Forum:Incredibly misleading ad selling

So I haven't viewed Wikia logged out in a while. Now that I have, I've noticed at the bottom of every article is the following for anons:

External Sponsor Links

Click here! Buy a sponsored link and description for your website on this page. Act quickly, the few sponsorship slots sell out fast!

- When I see this, to me, it looks like the individual wiki is selling this space, not Wikia, and that's misleading to anyone browsing the site.

Second, why is this necessary? Is the "Advertise" link on the bottom of ever page not enough? We need 2 "Advertise with us" links on every page, in addition to the 4-5 ads?!

-- LordTBT Talk! 00:43, April 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * Clicking the link would send you to a Wikia page, so a company isn't likely to leave you a talk page message about setting up an ad. Considering that, I have no complaints - it makes money, so it helps keep your content free of charge.


 * Wikia should do a better job of separating it from the wiki's content, but I believe it only appears to anonymous users. Are you seeing it while logged in? If so, where? -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 27 Apr 2011 5:28 PM Pacific


 * No, I'm not seeing it logged in, but I still think that it's not separated well from the wiki content at all, and I fail to see why 2 "Advertise with us" links are necessary on top of all the ads already there. I think an advertiser who can't figure out how to advertise with Wikia at this point shouldn't be using the internet. -- LordTBT Talk! 04:11, April 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * Which wiki are you seeing this? I don't think I've seen this on most of the wikis I look at. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 28 Apr 2011 9:02 AM Pacific


 * Definitely over at Redwall, but I've seen it at very small wikis too. -- LordTBT Talk! 23:07, April 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * I've seen the "External Sponsor Links" thing before, but I'm not seeing recently. I went to about a dozen different pages on Redwall wiki and did not see it. Very strange. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 29 Apr 2011 10:06 PM Pacific


 * Are you sure you are not logged in when you visit those wikis? I found them every time I hit random article. Those ads only appear when you are not logged in, or at least if you disable your cookies. Maybe if you just logout, there are cookies that prevent them from being displayed. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 09:09, April 30, 2011 (UTC)


 * I never said I was logged in. -- LordTBT Talk! 18:50, April 30, 2011 (UTC)


 * My question was for Fandyllic, who seem unable to see those ads. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 20:26, April 30, 2011 (UTC)


 * I see them now, but I wasn't before. I tried it before when not logged in. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 6 May 2011 1:51 PM Pacific

They did that to us and other gaming wikis back in October, after the switch to Oasis. We documented this with screenshots etc. at w:c:guildwars:GuildWars_Wikia_talk:Community_Portal/Archive_21. These ads seem to be gone now, though. --◄mendel► 22:40, May 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * A screen cap that shows that if you have the ads on, on your Preferences you will see them. Ads have been there for years now at Wikia. Also note that the External Sponsor Links is below the Read more section. Doesn't look misleading to me. Devilmanozzy  (Talk Page)  23:13, May 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, WoWwiki still has them, so I'm sort of surprised that Fandyllic doesn't know this. ;) --◄mendel► 04:07, May 8, 2011 (UTC)


 * They've always looked misleading to me. Even more so before the 'Read More' extension. Some wiki's have actually change the background of that section to make it distinguishable from the actual editable sections of the article. Rappy 17:01, May 8, 2011 (UTC)


 * If the appearance of these ads is tied to a preference checkbox, then I almost certainly have them turned off. It doesn't surprise me at all that they are still around. What surprises me is the erratic and unpredictable nature of their appearance.
 * I totally forgot about the preference. Why would anyone want the ads to appear if they had the power to block them without resorting to some 3rd party solution? -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 9 May 2011 1:59 PM Pacific


 * You can only block them by being signed in either via not checking 'See all advertisements' or with logged in CSS/JS. So it's something Wikia came up with a while ago that shows up on google searches and for anon users. The problem is, most of them on gaming sites are gold buying/selling/level up scams that Wikia doesn't seem fit to get rid of. Rappy 00:16, May 10, 2011 (UTC)


 * Are we talking about "External Sponsor Links" or ads in general? -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 11 May 2011 5:08 PM Pacific