Internet Advertising: Coming Out of the Dark Ages

Entering my third decade of being a heavy user of the internet, it has been interesting to see the web evolve in to what it is today. The way we communicate online and the tools we use to do so generally get the most attention in terms of the evolution of the web.

However, communication is just one way that the internet has changed for the better. One of the most beneficial and under-reported evolutions on the web has been internet advertising.

When the internet really began to take off in the late 1990s and early 2000s, internet advertising seemed to be mostly comprised of spam and pop-ups. We were consistently warned by the media and technology buffs never to click on web banners, and so many who began using the internet around this time got in the habit of ignoring banners or dismissing them entirely—either way never clicking on them.

However, technology has changed for the better. We have more secure browsers that will warn us before we click on something where a threat may lie. Anti-virus and anti-spam software protect users from accessing content that is harmful or potentially dangerous. This software is almost mandatory these days, can be found for free, and can run in the background of whatever you are working on without interrupting workflow.

Technology has helped make internet advertising more for secure for the user, but more importantly, I feel that web publishers have become more reliable and trustworthy over the years. Web publishers can either use their own advertisers (like ValpoLife and PortageLife) or ads from Google or Bing, all of which have special verification processes to protect the sites’ users from spammers or potentially harmful websites.

Click here for a list of PortageLife advertisers

As more and more content is moving from print to the web, advertisers are jumping on board. Even here, we’ve seen a lot of local businesses embracing internet advertising as a more forward-thinking way of marketing their business to the masses. Websites like ours (and even the Times or the Post-Tribune) are trustworthy sites that market local businesses to local users. You can click on these ads and feel safe that they will take you to the advertisers’ websites or Facebook pages, rather than infecting your computer with malware.

The technology and publishers have improved the processes in web advertising, so I feel users are the entity holding up web advertising from really taking off. Many users (myself included) have been in that late 1990’s-mindset that either causes one to hesitate before clicking on an ad or ignoring it altogether.

So where do you stand? Are you still in the “old school” mindset on internet advertising, or “new school”? I know I’ll try and break my bad habits and support the sites I visit and trust. Will you?