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Somehow I always thought the sole purpose of a search engine was to allow you to search for relevant links by keyword or phrase. Since when is it a SE objective to teach people how to eliminate and/or reduce advertising? Maybe Google is diversifying and forgetting who ultimately pays the bandwith? I bet some of their advertisers are disturbed by this perhaps well intentioned, but very likely misguided, public service move.

I suppose I can see, in a way, why they want to distance themselves because they are probably getting what: 1 in 100,000, 200,000, 500,000 surfers who might actually attribute these timed/blurred popups to their website? Not! Yeah, I bet the email is just pouring in saying things like: "You bastards, I just *know* your behind that hidden camera gig!"

Oh well. I still think Google is the best search engine, even if they are missing the point with this move.

The mainstream has historically been used to blaming all the marketing evils on adult websites, but the bottom line is popups are profitable, or nobody would use them at all. They get attention. Yes, it might invoke an emotion of anger when you see them, but they do get your attention. Much as many of us may even loathe them while actually viewing a site, the simple fact is they *do* garner results and they still *do* make money, and if you see one that has something that catches your eye, you will click through and find out more about it. We're all suckers in various flavors, aren't we?

The individual webmaster just has to decide whether to use them at all, and if so, then how much can they be used before completely alienating the surfer. Some webmasters have a strategy where they don't care about alienating the surfer, but this is a business model I've never understood. It's like having an entrance door to a business and a house of mirrors to hide your exit. Imagine the lawsuits if there was a fire and you couldn't get out? And to think... some will tell you that the brick and mortar business and internet are worlds apart.

Are they?

It's ironic in a way, when one examines just how many mainstream sites are going nuts with popups now. Can you go to any free popular mainstream site and not see a popup today? MSNBC, CNET; they are all using them.

I think that that is the biggest problem here: saturation. Popups or any other marketing tools, when overused, ultimately become ineffective. You end up with 100 sites all popping up the same casino ad or the same ad which looks intentionally like a windows dialog box. Once you've seen the ad and maybe been tricked a couple times by the design, you learn how to get past it. And once we have seen the same thing 100, 1000, 10000 times and clicked to get rid of it X number of times, some of us are understandably ready to reach for some technology to jump in and eliminate that ... but at what price?

And BTW, put me in the group of people who won't do business with companies who create programs which prevent popups and/or block, filter, siphon advertising on the web. I do not like or agree with popup abuse, but the answer is not widespread console-ocide either.

An interesting sidenote: many of the current ad-blocking/anti-popup programs on the market are using other means of making money for themselves which are not so altruistic (spyware, anyone?). It's one of the most outrageous forms of hypocrisy currently happening on the web. Perhaps the promotion of the use of these programs seems good to some webmasters, but I don't believe it is good for pay sites, nor for webmasters who list their galleries and promote pay sites (which contain popups) and AVS.

I think that these anti-popup programs, as well-intentioned as the developers of them might or might not initially be, mostly serve to worsen product/service/paysite/AVS conversions and perpetuate the flawed notion that all popups are "evil" to the surfer.

Popups weren't created for, nor intended to be, a marketing abuse tool, they were created as a means of maximizing desktop real estate and convenience from the parent document(s).

Personally, frames bother me more than responsible console usage. I've designed and implemented several webmaster messageboards that incorporated multiple popups, and to date nobody has called for my head over it. It will always be a matter of what is intrusive and what isn't. And how much of the control is put in the surfer's hands versus being forced upon them.

Another concern here is that the membership areas of many paysites and AVS are clean (popup-free), so the reality is that the surfer is essentially obtaining these anti-popping proggies to help avoid paying for goods and services on the web. To avoid being reminded that paying for goods and services on the web is what keeps goods and services continually being provided on the web.

Revenue is what feeds the animal.

It's a little like producing a piece of software which would remove all the road signs that advertise restaurants, car dealerships, casinos, etc alongside the road -- or removes those 3x5 paper inserts that always fall out of magazines or something that plays Van Halen during commercial breaks for your favorite radio station.

And let's not forget the webmaster submitting his gallery wants to get the best possible conversion to keep his costs down. He can't have his gallery pounded by a zillion freeloaders only to make one or no sale or his expenses will push him out of business. He has to figure out ways to filter what is essentially less quality traffic into better quality traffic.

The surfer is part of the equation, and if you use a TGP to market everything to be ultra-surfer-friendly and reinforce their "everything should be free" mentality, then your site deserves the zillion leachers looking for free, browser-friendly porn.

And what about "freeware" with covertly installed spyware? So now because we're eliminating popups for you "for free", we can gather your keystrokes or watch your activities and report this marketing information back to the mother ship. You won't mind, we promise not to take your credit card number or any other sensitive information. We promise not to identify you in any "individualized" way.

Nothing is free in this world and perhaps that is the biggest problem of all with the foundation the internet stands upon. The internet was built with the intention of being a gigantic library. But even libraries aren't really "free", are they? The librarian isn't just showing up because she enjoys the smell of books and busting the chops of anybody who speaks above a whisper. The books don't show up by just dropping out of the sky from the Book Fairy. The Energy Fairy doesn't keep the heat and lights running.

So I guess we can blame property taxes on the folks answering that torrential influx of mail in the Google mailroom.

So what is the answer with popups today? What is the future of them? When can they be used? When should they be used?

You have to run a profitable business. If you don't, then you won't stay in business. If you aren't designing your site with some ways to make money in mind, then you will eventually have to either:

a) accept obscurity OR
b) be forced into obscurity

The problem is that you can't make money without customers. If it was so easy that one could just put up a bunch of popups and hit the golf course every day, nobody would ever get a tee time. So the real issue is that without customers, without traffic, you will eventually have to either:

a) accept obscurity OR
b) be forced into obscurity

Therefore, the logical use of popups or any other marketing strategy has to be dictated by a balance of these two components: marketing and traffic.

Too much marketing and not enough traffic results in lesser sales. Too much traffic and not enough marketing results in lesser sales.

Balance. One way to maintain balance is to not overdo any plan. Avoid saturation. This is not saying that you shouldn't ever use popups (remember that they *do* make money!), but you might try using them more sparingly and/or strategically.

And by all means, keep the over-reactors out of the mailroom. Don't sweat 1 in 100,000 people. Sweat 1000 in 100,000 or 10,000 in 100,000. Perspective is not something, it is everything.

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