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Whackapost and Pubmatic

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edwin_m

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While I don't object in principle to advertising on this forum, there are two ad-related behaviours that are worsening what a PR would probably call my "forum browsing experience".

Firstly, when returning to a forum after reading a thread, the list of threads appears and then about a second later moves down then up a bit as the banner ad is added (as it were) at the top. This usually coincides with the moment when I have moved the cursor to another thread and my finger is moving unstoppably towards the mouse button, and results in me going to an unrelated thread or to the member profile of a thread starter. So apologies to anyone who thinks I've been nosing round your profiles!

The other annoying feature is that some of the advertising (Pubmatic is one but not the only offender) inserts a new page in the history so the Back button no longer returns from a particular thread to the list of threads. Since the advertising changes with time it is always a bit random whether this happens or not.

The same seems to happen with either IE11 or Firefox. It isn't the end of the world, but are there any ways I can get round these inconveniences short of installing an ad blocker?

This doesn't really belong in general discussion, but I don't see any other place for reporting forum problems.
 
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DaleCooper

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Not a solution to your problem but a tip, when you want to go back to the list of threads go to the top of the page where it says:

RailUK Forums > Other Forums > General Discussion

and click on the appropriate link. Using the back button seems to give you a cached version of the page therefore it is not updated.
 

Mojo

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We do not use a company called Pubmatic, and I have checked on Google and neither do they. This is something I've never noticed before.
 

furnessvale

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Firstly, when returning to a forum after reading a thread, the list of threads appears and then about a second later moves down then up a bit as the banner ad is added (as it were) at the top. This usually coincides with the moment when I have moved the cursor to another thread and my finger is moving unstoppably towards the mouse button, and results in me going to an unrelated thread or to the member profile of a thread starter. So apologies to anyone who thinks I've been nosing round your profiles!

Same with me, firefox Ubuntu
 

CarltonA

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We do not use a company called Pubmatic, and I have checked on Google and neither do they. This is something I've never noticed before.

I can't say they have come up when using this forum. However, on NRE they often put up a blank "Pubmatic" page which has to be closed before I can see any results of a search.
 

edwin_m

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I see Pubmatic in a link in the history when I click on that after the Back button fails to work. Pubmatic is the last thing in the link not the first, but it is the most memorable!
 

edwin_m

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I see Pubmatic in a link in the history when I click on that after the Back button fails to work. Pubmatic is the last thing in the link not the first, but it is the most memorable!

Happened again just now. The full link is pix.impdesk.com/csync/pubmatic. But as I mentioned there are others too.
 

Clip

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Happened again just now. The full link is pix.impdesk.com/csync/pubmatic. But as I mentioned there are others too.

Clear out your cache and cookies - youve probably picked it up from somewhere else. then start again.
 

61653 HTAFC

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This happens to me too (the page shifting bit) on my phone. The simplest trick is to wait a second before clicking on your desired thread! ;)
 

trainophile

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Seconded. I installed AdBlock a couple of weeks ago and it is brilliant. Not seen a sniff of an advert since. It is nominally free but you can donate "what you think it is worth", although I haven't worked out how to do that when it operates in USA dollars.

Out of interest, if everyone on here installed ad blockers, would the site's revenue suffer?
 

Kite159

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This happens to me too (the page shifting bit) on my phone. The simplest trick is to wait a second before clicking on your desired thread! ;)

Agreed, wait for the advert to load up before trying to click on the thread you want, to avoid clicking on said random advert or a thread you didn't want to visit.
 

causton

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*technical hat on*

Are all of the adverts the same height? If not, can they not be placed in a container that is a fixed height so when the advert does load it doesn't push the page down?

And if not, is there a maximum height that the above can be applied to, so big adverts do not push the page down and small ones just leave a little gap underneath?

*technical hat off - back when I last made a website it was divided by <table> tags!*
 

gimmea50anyday

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I have noticed that aswell, iOs safari. Ad at top of page takes a couple of seconds to load and as OP mentions, page moves down to accomodate advert just as I click on a link, causing a completely different forum link to open!
 
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