Converting Guests to Members and Disable Right Column

[Andy R]

I have made a handful of changes having two do with two main items. The first is that intext links and an extra ad have been added which are ONLY shown to guests. I have also added a "call to action" to encourage guests to register and sign in so they see less ads. Secondly, I have added the ability to disable the right column for all members.

The goal of these changes was to give members more choices (by allowing them to remove the side column) and to offset the costs of the lost ad revenue by showing guests more ads and in turn hoping they will join to turn off the ads.

Please see below for more details on each.

Disable The Right Column - Based on feedback from the members we have added an option to disable the right column.

In order to do so you will need go to the UserCP >> Edit Options (link) >> then at the very bottom you will see an option that says "Turn off Right Column". Set that to Off and the right column will be disabled on all the pages.

Since this would remove our sponsor's ads (which help support the costs to run our site) these ads will be shown under the first post on the discussion pages.

This should help with the slow page loading time on Internet Explorer but the page load speeds on Firefox should stay the same.

Converting Guests to Members - intext links and an extra ad have been added which are ONLY shown to guests. Once someone registers and logs in they can view the site without these ads. This brings more value to registering and becoming part of the iRV2 community.

[NLOVNIT]

Thanks, Andy, for making the changes.

Although the "see less ads" statement in the Join ad seen by Guests is laughable, IMO. If ads are going to be under the navabar regardless of disabling the right column, I'm not sure I see the less ads part of it. Unless you're referring to the Guest ad that will go away once one joins.

Lori-

Lori-

[Andy R]

Guests see more Google AdSense ads and intext ads then logged in members. So it is indeed less ads. If you choose to disable the right column you will no longer see the two Google ads in the right column as well. So that means it's possible for members to see 4 less ads then a guest. IMO that's a nice benefit to registering.

[RedneckExpress]

Ah, much better, the threads take up the whole page now and it feels like it improved the load time a bit too Less google javascript garbage, better load times

[cb5300]

It might be nice to have a pay membership option that would do away with ALL of the ads.

[blacktie.shooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy R So that means it's possible for members to see 4 less ads then a guest. IMO that's a nice benefit to registering.

I couldn't disagree more. The right hand column is informative and unobtrusive. Giving members the right to eliminate that column does nothing for the marketability of your website. (btw, that should be "fewer" ads, not "less." OK, so I'm picky.)

If you want to "fix" the ad problem, scale back the pop-ups somehow, so they are not so irritating. No one is saying you shouldn't have ads, just that they shouldn't p*** everyone off. Right?

[DCTENT]

Sign Me Up!!

[blacktie.shooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cb5300 It might be nice to have a pay membership option that would do away with ALL of the ads.

Bite your Tongue! (Who, me? What'd I say?)

Btw, I like that right hand column; that's where the "Recent Threads" list is - very handy.

[Superslif]

I would agree the "Recent Threads" list is - very handy" The ads I'm kind of used to. Lets face it, all websites have ads. Some are just more intrusive that others.

[PA Titan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cb5300 It might be nice to have a pay membership option that would do away with ALL of the ads.

I used to belong to another forum that thought this would be the way to go and it was the death of the forum. Ads not that big of a distraction in my humble opinion.

[Dmiles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cb5300 It might be nice to have a pay membership option that would do away with ALL of the ads.

Cue the crickets...

[Andy R]

Don't worry, iRV2 will always remain FREE. If an option to remove the ads for a small annual donation is rolled out, it would simply be to offer those who don't like the supporting vendors ads an option to have an ad free interface. Of course as others have mentioned there are free tools out there to do this now (ehh, hmm ad blockers) so this is also an option as well...

[powerboatr]

i am weird and do occasionally click the roving sponsors to see if they have something i am looking for, however i also stopped the right to help speed up page load, when we are at other connection points
thanks for the option

[DBOL]

We just became amember to this site and love it for info and hopefully future friends.We bought and intry level MH gas 35 foot two years ago and now as of June 2009 moved up to Damon Tuscany 2008 4055 and Love it so far only 12 nights out and 15 or 20 here at Home Frankston Tx.

Darrell&Rose