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br34th5

Just came here to tell you

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What do you mean?

I think, he is referring to the little text that turns up once in a while for users using adblock. :)

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      For a long time, I've been meaning to write a post explaining our stance on ads and website monetization in general. I just want to make sure everyone (those who will read this, at least) understands why we have ads on the website, how we obtain these ads, how much control we have over them, which ads we accept / do not accept, etc. I also want to say a few words about Ad Blockers and donations.
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      Why ads on Icy Veins Ads -- How does it all work? What ads do we allow on Icy Veins? How come I still see bad ads? How much control do you really have? How to report an ad? What do you think of Ad Blockers and what do you do against them? What about donations? Conclusion Why ads on Icy Veins?
      Vlad and I work full time on this website. We put in as many hours as we would in any other job, if not more, which means that we need to have the same kind of income for us to be able to continue working on the site.
      With time, we expanded to other Blizzard games and hired people to help us, because there is only so much we can do with just two people working full time (even if we do receive quite a bit of help from our wonderful crew of moderators).
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      The easiest way to monetize a website like Icy Veins (with a lot of written content and nothing to sell) is to use ads, which we do. You could say that this is a necessary evil, although I don't think things should be seen this way. Advertising is not a bad thing in itself, but a lot of sites have abusive practices when it comes to ads, with popups and whatnots, which really damage the image people have of online advertising.
      There are other ways, like donations (which we tried and were not very successful with; more on that later) or setting up a premium system, where users can pay to remove the ads and get some goodies. Premium systems do work, and in August 2017, we finally released our own. You can subscribe here and it removes all ads and tracking.
      Ads -- How does it all work?
      We're too small to contact other companies to advertise on our website, so we need an intermediary. Larger (much larger) companies, like curse.com, have sales teams that are dedicated to the task. In our case, we have worked with several reputable ad agencies other the years (Intergi, Playwire, Proper Media, Enthusiat Gaming, etc.). They do all the advertisement-related work and we share the revenues earned on Icy Veins. They negotiate with big companies in the video game industry (Blizzard, Activision, Bioware, Sony, etc.) to sell ad space on the sites they managed (including Icy Veins).
      What ads do we allow on Icy Veins?
      The ads we allow on Icy Veins are ads that we would not mind seeing on other websites. That is a rather vague and subjective statement, so I will try to clarify things, so that you can decide to contact us if you see something that isn't allowed.
      There are two ad formats on the website, 728x90 and 300x250 (these sizes are in pixels). Anything different than this is not allowed and if you see ads that are bigger, then you should definitely notify us. That said, 300x600 ads may occasionally show up in 300x250 ad units, but only on pages where it will not break the design. In addition, the mobile layout also features smaller 320x50 ad units instead of the regular 728x90 ones.
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      Premium Membership
      Users who want to pay a small amount every month to remove all ads and tracking can do so with our Premium Membership system.
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