site

that is why im wondering if you have some type of virus

Actually, Mike was right and it was an image pasted from somewhere else in that thread he linked, with identifiers for Google to follow to CZCC.com.  But he removed it.  So now this thread is the only one with the image, but it's a "snipped" image so Googleadsense (can you believe that's a thing - Google sensing what's going on so that they can target ads at viewers?  Scary?  Irritating?) may not recognize it.  Google is still using it.  Maybe it's locked to that little part of the page that nobody ever clicks on.  

What's funny is that that part of the page and those eight images are completely useless.  Even if you click on them, no ad revenue is generated.  You just go to a thread.  The images and the titles don't go together.  You don't know what you're actually clicking on.  The best thing to do might be to just get rid of it.  It's not really working for anybody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense

They're all still there though.  The boob flash girl and the fish girl.

1 hour ago, Zed Head said:

Actually, Mike was right and it was an image pasted from somewhere else in that thread he linked, with identifiers for Google to follow to CZCC.com.  But he removed it.  So now this thread is the only one with the image, but it's a "snipped" image so Googleadsense (can you believe that's a thing - Google sensing what's going on so that they can target ads at viewers?  Scary?  Irritating?) may not recognize it.  Google is still using it.  Maybe it's locked to that little part of the page that nobody ever clicks on.  

What's funny is that that part of the page and those eight images are completely useless.  Even if you click on them, no ad revenue is generated.  You just go to a thread.  The images and the titles don't go together.  You don't know what you're actually clicking on.  The best thing to do might be to just get rid of it.  It's not really working for anybody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense

They're all still there though.  The boob flash girl and the fish girl.

Yeah, I have been with Google Adsense since it started and I know how they work.  The Adsense network is always a lesson's learned type of system so not one solution is always the best.  Anyway, the image is probably cache'd in the Google servers and will disappear after Googlebots refresh their database.  This is an unknown amount of time and my best guess was a few days.

I disagree with you about the footer being useless.  They are simply showing popular and random threads from other parts of the forum.  The reason for this is to generate more interest in older forum posts that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.  While it may not be generating ads, the footer was placed there, by me, for this particular reason.  I wanted to include some kind of value-added benefit from the Adsense system, even if there were no ads available for that slot.

Adsense Relative Content (our footer) works is like this:  Google looks for keywords in the current thread and then suggests other threads that may be of similar interest.  When they think an ad could be placed in a slot, they will do it based on the number of relevant advertisers bidding on our market.  We are in January, a typically slow part of the year for Adsense publishers all over the globe.  The footer will likely show a limited number of ads for the next month.  Other than showing links to our own site, it also generates revenue.  Last month the footer made our club $15, which is a big help.  Considering our ad revenue has decreased over 50% in the last few years, we need all the help we can get.

If the footer bothers you that much, have you considered purchasing a membership to eliminate *ALL* Google ads?  Along with supporting the club, this is an added perk you might appreciate.

BTW: I moved this thread to our club website forum.

m

2 hours ago, sweatybetty said:

anything like this being the girl with the fish. the only place ive seen it has been in your post #148 here. i dont see it in anyone elses posts, anywhere on this site

that is why im wondering if you have some type of virus

There was an attachment (fish girl) in the fluid specs thread and I deleted it over the holiday.  Google takes quite a long time to update.  As far as a virus, I don't think he has one, but, I do think he's blocking cookies.  By doing this he will certainly see a lot more irrelevant ads or links.

18 minutes ago, Mike said:

I disagree with you about the footer being useless.  They are simply showing popular and random threads from other parts of the forum.  ........ I wanted to include some kind of value-added benefit from the Adsense system, even if there were no ads available for that slot.

 

If the footer bothers you that much, have you considered purchasing a membership to eliminate *ALL* Google ads?  Along with supporting the club, this is an added perk you might appreciate.

I don't think that anyone will recognize that the thread with the fish girl is actually about a relevant Z car topic.  Somebody might click on it to see more fish girl but they'll be surprised when an actual CZCC thread comes up.  Can't you generate some click-stats to see how many people actually click-through from that block of links?  And if it's actually a link to a thread, will it disappear when ads are blocked?  Are they ads or links to useful threads?

It's a chicken - egg thing on the membership.  When the site "porn" is gone it will be a site that I would want to support with a contribution.  And I already told you that I asked someone else to donate in my stead after I sent them a free part.  So it's not like I'm not contributing indirectly.  It's just not the kind of site I want to be a donating member of right now.  A girl with big boobs and a translucent see-through bikini, a "boob flash" image, Russian dating services, Asian dating services.  There's always something awkward going on.  And I don't want to have to log-in to hide things that are still there anyway for anyone I might refer to the site.  Beside the fact that I generally resist coercion. "Pay up or put up" just doesn't work for me.

I really do enjoy the site and hope you keep it going.  But I think that we're too far apart on how things should be.  Sorry.

Alright, my monthly rant is over.  If you didn't agree in part with my opinions you wouldn't have (maybe) removed the fish girl.  So we have that.

The fishing lady has almost always been at the bottom of the page in the links. I have just learned to not scroll down that far...

I don't think that anyone will recognize that the thread with the fish girl is actually about a relevant Z car topic.  Somebody might click on it to see more fish girl but they'll be surprised when an actual CZCC thread comes up.  Can't you generate some click-stats to see how many people actually click-through from that block of links?  And if it's actually a link to a thread, will it disappear when ads are blocked?  Are they ads or links to useful threads?
It's a chicken - egg thing on the membership.  When the site "porn" is gone it will be a site that I would want to support with a contribution.  And I already told you that I asked someone else to donate in my stead after I sent them a free part.  So it's not like I'm not contributing indirectly.  It's just not the kind of site I want to be a donating member of right now.  A girl with big boobs and a translucent see-through bikini, a "boob flash" image, Russian dating services, Asian dating services.  There's always something awkward going on.  And I don't want to have to log-in to hide things that are still there anyway for anyone I might refer to the site.  Beside the fact that I generally resist coercion. "Pay up or put up" just doesn't work for me.
I really do enjoy the site and hope you keep it going.  But I think that we're too far apart on how things should be.  Sorry.
Alright, my monthly rant is over.  If you didn't agree in part with my opinions you wouldn't have (maybe) removed the fish girl.  So we have that.

Ok fair enough. I'm a guy who wants to see this place improve and eventually go totally ad free. I can make all of that stuff go away, but we have to fill a new financial void. If I remove all of it, can you replace the $15/month it's currently generating?

M


Sent from my iPad using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Not exactly sure how those ads are populated, but generally it's either totally independent of the content of the site, or it's related to the content the individual users look at across the whole internet beyond this site, depending on what ad service has been installed. So in both cases the site admin has no control over it at all, and in the latter case one sees the fish girl because of other sites one looks at.

It's also possible that the fish girl is coming up because of the boobs thread.

It may be possible for the admins to specify that they want a certain level of restrictions applied to the ads; like maybe there's a way to ensure they are always family friendly.

Without administering the ads myself I couldn't say, but this should shed light on the situation for people who don't work in the industry. Ultimately, though, I totally support ads on this site. I appreciated being able to lurk for free for a while before supporting it and that isn't possible without ads or higher supporting levels.


Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

12 hours ago, Zed Head said:

 

Interesting...I am pretty sure that is my yellow Z in the upper right hand corner of the AD.  Can I get royalties? 

Edited January 4, 20178 yr by motorman7

3 hours ago, Matthew Abate said:

Not exactly sure how those ads are populated, but generally it's either totally independent of the content of the site, or it's related to the content the individual users look at across the whole internet beyond this site, depending on what ad service has been installed. So in both cases the site admin has no control over it at all, and in the latter case one sees the fish girl because of other sites one looks at.

It's also possible that the fish girl is coming up because of the boobs thread.

It may be possible for the admins to specify that they want a certain level of restrictions applied to the ads; like maybe there's a way to ensure they are always family friendly.

Without administering the ads myself I couldn't say, but this should shed light on the situation for people who don't work in the industry. Ultimately, though, I totally support ads on this site. I appreciated being able to lurk for free for a while before supporting it and that isn't possible without ads or higher supporting levels.

The bottom ads are served completely by Google.  The ad unit is called "Matched Content" and pulls search engine data to display content that is relative to the current page.  On a site like ours with a lot of moving data, it can vary quite a bit.  The ads are put in according to the statement I made above.  I do not have control over the relative content ad space, but, I do have the ability to remove the entire ad unit.

The boobs thread is completely invisible to the public (and search engines).  The fish girl was something a member posted in the fluids thread quite a long time ago.

Thanks Matthew!

Hi guys, well I did some more research and it looks like I can block the "dating" ads on our site.  This option was buried in the Adsense control panel but I found it this morning and disabled it.  You should NO LONGER see dating ads.  I am currently working with Adsense now to see how we can remove the infamous "fish girl" from the matched content footer.  Just a quick update.. I'll post more when Google gets back to me.  Thanks.

I think it's a good conversation to have.  

It would help, I think to try to dissociate from what Google says and just look at what "is",  As Patcon noted, the fish girl has always been there.  In a fairly boring thread, certainly not a thread worthy of a Technical Article.  How does that fit the choosing algorithm explanation?  It doesn't, really.  The traffic in that thread is not so high that it rates a constant spot at the bottom of the page.  The fish girl is probably popular around the world and because it showed up on CZCC.com Google has locked it in.  Because it's a winner on the entire internet, not because of anything that actually happens on CZCC.  The purpose would be to draw people that look at fish girl to CZCC.com.  Then they will look at the ads on CZCC.

The whole purpose of the internet, from Google's perspective, is to get us to buy stuff.  Always keep that in mind when trying to explain these things.  It's a heartless, soulless machine, whose only goal is to increase share price.