The web has lots of "free" content, which is ad supported, this is normal and expected, as there is no "service for free" some price must be paid, and the payment is adverts, but there is no place for any of the following on the main pages of a business site.

These can be anything from needed language files, to tool bars that contain adverts etc.  that pop up the second they hit your site and ask to install themselves. This is particularly bad if the same thing keeps popping up page after page on the site, especially after the viewer has already told it no, do not install. They are annoying and intrusive and will cause most viewers to avoid your site.

In the case of needed language or font files, it would be best to have an entry page that advises the viewer that to view the site as intended they need X  file, before they proceed.

Any other attempt to install programs, on demand like this, is the kiss of death to any website. You are asking your viewer to download an unknown program to their hard drive ! This is not reasonable in the current day and age of rampant virus's.

You can prevent this activity in Internet Explorer by disabling the install on demand commands, which you will find under internet options, advanced menu.

These are those boxes of adverts that come floating in from the side of the page that will NOT go away unless you click them closed, which are normally situated right over the top of whatever you are trying to see.  Now the reason they are placed in such a position, is eye tracking studies prove, that is were people look the most. However, all it gets is closed, with vindictive force.

No one reads these things, and everybody hates them. Sites that have these things will come to be avoided. Free services often force these things, and a great many sites have such services, myself included, such as my guest book, but to put them on your primary pages, is unwarranted.

This is where you click to see a page, only to be taken to an advert page first and forced to wait, one assumes  to read the page, before it will let you see content you asked for. This violates the trust of the viewer. If I hit a link that says, take me to X page, that's what I expect to see. Do not drag me in front of some advertisement and make me wait for the content and expect me to be anything but upset about it. There are currently plans in the works for more of this kind of in transit advert.

I do not expect they will be any better received than the current ones. For example:

A 5 to 10 second animated advertisement like TV commercials, which is non clickable or closeable. Which is in its infancy at this point, but is the wave of the tomorrow. Unlike TV commercials however you can not avoid them, other than to walk away till it's gone. I really do hope they don't do this one and again, I can predict it will be as avoided and hated as its TV cousin. Needless to say any site that uses them will be as avoided as the Ad will be.

The plans are, to put these in the natural breaks of surfing, much like TV does, but it's expected, once perfected, there will be those that subject the viewer to these as soon as they arrive on site, or use them between every page, in rampant over use. I can easily predict that viewers will avoid sites that use such tactics.

Those little boxes of content the viewer did not ask for. Opening a new window for the sites content is another matter entirely, as its a useful and normally accepted practice. New windows VS Pop ups. Ditto with notices of no right click and the like, anything else is not acceptable.

When the pop up industry first began, it was expected the viewer would see one a day.. yes not joking one a day was the plan, but like all good things it got a little carried away.  Now, it's not at all unusual to have multiple pop ups per page. A waste of time for advertising, and annoying to the viewer. Most ISP's come with pop killers now, ditto most browsers, in a word, enough is enough ... pop ups are dead and it's time to give them a proper burial.

These are a kind of advert that completely takes over the browser and re frames the entire thing with adverts. These literally replace the users browser. It does not matter if you have a link that says "remove this frame". This is an attempt to "keep" the viewer, often used in conjugation with out links, so that they take the host site with them.

There are others in planning that will literally take over the base line functions, changing the toolbar and adding adverts to the function keys. Unacceptable, as you have hi-jacked the viewers browser. If they like your site, they will be back, this sort of take over is inexcusable.

This one is not really an advert but is another attempt to take over the browser. This is usually a pop up or under at the browser level, and considering that most of the time they have not even seen the page in question yet, its a bit presumptive. If the viewer likes your page enough to use it for a home page, they will do so on their own.

Those sites that automatically change over their viewers browser, via enforced changes, without asking,  have shot themselves in the foot. As once the viewer logs back on and finds this take over, not only will they not buy from you, they will blacklist you to everyone they know. So both are very poor marketing.

Now the defense of this is, the ads pay the bills for the hosting and such like. Well the question is, do they really ?  And why would any good, for profit, business site need outside advertisers to support them ? If the product line is good, the site and the business, will support itself.

Millions of dollars were pumped into banner ads a few years ago, which, short of being on a proper links page, where they are expected and sought after, are an unqualified failure. The current side and top adverts, currently being over used, are following suit in viewer blindness.

The Internet is not like printed newspapers, magazines, or TV shows, which are mainly ad supported. People pay for their Internet connections and people actively seek out business sites, via search engines. The only advertisement any business site really needs is good search engine saturation, good keywording on the site and excellent business practices that encourage customer loyalty. Anything else, like the above, is not going to be tolerated by Internet consumers and will be avoided, ignored and considered a hostile act on the part of the business.

More soon
Esta