Does the new Google Chrome Ad Blocking System mean no more ads on websites?

I run ads on this site. They help bring in a bit of income which helps pay some bills. I like to think that my ads are effective and not irritating as we are off to the side and don’t distub the information you came here to get.

Not everyone is on the same plage. Some sites you go to have ads which block the text, while other websites have annoying pop-ups and videos that start to play automatically and the worst are those sites that show you a full page ad before you can click away to read that actual content.

Those days should be behind us now as Google Chrome is rolling out an automatic ad-blocker.

Does this mean no more ads on any website?

No. Sites (like this one ahem) who respect the user’s experience by showing ads that are nonintruisive, will continue to display ads and those will not be blocked.

Google announced that “While most advertising on the web is respectful of user experience, over the years we’ve increasingly heard from our users that some advertising can be particularly intrusive…Chrome will tackle this issue by removing ads from sites that do not follow the Better Ads Standards.”

What does Ad-Blocking mean?

The Better Ads Standards is essentially consumer research analyzing the results of over 25,000 internet users in North America and Europe who were shown common ad experiences and asked to evaluate how intrusive the experiences was.

The study found that the majority of problematic ad experiences were “controlled by the site owner — such as high ad density or prestitial ads with countdown.”

Image Source: Coalition for Better Ads

So now what happens with Chrome ad-blcoker?

When you use Chrome and navigate to a website page, before the page loads it is checked to see if that page belongs to a site that fails the Better Ads Standards. If it does, Chrome will block the request, preventing the ad from displaying on the page.

Chrome will show you a message indicating that ad blocking has occurred as well as an option to disable this setting by selecting “allow ads on this site.”

For desktop users, the notification in Chrome’s address bar will look similar to Chrome’s existing pop-up blocker. Mobile users will see message in a small infobar at the bottom of their screen, and can tap on “details” to see more information and override the default setting.

What happens if you are a site owner and your site fails the ad-test?

If your website has been flagged as failing this test and ads are now blocked on your site, you have time to fix it.

Google says that “As of February 12, 42% of sites which were failing the Better Ads Standards have resolved their issues and are now passing. This is the outcome we are were hoping for — that sites would take steps to fix intrusive ads experiences themselves and benefit all web users. However, if a site continues to maintain non-compliant ad experiences 30 days after being notified of violations, Chrome will begin to block ads on that site.”