Thanks Phillip. This seems like a good idea, especially if those advertisers can cause such problems.
Just now I noticed a "Wyoming Cowboys Ringtone" ad sitting in the side bar of the main forum page (the ad with the picture of the basketball players) and that says it's provided by ringsfrenzy.com, which I see is already on your blacklist.
LOL, does this mean that shortly we won't be seeing those Michelle Williams ringtone ads anymore?
That Wyoming Cowboys ad has been there literally for weeks and weeks, and I cannot imagine there are too many Cowboys fans coming here, so the chances of anyone being enticed by the offer are near zero. Advertisers bid in one cent increments auction-style for who gets placed on a website that has content that contains the keywords they bid on.
That is why the ads depend on what content is on each page. If someone starts talking about male impotence medication, we'll be treated to Viva Viagra ads. If someone talks about Eastern religion and philosophy, we might get ads for books covering those topics.
What has happened in this case, I think, is that because Wyoming is so obviously prominent here, that ringtone provider has bid high on the keyword Wyoming, and with our prominant coverage of that word, they win the "auction" and their ringtone ad sits here at top position day after day.
As a consumer reporter by day, I can't relax at night thinking someone will get sucked into a ringtone scheme that was advertised here. There are plenty of legitimate ringtone providers, but there are also a ton of less legitimate entities that give away one ringtone and then make you pay for it by selling your text message address to who knows who. Or worse, those that try and cram a fee onto your phone bill saying you authorized it when you got the ringtone, even if you didn't. I have no idea whether these are legit or less so, but I don't have time to spend trying to find out.
And, honestly, I don't think such ads are effective here anyway, so I am starting to purge them. There are a ton of variations on domain names, so even if we kill off one, another might rise to replace it. If I can get rid of half of them, I'd be happy.
I was also wondering about all those (sometimes sort of odd seeming) dating/ singles ads that appear all the time on BetterMost. Are those ads of any kind of similar concern as the ringtone ads?
I think most of those are legitimate in the sense they are trying to sell you matchmaking services or social forum interaction, which is sort of what we have here which is why I suspect they are targeting us. They won't rip you off as far as I can tell, but I have no idea if they'd be effective either.
Thankfully, a large number of our ads also deal with entertainment and media, such as movies and TV shows, which actually might be useful to someone who wants to catch a preview or get more information.