The 2nd link is very much geared toward the "Power User" but the first should be very basic and easy to use . . . coincidentally, it'll make browsing much safer too.

I have no idea what happened to lovespink, small chance of spyware re-direct issues though.

waiting for Greek Porn to pop up in one of those ads....hehehe

hahaha

Coincidentally, whenever I Google "Sigma Phi Epsilon" on Google Images, I usually get a result for a gay porn site (that I think gossips about dirty things that Greeks do on part of the site.. not sure) on about the 5th page.

And since these are all Google ads... heh

Yes, this is just one of the ways I'm testing out at the moment. I'm not yet sure if this ad location will be short term or for a longer duration.

Personally, I'd prefer no ads on GC, but it's getting to the point where that is no longer possible.

You're right. It's not the second post in each thread but rather the second post on each thread view page.

:o In hindsight, that word is rather illogical and redundant. Yet, spell check doesn't pick it up, it's in the dictionary and is commonly used. Very odd. I understand why you would go :(, though, since I do the same whenever I hear "don't" incorrectly used in place of "doesn't." I hope to remember this one.

On another note, this has given me a potentially good idea for a new website. No time for it, though, so off to the back burner for that one.

That's sort of the catch-22 with advertising. Being intrusive, so they are difficult to miss, is what makes them valuable to the advertisers. I'll be working towards an optimal balance, but not really sure how this will all end up since I'm still in test mode with the ads.

I sure hope you know that I'm not trying to hurt any feelings when ads are displayed on pages with bad news, such as a death. The ads are not coded to display on a per thread basis and setting something like that up would not be easy. I'll be testing other ad setups soon and maybe will move on to a design that's more suitable.

Not sure, but I'll look into that. Can you point me to a specific page with examples of the ads you're referring to?

A version of GC designed for mobile users is not in the works, but is definitely something I have been thinking about for a while now. Maybe a mobile version can be developed for GC in the not too distant future. I think it would be a good thing and probably quite useful for many site members.

I have been considering to move the sidebar to the right side, so maybe will do that if it makes things better for mobile viewers.

I agree about that being an annoying ad. I don't like it very much. Honestly, I'm not really happy with the quality of ads that Google decides to run on GC. Many are perfectly fine, but there are quite a few that are just silly.

It makes sense that Google would get mixed up about this. Ultimately, my goal is to eventually move away from using Google ads if possible. If GC does end up running these ads for a long period I'll get in touch with someone at Google to see about improving their ad targeting for GreekChat.

That's similar to one of the ad designs I plan to be testing out soon.

I can completely understand why you would want to do this. But look at it from the following point of view: What do you think might happen to GreekChat if you are successful in getting too many viewers to cut off GC's primary source of funding (advertising)? In that scenario, how would you suggest I pay for the costs of running GC? There are other options, but my guess is that most viewers will prefer advertising be on the site as compared to the alternative.

This is primarily why I stayed away from Google ads on GC for so long. Google doesn't have an option for publishers to pre-approve advertisements. I've seen quite a few high quality ads that I was happy to see here, but also many other ads that were low quality. In time I plan to have this all sorted out, with higher quality ads & optimal display setup.

I nearly didn't post for exactly this reason - however, you of all people probably understand that there are whitelist-based solutions that will allow Google Ad Services to receive a hit/pageview while a.) not being intrusive and b.) not violating their Terms of Service. If you'd like to post a tutorial, I'd encourage it, because the ads suck as currently implemented, and it's hard to justify changing my current browsing setup (including potentially compromising security, a much larger potential cost to me as a user) as a result.

I think the majority of users will remain altruistic and that you'll make more than enough to cover server costs. Should that prove not to be the case, let me know and I'll reconsider.

john, i am talking about the ads in the side margins of my main facebook page. they are unobtrusive, but in the past, i have actually clicked on a few of them to see what was what.

I like this idea and I have actually clicked on a handful of the ads in the past. They never interfere with the content of my fb page so I don't really mind them, whereas the GC ones that are part of the actual thread interfere with the content and are obnoxious, so I just quickly scroll past the post and wouldn't ever click on the links it contains.