After much careful consideration, it has become necessary to add additional advertising placements to DaniWeb. This need stemmed from two things:
Firstly, to offset the costs of outsourcing our internal search engine. The benefits far outweigh the huge pricetag, in this case, because we're able to deliver speedy, acurate searches across all of DaniWeb.
Secondly, to be able to afford to keep Davey, and other staff writers, on the payroll to deliver blog entries to you every day. While it was my goal to turn DaniWeb's blog section into a community-driven IT News and Editorial section, it has become increasingly obvious that just isn't a reality right now. Therefore, additional revenue is needed to keep staff writers paid.
The additional advertising comes in two forms. There is some additional Google AdSense advertising within forum threads. AdSense ads can be disabled by all members via your member profile. There is one additional leaderboard banner at the footer of every page. Along with all other banner advertising, it can be disabled by moderators or if you purchase a donation for a few dollars a month.
That being said, I would like to open this thread up to comments and, yes, even criticism. Are the ads too overwhelming? Does the site load significantly slower than it did just yesterday? Also, please don't comment only to say, "I'm using an ad blocker so I don't see them." That isn't very helpful feedback for me.
