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Re: [External] Auto-refreshing advertisements

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From: Eller, Meagan M
Date: Jan 17, 2024 2:16PM

I totally agree, Guy! I frequently leave sites that have auto playing and auto changing ads. Especially when the ads follow so they always appear onscreen as I scroll. Sometimes I can open a reader view of an article, but that’s not always possible.

Best,
Meagan

From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of Guy Hickling < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at 1:11 PM
To: webaim-forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [External] Re: [WebAIM] Auto-refreshing advertisements
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Just for a change in this forum, I can take my accessibility hat off and
give a user's viewpoint. For me, these obnoxious auto-changing adverts are
a nightmare. I find it very hard to concentrate on the web content I want
to read when, right beside it, sits one (or even more) of these ever
changing things.

The Google example is one of the worst. Google makes all those pious claims
of how accessibility-compliant it is, then it ruins millions of websites
with it's WCAG-defying adverts!

So, as a user trying to view content on a page, what do I do? - and I
expect many other people who get distracted by these things do similar
things. There's no way to stop the ads, of course (Google wouldn't want
that, would it!) So, I first of all try narrowing the window box to force
the ad to sit below or above the content I'm reading. If that works, then I
can scroll the page up or down to move the offending ads out of sight. If
that works, I can carry on reading the page content.

But I should not have to do that. And sometimes that doesn't work. Next I
may even try zooming to larger text to try to force the ad out of sight,
but that doesn't always work either. And sometimes there may be more than
one of these ad displays, and that makes it more difficult to push them all
out of sight.

Now, website owners please take note. By the time I've done all the above
I'm getting angry. And, especially if my efforts to hide the ad have
failed, I am very likely at this point, if not before, to simply abandon
your website and look elsewhere for whatever product or information I am
looking for. There are plenty more places to find things. Rather than
struggle to stay on your site with the ad display permanently cavorting
around in front of me!

The solution, website owners, is DO NOT PLACE GOOGLE'S AUTO-CHANGING
ADVERTS ON YOUR WEBSITE!!! You WILL lose potential customers - I cannot
emphasise that enough. And oh - Google take note - I often click on your
static adverts when they interest me, but I almost NEVER click on one of
your auto-changing things. I'm too busy trying to hide it out of sight.

Oh and one final thing. If you place several auto-changing ads on the same
web page, I immediately assume you are not a quality author or influencer,
but have only created a low quality site to try and make some money from
advertising. That's one of the reasons I will quickly leave your website!

P.S. If anyone here wants to republish my comments, or send them to Google,
or to businesses using their adverts, please feel free to do so. The more
we can step on these obnoxious advertisers and tread them into the mud, the
better. I repeat to them, you WILL lose customers, and waste your adverting
spending.