Suggestions

Really strange but I think the adverts are adding to the problems on site.

When the advert box is white, no advert running, this site seems to freeze a bit. Such as the ability to scroll down the pages does not work. This also seems to lead to some of the error messages etc on this site.

Site appears to runs normally when an advert is running but problems seem to happen when the adverts are changing from one to the next and leave the box white. Or sometimes when the advert seems to freeze.

Will probably get shot down in flames for this suggestion but I have been observing this for days now.

Anyone else noticed this ?

I think that it is true that adverts add to the problems but under normal conditions the site should be able to cope. The observation that the adverts are not displayed when there is a fault condition however is probably due to the fact that they are the last items to be displayed on the page.

PS Since advertisers won't be getting their moneysworth perhaps Genes should cut out the adverts until the servers are sorted.

I think you are right Margee in saying that avatars afect the performance of the site but I doubt that it is enough to cause the effects we have seen and certainly they are not the sole cause.

I do think that Genes pages are a bit too complicated and perhaps a more minimalist approach to the pages would improve things. Even when working normally the pages take a noticeable time to display compared with other sites.

This site has no adverts but does have avatars - for instance, this topic http://www.familytreeforum.com/showthread.php/90731-Marriage-check-please -
and it is quick.

So the question needs to be asked:

Those who have Ad Blockers enabled are you having the error message problems like so many other members?

I was just on Facebook on the Find My past page and they think the adverts are causing the problems on their site

Glitter Baby

2 posts from FMP on FB ---------seem to support your theory

findmypast.com ?@all: sorry about that, we're investigating now but think it was our advertising provider rather than the sites which should be easy to fix.

findmypast.com Hi Jim, we've been having some problems with the way advert code is delivered to the site which caused some of the stickiness. We're looking at better ways of delivering this content to avoid these problems. Thank you for your patience and we hope not to have any service outages in future.


Gai -- I have adblock running on my laptop and have had many freezes error message etc -----but on my Ipod using Safari with no adblock --- no problems what so ever !!

Renes

Oh thats interesting. So not such a daft suggestion.

One day on this site there were two adverts running at the same time in the one box..The main one seemed to be over a second one as it was just visible at the bottom of the first.

Wonder if there will be any feedback from the GR team.

Nudge up

Ihave AdBlock running all the time

Usually only see one ad, which is stationary .......... for the GR Dating site ;-)



and I have far fewer problems than most people



sylvia

I also have Adblock and see no ads, its much quicker without and its free ;-)

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/suggestions/thread/1273232

Another member is also querying the adverts on this site

Does not bother me about the adverts, whether I see them or not, but they are causing problems

The avatars are simply Gif or JPG files, and only small, so I doubt they are a causing loading problems. But the adverts are flash, and they are large files in terms of bites etc, and often animated. It is these that take their time to load.

I belong to a forum that uses avatars, and members own banners on their posts, and signatures, but no flash adverts. Guess what...it loads quickly. I belong to another that has one flash advert across the top, and sometimes I have to wait for that one to load to. On here, there are two!

I understand advertising is good for revenue, but do they have to be flash? Can they not be simple .gif banners?

Flash adverts have always been a problem for me, and ever since my PC was infected by a worm from a flash ad on this site, (a good many of us were affected, but it was our fault for about four days until GR realised which ad it was and removed it), I have used the .co.za server, which carries only simple ads.

I am on co.ZA and also have ad block and rarely get the error message. It is a little slow opening posts today but that could be down to numerous things. browser update, windows update. Often these run in the background and I don't realise anything is happening except the site moves slowly. But when I had adverts on co,uk site there were all sorts of problems

I run Firefox with Adblock plus. I also run CCleaner every other day or so to clear things out and have next to no problems with the site.

Getting a bit fed up with this problem. Been over a month since I first mentioned it.

White box where advert should be or just the back ground colour until an advert runs.

WEll now getting a white box where the advert should be

BUT

Now getting a white page

Only get the left hand side showing but where threads are on the boards it is white

Still affecting this site

Went several weeks without any adverts and had virtually no problems on site. No idea why no adverts.

Wait ages for a thread to open. Sometimes it fails. Click on it again and wait and eventually when the advert loads you then get the thread.

Same thing when you hit the Submit button. It waits until the advert is running before it is accepted

The problem I have with the adverts is I constantly see ads for Ancestry.com.au on the boards.

I have now resorted to taking screen shots of the ads and emailing them to Estelle at GR. Which is a pain because I can't use my normal email address because GR blocks my ISP so I have to have a generic email address just to contact GR.

Gai

Gai

I have the same problem with contacting GR ........... in my case, it has been ongoing for about 18 months.

.............. any email sent using my regular email address immediately bounces back as the ISP is blocked by GR

The same thing applies if I try to contact GR through the Contact Us on this site ............... which of course is also using my normal ISP

At that point I was in the middle of an exchange of emails with Estelle ...... and suddenly could not reply to her emails, or instigate new emails to her. For a while, I thought that she had blocked me ................. but she has since assured me that that was not the case!


I've also had to take out a generic email address for when I need to contact GR


Good job that you can get such accounts for free, or I'd really be spitting feathers :-)



sylvia