Blocked Banner Ads

[stride-r]

One of the nice built-in features of Zen Cart is an incorporation of an easy-to-use Banner Ad system. However, we all know that many users today have and use ad blocking software of one sort or another, and I even use one myself.

Interestingly, i've noticed that my ad blocker even blocks test ads that i run from my local store set up on my localhost server. This got me to wondering what exactly these blockers use to recognize what qualifies as an "ad" versus a regular site image.

In reviewing the code from a default zen cart page whose ad was blocked versus not, the "view source" shows this simple disctintion-
WITH BLOCKER ON:

<!--// bof: bannerbox2 //-->
<div class="rightBoxContainer" id="bannerbox2" style="width: 150px">
<h3 class="rightBoxHeading" id="bannerbox2Heading">Have you seen ...</h3>
<div id="bannerbox2Content" class="sideBoxContent centeredContent">
    <a href="http://MYDOMAIN/store/index.php?main_page=redirect&amp;action=banner&amp;goto=3" target="_blank">
    </a>
</div>
</div>
<!--// eof: bannerbox2 //-->

WITH BLOCKER OFF:

<!--// bof: bannerbox2 //-->
<div class="rightBoxContainer" id="bannerbox2" style="width: 150px">
<h3 class="rightBoxHeading" id="bannerbox2Heading">Have you seen ...</h3>
<div id="bannerbox2Content" class="sideBoxContent centeredContent">
      <a href="http://MYDOMAIN/store/index.php?main_page=redirect&amp;action=banner&amp;goto=3" target="_blank">
      <img src="images/banners/125x125_zen_logo.gif" alt="Zen Cart the art of e-commerce" title=" Zen Cart the art of e-commerce " width="125" height="125" />
      </a>
</div>
</div>
<!--// eof: bannerbox2 //-->

The only discernable difference is that the actual banner image is outright blocked/removed from the rendered html. It makes no difference whether an image is specified via textual html or not ...either way it is recognised and blocked. Interestingly, a textual "banner message" in html is allowed just fine -as long the html does not reference an image.

So... this now begs several questions:

1. What do blockers use to recognize a zen-generated banner?
2. Is there a work-around for this? (i'm sure if there were, banner ads would abound everywhere)
3. Is it something to do with the code used to track and generate ad statistics
   or the redirect? If so, is there a way around this? Statistics are invaluable ....but who cares if the message/ad never gets seen by the end user? And FYI - Zen Cart racks up the banner display count whether or not the banner is blocked on the user end (of course thre's no way to know if it's been blocked - but my point is that because of this, the "Displays" count stats generated are not useful anyway.

I guess my point is - since one can enter something like the following:

<a href="http://www.SOMEDOMAIN.com" target="_blank">
<img src="images/banners/a_sample_banner.gif" />
</a>

into a product description and not have it flagged by blockers and hidden/removed, then is there a way to help ensure banner ads are displayed too? A simple affiliates scheme could still make great use of the functionlity even if no tracking/stats could be attached.

Any thoughts????

[Kim]

Try a different directory for the images - e.g. something that is not banners or ads.

[stride-r]

Okay, so that seems to work just fine. Odd, i'd never have thought that would have made any difference. Aren't blockers more sophisticated than that??? Time will tell if this is all it really takes...

in the mean time, thanks! :-)