"Welcome To" Videos and Header Ads Removed on ALL Sites

1. STAFF

   HubPagesposted 23 months ago

   Hi All! As you know, we began removing the "welcome to" videos from several Network Sites last week. We're excited to announce that they have now been removed from all Network Sites in addition to the header ads! (Please clear your cache in order to see these changes.)
   
   We appreciate your patience as we continue testing new layouts.

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      chef-de-jourposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      Thank you, appreciated. Fingers crossed. Still a way to go. Unbroken text has to be a priority for best reader experience.

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         Glenis Rixposted 22 months agoin reply to this

         I agree. I have not written any new articles, or read any by the writers I follow, for a long time because of the numerous ads sprinkled into the text.

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      SerenityHaloposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      Would it be possible to get rid of ads that repeat multiple times throughout an article? It's very obnoxious that ads appear after every paragraph, but it's worse when it's the same ad... especially one that looks bogus.

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         eugbugposted 23 months agoin reply to this

         I presume the code in each ad module runs independently and modules just requests ads to be served based on what the tracking cookies tell them about us. They'd have to communicate between each other somehow?

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         Gregory DeVictorposted 23 months agoin reply to this

         Frequently, the same ad breaks up one of my bulleted or numbered lists at least two or three times. That practice is not going to result in a favorable user experience.

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      bravewarriorposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      Whoo hoo! Thank you!

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      Misbah786posted 23 months agoin reply to this

      Excellent news. Thank you, HubPages.

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      Brenda Arledgeposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      Fantastic News.  I'm surprised how quickly you rolled with this one.
      Keep up the great work.

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      Madeleine Claysposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      This is a great step forward in improving the reader experience and is sure to have positive results for all parties involved. Thank you HP Team!

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      Kenna McHughposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      It's so much easier to read the articles with the ads embedded. Thank you!

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      dylananthony4uposted 23 months agoin reply to this

      What about pages on discover?

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      Thelma Albertsposted 22 months agoin reply to this

      That’s a good news. Thank you for the information.

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   eugbugposted 23 months ago

   Looks much better now.

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   Gregory DeVictorposted 23 months ago

   Fantastic! I just clicked on one of my articles using my phone, and it does look much better now.

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4. 96

   eugbugposted 23 months ago

   It's up to Google now to cop on and properly rank the sites.

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5. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 23 months ago

   That's wonderful news. I just checked one of my articles and it looks much more reader-friendly now.
   
   It's been a long wait, but now I expect we won't have so many bounced visitors, and once Google detects that readers stay longer now, we should eventually see an improvment in revenue.

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6. 94

   AliciaCposted 23 months ago

   Thank you so much for doing this! I hope it's beneficial.

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   viryaboposted 23 months ago

   That’s absolutely wonderful. Thank you.

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   Drew Agravanteposted 23 months ago

   Much appreciated news. Now it's time to monitor bounce rates. Thanks.

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   Jodahposted 23 months ago

   This is great news. Thank you HubPages.

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    ravirajan01posted 23 months ago

    This is great news. Now the articles look much cleaner without the videos.Thanks, HP.

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    ChitrangadaSharanposted 23 months ago

    That's great news!
    Thank you HubPages!

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12. 96

    eugbugposted 23 months ago

    The only downside I can think of about this is that the video may have been keeping readers engaged for 10 seconds or so while images and ads were being loaded. Now they'll be straight into content and the non-responsiveness may cause them to back out.
    Are ads and images preloaded in the background when a page is loaded or are they only loaded individually as a user scrolls down?
    
    Edit: I just did a test. I turned off ads on an article with lots of images, cleared the cache on my browser and reloaded the page. Images loaded fast, within a fraction of a second, for each one as I scrolled down the page on my phone. With ads on, it can take 20 to 30 seconds for images to load. Therefore it seems that ads are slowing down the loading of images. So could images be loaded first before ads?
    
    It's good to see the "Read More" is gone too.

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       chef-de-jourposted 23 months agoin reply to this

       Eugene, thanks for the research. What you say makes obvious sense. I'm not so 'techy', so see things more from the reader's perspective, that is, I want text and images to load first, fastest, then the ads. Your test shows this isn't yet happening on HP - all niche sites? Presumably the HP team are performing similar tests to improve reader experience? So far, so good.

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    eugbugposted 23 months ago

    I wonder is this auto placement system used for placing ads at runtime? They aren't placed at design time, otherwise there wouldn't be the issue of capsule splitting. These are adsense ads, but maybe it works similarly for other types.
    
    https://blog.google/products/adsense/in … -auto-ads/

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    FatFreddysCatposted 23 months ago

    Woo and Hoo! It's about frickin TIME!

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15. 88

    Em Clarkposted 23 months ago

    Wow. Good.

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    Jan Stepanposted 23 months ago

    An essential step in the right direction. Thank you!

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17. 99

    Eric Cauncaposted 23 months ago

    Hi, Team. It still appears on the Discover and main HP site.
    
    

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       Brenda Arledgeposted 22 months agoin reply to this

       You're right.
       
       I just checked a few of mine on LetterPile & the welcome video is still up & running.

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          AliciaCposted 22 months agoin reply to this

          You are right, too, Brenda. I cleared my cache, as recommended. I just explored some articles on a few niche sites. The welcome video has disappeared on the other sites that I explored, but it's still present on LetterPile.

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       Thelma Albertsposted 22 months agoin reply to this

       Yes, it is still on Hubpages site.

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    Pamela99posted 22 months ago

    They're got on Health Pro Advice and Owlcation. Hooray!

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