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Ham radio websites might be my favorite genre of website. Their design is always a throwback to the internet of my youth, and they almost always have tons of in

Ham radio websites might be my favorite genre of website. Their design is always a throwback to the internet of my youth, and they almost always have tons of interesting technical content.

NitpickLawyer 27d ago
> throwback to the internet of my youth It's interesting how simple advertising is as well. > Please Support My Advertisers! Some jpegs. No js, no moving shit, just logos, some text, some call to action in a banner format. That's it. Also: > A random number generator determines which company's Banner Ad will go in a particular position*. I wrote the code myself and it is very simple and foolproof. > I do not collect page traffic or link click statistics for advertisements. Your website server statistical analysis is a much better reporter of inbound links from RF Cafe than I or anyone else can provide. Nice. > Banner Plan: $400/month I count 22 advertisers, so there's obviously lots of incentives for advertisers to work with this site. Good for them, and nice to see it can still be lucrative for what I believe to be a single person operation. Quality content still matters.
- folkrav 26d ago
  While I agree with the sentiment, the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. The current advertisers all look like they're in the RF equipment supplier, which is probably, all things considered, what we'd probably call a niche. I would totally prefer things to be that way, but having compared to major ad networks, in the eyes of advertisers, doing things this way mostly mean throwing away that sweet sweet analytics data and some control. There's just very little incentive for most businesses past a certain scale looking to advertise to do things this way.
  - ssl-3 26d ago
    It's a niche website, and they're advertising for people who are interested in that niche. I do hands-on work with RF sometimes, and I learned of at least two new-to-me companies with products that relate to the space I operate in while just poking around the website for a few minutes. This isn't stuff that I want to buy for me to putter around with at home. It is instead stuff that I can use to solve problems for clients; things that be quoted as a part of a larger-scale job. Like the advertising that supported the trade rags of yore, there's definite function to this very deliberate style of ad placement that probably isn't worth trading for that sweet sweet analytics and some control. These weren't random ads for dick pills, Raycon headphones, or NordVPN. It is instead all highly-targeted and industry-specific. It's remarkable in that I saw the advertising at all since I've been blocking ads on the web for as long as we've had a web to advertise on. But I did see these ads. I noted some of them. None were garish or distracting. I took no action to block them. If he's trying to offer ad placement for companies who want to inform people like me of the stuff they sell, and I think that he is, then: His method completely nails it.
    - folkrav 26d ago
      I don't disagree at all, and as I said, I'd love for this approach to still be more of a thing. My point was more that it's taking an ever shrinking proportion of the advertising pie, cause your typical marketing people are more interested in targeting to as large a targetable audience as they can, meaning these smaller sites aren't even on their radar. They speak in hit and conversion rates. For niche markets however, as you said, there's visibly still an audience, so hat off to him for still offering that kind of space.
      - benj111 26d ago
        But that's always been the case. Do you think Vogue advertisers were ever the same as Byte magazines or whatever?
  - trevithick 26d ago
    > the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. They're doing it though.
  - cobbzilla 26d ago
    > the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point It has always worked this way: 1. if you can sell the ads yourself, you get better rates and better, relevant advertisers. 2. if you can’t sell ads yourself, you use ad networks and send your audience the worst of the internet. All the major pubs do this. It’s impressive that a smaller outlet does it.
- sandworm101 26d ago
  More importantly, because the ads are not evil (no tracking attempts) then my adblocker and privacy plugins do not recognize them as any sort of threat. They are rendered just like any other honest jpeg. So these adds are more effective than 99% of all other adds: I actually saw them!
- benj111 26d ago
  Bonus 1. I see it despite having an ad blocker. Bonus 2. If ads were like this, I wouldn't need the ad blocker to start with.
osiekdkwkd 26d ago
Ah yes, the good old internet where “you cannot access this website from your region” was the absolute norm. Why cant i access this website? God knows. I just cant. This is most definitely NOT the internet of my youth.

Ham radio websites might be my favorite genre of website. Their design is always a throwback to the internet of my youth, and they almost always have tons of interesting technical content.

NitpickLawyer 27d ago

> throwback to the internet of my youth It's interesting how simple advertising is as well. > Please Support My Advertisers! Some jpegs. No js, no moving shit, just logos, some text, some call to action in a banner format. That's it. Also: > A random number generator determines which company's Banner Ad will go in a particular position*. I wrote the code myself and it is very simple and foolproof. > I do not collect page traffic or link click statistics for advertisements. Your website server statistical analysis is a much better reporter of inbound links from RF Cafe than I or anyone else can provide. Nice. > Banner Plan: $400/month I count 22 advertisers, so there's obviously lots of incentives for advertisers to work with this site. Good for them, and nice to see it can still be lucrative for what I believe to be a single person operation. Quality content still matters.

folkrav 26d ago
While I agree with the sentiment, the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. The current advertisers all look like they're in the RF equipment supplier, which is probably, all things considered, what we'd probably call a niche. I would totally prefer things to be that way, but having compared to major ad networks, in the eyes of advertisers, doing things this way mostly mean throwing away that sweet sweet analytics data and some control. There's just very little incentive for most businesses past a certain scale looking to advertise to do things this way.
- ssl-3 26d ago
  It's a niche website, and they're advertising for people who are interested in that niche. I do hands-on work with RF sometimes, and I learned of at least two new-to-me companies with products that relate to the space I operate in while just poking around the website for a few minutes. This isn't stuff that I want to buy for me to putter around with at home. It is instead stuff that I can use to solve problems for clients; things that be quoted as a part of a larger-scale job. Like the advertising that supported the trade rags of yore, there's definite function to this very deliberate style of ad placement that probably isn't worth trading for that sweet sweet analytics and some control. These weren't random ads for dick pills, Raycon headphones, or NordVPN. It is instead all highly-targeted and industry-specific. It's remarkable in that I saw the advertising at all since I've been blocking ads on the web for as long as we've had a web to advertise on. But I did see these ads. I noted some of them. None were garish or distracting. I took no action to block them. If he's trying to offer ad placement for companies who want to inform people like me of the stuff they sell, and I think that he is, then: His method completely nails it.
  - folkrav 26d ago
    I don't disagree at all, and as I said, I'd love for this approach to still be more of a thing. My point was more that it's taking an ever shrinking proportion of the advertising pie, cause your typical marketing people are more interested in targeting to as large a targetable audience as they can, meaning these smaller sites aren't even on their radar. They speak in hit and conversion rates. For niche markets however, as you said, there's visibly still an audience, so hat off to him for still offering that kind of space.
    - benj111 26d ago
      But that's always been the case. Do you think Vogue advertisers were ever the same as Byte magazines or whatever?
- trevithick 26d ago
  > the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point. They're doing it though.
- cobbzilla 26d ago
  > the world of Internet advertising just doesn't run like that at this point It has always worked this way: 1. if you can sell the ads yourself, you get better rates and better, relevant advertisers. 2. if you can’t sell ads yourself, you use ad networks and send your audience the worst of the internet. All the major pubs do this. It’s impressive that a smaller outlet does it.
sandworm101 26d ago
More importantly, because the ads are not evil (no tracking attempts) then my adblocker and privacy plugins do not recognize them as any sort of threat. They are rendered just like any other honest jpeg. So these adds are more effective than 99% of all other adds: I actually saw them!
benj111 26d ago
Bonus 1. I see it despite having an ad blocker. Bonus 2. If ads were like this, I wouldn't need the ad blocker to start with.

osiekdkwkd 26d ago

Ah yes, the good old internet where “you cannot access this website from your region” was the absolute norm. Why cant i access this website? God knows. I just cant. This is most definitely NOT the internet of my youth.