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Google Image SearchThere is a new advertising mechanism being offered by AdBrite called BritePic which allows Web authors to place advertising on or around photos on any Web site. However, Web authors need to be aware that this service can have some fairly drastic consequences.

The way BritePic works is, you simply replace a direct link to an image with a JavaScript link from AdBrite that includes the image link. Anywhere on your web site that you would normally insert an image, you now insert the BritePic link.

The Good

  • It basically works as advertised.
  • It adds a few slightly amusing features to images.
  • It might possibly convert into some ad clicks, which then equal some revenue.

The Bad

  • Your images will load much, much slower. See example screen cap video which was taken directly from the BritePic home page. The browser used for this was Opera and the cache was cleared immediately prior to the page load. This was also taken at 2am, and earlier in the day I noticed it was twice as slow as what is captured on this video.
  • None of your images will be available to visitors who do not have Javascript enabled.
  • You will not be able to specify “ALT” text, dimensions, or TITLEs for images.
  • Without height and width attributes assigned to images, Web browsers cannot insert placeholders. This means that the page shifts all the text up and down while image are loading, making it impossible to start reading content until every image loads. Try this yourself on the BritePic homepage. Refresh it repeatedly while watching the text below both images.
  • Without those image elements you will miss out on a substantial amount Image Search traffic. This could cost you 50% of your visitors or more depending on how many images you have.

As an example see the attached screen shot that shows over 180 visitors I received in just a few days as a result of image searches. With over 600 images on my site you can see the impact that would have on traffic.

What kind of a click through rate would you need to have in order to be willing to give up 15,000 + visitors in less than a week? And do you believe your visitors will be willing to suffer all of the additional consequences while you’re at it? (Maybe for free porn, but not much else.)

Summary

I would not recommend this ad method because it will:

  • Result in a dramatically impaired user experience
  • Decrease a site’s search traffic
  • Make any site less accessible

I’m not aware of any other service offerings that can do this much damage to a Web site all at once just for implementing it.

EDIT: The following was added later on 4-13-2007.

BritePic Noscript ScreencapAs a result of a comment below that Image loading should still work without JavaScript enabled I am providing a screen capture of the unaltered BritePic home page using Internet Explorer 6 with Javascript disabled. Clearly, the image does not display. Furthermore, here is the source code embedded in the page. Note there is no NOSCRIPT element.

<script>
britepic_id = "278730";
britepic_src = "http://files.adbrite.com/images/doggy.jpg";
britepic_show_ads = 1;
britepic_width = "355";
britepic_caption = "No pots were harmed in the taking of this picture.";
britepic_keywords = "dog, puppies, pets, cute, adorable, technology, pictures, images";
</script>
<script src="http://www.britepic.com/britepic.js"></script>

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