Google ads

[Myk Melez]

David Miller wrote:

> 1) Do we even want ads on bugzilla.org?

We already have ads on the site in the form of our consultants list.  I 
don't think we want more ads.

First of all, Google ads aren't unobtrusive on sites on which I've seen 
them.  They're not as bad as flashing banner images, but they do take up 
a noticable amount of space on the screen and draw the eye, at least 
briefly, especially when they flash upon instantiation of the iframe 
content window (presumably this is why they flash).  This noticability 
is both intentional and sensible for sites whose primary goal is to make 
money; after all, they don't make money if nobody sees the ad.  For a 
site whose primary purpose is to provide non-ad content, however, the 
noticability detracts from the content being provided.  I don't want us 
to make the bugzilla.org site less usable.

Second of all, while Google ads are better than many other ads in that 
they advertise Bugzilla-related products, we already provide such 
advertising for free on a page dedicated to such products.  If we put 
these ads on other pages with unrelated Bugzilla content, we degrade the 
user experience of site visitors who don't want such information and 
favor Bugzilla-related products willing to pay for the privilege.  I 
don't want us to selectively favor Bugzilla-related products that are 
worse than others because the providers of those products have more 
money to spend on their promotion.

Third of all, Google ads are worse than many other ads in that they 
advertise Bugzilla competitors.  The purpose of our website is to 
advertise ourselves, and linking to our competitors without explanation 
or comparison gives our competitors a chance to sway potential new users 
away from us before we get a chance to explain our advantages.  Being 
able to block certain ads mitigates this but requires constant 
vigilance.  I don't want us to have to maintain this vigilance and 
suffer from any lapse in it.

> 2) If we go ahead with it, should we bother worrying about filtering 
> the competing ads?

Yes.  We shouldn't make money doing something that could have a negative 
impact on Bugzilla.  It's a basic conflict of interest. 

> We *do* actually have a page that lists products that compete with 
> Bugzilla, but it's quite dated and most of those don't even exist 
> anymore (it's a chapter in the Bugzilla Guide actually).

We should remove the products that don't exist anymore and add new ones, 
but not without commentary explaining our advantages vis-a-vis those 
products (as well as our disadvantages as we see them).

-myk