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Mark’s post above may explain why it is slow for some.
Jump to last post link not showing for me anymore at the start of topics.
Yep, looks like someone has ticked the wrong box or something as I've suddenly started getting ads too, which came as a bit of a shock after I'd just clicked post on a new thread.
Just setting up some new rules around ads. I ticked a box that should have not been ticked. Hopefully fixed now.
Would that 'wrong box' be why I got an 'adblock detected' box with a somewhat dodgy looking page to put card details in?
Or why I got a page to reject and go ad-free that wouldn't accept any login details? Appears to be fixed now.
I was getting "Adblock Detected" on desktop despite having whitelisted the site and being a paid up member.
Tried to post from my phone, but that post looks to have gone missing.
@Mark I am getting an Adblock Detected message on Chrome (Desktop Mac) despite not knowingly having an Adblock we installed - certainly STW usually appears with a collage of both video and static ads.
I tolerate ads because they fund your site - but since I’m not trying to dodge them I find this yet another step to force me away from contributing here.
I was also having the ad block problem and wasn't even able to sign in until I disabled it.
[Mod] All, the adblock was noticed, reported quickly and fixed so nobody should be seeing it now.
I’m getting a bloody Adblock isssue in Edge windows 11 and I’m a subscriber ! I should be able to login - I’ve paid money to not have Ads!
The Ad-Block thing was still going strong at 19:34 when I pinged an unsigned terse email across. Worked out how to get the code but none arrived possibly due to the great switch-off at 18:24.
Posted to assist with fault finding rather than for another dig.
if you are logged in and your subscription is active but getting ads then we’ll help get that fixed for you. You will need to email us with your registered email address and subscription postcode so we can look at your account. Email subs@…
Please also tell us what devices you are using and what browser you are using.
<sigh> Excessively long page loading times are back. Anything between 45s and 1min 20s to load a page.
(iPhone 17Pro, Safari, iOS 26.3.1)
Non subscriber here, As of the 19th of March I can no longer access the site on Duck Duck Go or Firefox (I'm using Safari to post this)
As soon as the site loads in Duck Duck Duck Go and Firefox it comes up Adblock detected (I don't have an Adblocker installed) I have the option to click on unblock and refresh or go ad free, both do nothing
Everything was fine on the 18th
As above, but I'm a subscriber, normally use duckduckgo, posting this on Chrome.
I've emailed, but got an automated response...
**PLEASE NOTE: HEATHER IS OUT OF OFFICE FROM THE 4TH TO THE 7TH NOVEMBER. ALL EMAILS WILL BE FOLLOWED UP ON THE 10TH.**
Thanks for getting in contact with us.
Our Subscriptions Manager Heather typically works Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. She will answer your query then.
Paid subscriber, if you are not logged in it is impossible to get to login, on android Brave with default settings.
if you are logged in and your subscription is active but getting ads then we’ll help get that fixed for you. You will need to email us with your registered email address and subscription postcode so we can look at your account. Email subs@…
It should just work - members shouldn't have to email subs to get a fix!
My sub expires in 8 days and I don't know wether to continue.
After all the money chucked into new websites, new hosts, new hosts again (last week), share schemes etc., etc., - nothing seems to change and we are still presented with the most buggy site on the internet.
It's almost like they want Singletrack to fail, the idea of making the site so awful to use if you're not a subscriber seems a crazy idea to me.
Also defeated by the adblock detector! Never seen a website like it, minimum of three or four adverts visible at all times. Former subscriber too so dont know if its always been like this. I'd attach a photo but it seems Im not allowed to do that either 😀
I'm sorry but I now can't access the site at all on PC with the adblock popup not disappeared when Adblock is switched off. Really disappointed between this and the slowness of the site. The amount of content in the forums seems to be decreasing.
At this stage the vital mtb forum is becoming the place for technical bike talk and for general discussions I just go to Reddit these days.
Is there anyway to stop the verification that i am human every time I open the forum on my phone?
If the site was better designed with ads that weren't so intrusive there would be no need for users to run an adblocker
I don't have an adblocker and I still haven't got on the site a few times this morning as it tells me I'm using an adblocker...
Morning all. I'm going try and help and explain what we've done and why.
Firstly the ads help pay for what we do. We have a very high consent rate on the site - much higher than is typical across the interenet (Consent is that popup that appears when you first visit the site. You will see more often if you use a private browser or your browser doesn't store cookies - this is common with the less common security browsers like DuckDuckGo and Brave - There are others and you can customise the settings in most browsers to deal with cookies in various ways.).
We have no control over your choice of browser or your choice of settinsg and nor should we. Building a website and making it work with every browser and combination of settings is something we have alwsy aspired to while accepting it's never going to happen. So what we do is try to make the site work as intended for the most common browsers with the most common settings. Bottom line is the site won't work without it being freely able to use cookies. It also won't work economically if we don;t have ads on the pages for users who don't pay to subscribe.
Like I said, our consent rate is very hight at over 85%. That means 85% of you have clicked the accept all button. The 15% that don't accept have still been given access. But for those users the ads they see were not targetted. There are ads that display without any targettingat all and don't use cookies. As a refresher we have no control over what ads you see beyond some very broad settings. The non-targetted ads have traditionally been reasonably plentiful but without the targetting ability they are very broad in scope and we don;t earn much from them compared to targetted ads. That has always been the case - but at least it has meant we can monetise something from the users who choose that option. That revenue has now gone completely. There are no untargeted ads available. Understandably, if you are an advertiser with a campaign, it's a waste of your campaign budget not to target that campaign at least broadly. We have zero control over the advertising market.
So if you chose to not accept the consent cookie popup you got zero ads on the page and we earn nothing at all from your visit but our bandwidth costs and other hosting costs remainand although on the individual level that cost is tiny, at a level of 15% of all our traffic it becomes significant. And so I have to do something about that.
I think it's fair that we do deal with this as it's not just us losing money through non-consent but it's not fair on those users who do consent and especially those who pay for a subscription and so I have introduced new settings and controls to address this. It's important to know that I'm not taking this decision in isolation - it's becoming a trend across publishers on the insternet. ie. It's not just us. The tools I'm using are not ours. They are service used commonly by thousands of publishers. I have some control over them but not complete. These tools are broad in scope and that does mean that some users will experience problems with them depending on how they choose to access the website.
Here are some things I've learned over the last 24 hours that I hope will help some users.
If you are a subscriber then you should hit the 'Accept and Continue' button to get to the site and then login as usual. Once you have done that you shoudl not see the consent popup again for 12 months. That 12 month setting is controlled by a cookie that the consent system will put on your device. If you block that cookie or you run a browser that stops cookies then this will be a problem. Depending on what software, browser you use, you should be able to adjust your settings to allow Singletrackworld.com to place cookies on your device. Once you are logged in as a subscriber all the third party ad code is removed from your pages. Again, our website knows you are logged in and knows you are a subscriber because it places a cookie on your device that stores that information.
DuckDuckGo browser users.
Your browser is set by deafult to block ads, scripts, cookies etc. By defaulyt that's always going to be a problem with our site. You will get the AD Block popup as soon as you hit the site. That gives you the option to pay to become an AdfreePro subscriber (This is NOT a singletrack subscription - more o this below). You won't get any further until you make a change to your browser.
To do this clcik the shield icon in the address bar. Then flick the switch to turn off protections for this site.
If you are a subscriber you can then click the accept and continue button to get to the site and then login as normal. If you are not a subscriber you can click accept and continue to get to the site with ads or you can choose to subscribe to our AdFreePro option for £15/year to be able to use the site without ads. There is no longer an option to view the site without accepting the ads.
Brave browser users - I'm afraid I've not got that far yet. I will come back to you when I have the process.
The Consent Popup itself is causing some confusion amomg existing subscribers and this is something I can adjust.
The issue is the language which isn't as clear as it should be.
TLDR version is existing subscribers should click Accept and Continue here and then login as normal. Once logged in ads will no longer appear in your browser apart from the usual ones we put there ourselves - sponsors logos/banners - house ads etc.
This new Ad Free option is NOT the same as our Singletrack subscriptions. It is a new subscription that is controlled and managed by AdFreePro (company) on our behalf. This new ad free subscription simply turns off the ads. It does not get you access to our Singletrack subscriber systems and does not get you through our paywalls. This is very important. In expectation of this confusion I asked AdFreePro to add the text I've highlighted in the image above. It's still not obvious enough and I will be asking for more changes to make it clearer.
If you are an existing subscriber and you are experiencing problems getting through to the site then we are here to help. Don't request help here. Contact us directly by email and include your fullname, email address of your singletrack account (Sometimes it's different to the one people use to send emails) and also your device setup. So things like device model name, browser, operating system etc. Any apps you run that may introduce extra security to your device. The more information you can provide us the quicker we can help.
All of this sounds like a massive faff - and it is. But it's necessary.
We do not have any rights to tell you how you should run your devices and what browser you should use or settings. But similarly we do not have the obligation to allow anyone to access our site without it an understanding between the two parties. Cookies and ads are the methods we use to monetise and pay for our services and we must ensure that every user that accesses our site does so on the understanding that there is a transaction involved. That transaction doesn't need to involve any user paying us money. That's where the ads come in. We can pay for your visits via the ads. If you choose to block the ads this breaks the agreement and we are the economic loser when that happens. The actual costs at the individual level are miniscule, but at the scale we operate at it's significant enough to be a problem.
No one has a right to tell you that you can't wear trainers. But a club has the right to say you can't come in wearing them. You do not need to disable your ad blockers or remove the security from your devices that you want to use. But you do have to take your trainers off at the door. We'll hold on to your trainers for you while you are in the club and give you some shoes to wear. You can get your trainers back when you leave.
Is there anyway to stop the verification that i am human every time I open the forum on my phone?
I'm going to guess you are using a VPN.
Our Cloudflare protection in front of the site detects VPNs as non-human connections and that's why you get that popup. We are talking to our host to see if we can drop that level of protection.
I don't have an adblocker and I still haven't got on the site a few times this morning as it tells me I'm using an adblocker...
What browser are you using Matt?
I used an ad blocker because the ads were (imo) overwhelming the site. I understand the need for ad revenue but the way they cut across the page and pop up makes them excessively distracting (or an attention-grabbing win for the advertiser).
If a site is not pleasant to read because of ads the traffic decreases. Can there be a balance that works for both sides, or are the pop-up styles not something STW can influence?
We have little control over the types of ads you see. The sad reality that we ALL must accept is that a site that has minimal ads that don't overlay content are the poorest performing. When I have run the site with far fewer ads the results have been consistent. No increase in subs conversions and less revenue from ads. There is no win. The argument about traffic dropping off sounds entitrely plausible but the truth of the internet now is that traffic does not = revenue anymore.
Here's some quick maths.
A subscriber to the site is worth on average £37/year to us. Calculated by taking total subs revenue divided by total subscribers.
The rest of the users to the site are worth £0.12 PER YEAR.
The argument that more would subscribe if there were fewer ads just simply is not true. In fact the opposite of what actually happens.
Those that block ads are worth £0.0 and there's no evidence that reducing the ads makes any difference to either of those numbers. Adblocking costs us £5200/year, which is the cost of printing an entire issue of Singletrack. or would pay for more than a dozen full magazine articles by freelancers.
It's a really tricky balance to deal with. The simple truth is that it's not a lot of money to have an ad free experience on the site. The new adfree only option is £1.25/month. Surely that's worth it?
Yeah so I very rarely complain but as a subscription-paying member I feel I have the right to tell you that currently the site is utter, utter, utter gash.
I've been trying to log in for the past couple of days to no avail. I finally figured out how to time it just right between the fullpage "you have an adblocker installed" (no I really don't, nor do I have a VPN, or anything else ad-related active), refreshing and managing to click in the right place on the login screen, just to be able to get here to complain. That's on my laptop, and if I didn't have autofill enabled for logins it would have been impossible. The site is completely locked down behind the incorrect "adblocker detected" screen on my phone - Pixel 9 Pro & firefox/chrome, hardly a niche use case - and that's 99% of my browsing. And yet weirdly it'll open fine - not logged in - on my work desktop using chrome with uBlock and a corporate VPN.
I get that you need to make money, and that ads are a way of doing that, but as others have alluded to above this place consistently seems to end up making baffling choices when it comes to site visitor experience. It might be an idea to test these things on more than 3 devices in STW towers before deciding it's good to go and unleashing on a disgruntled membership base.
Yep totally locked out on firefox even with everything turned off. Had to use edge (spit), did anyone even test this? Ill check now and again to see if you fix it, but wont be switching browsers.
Weird stuff. I'm a subscriber. I use duck duck go on my phone and firefox on my desktop all with security maxed out. I get on no problem. Am I misunderstanding or is there some weird inconsistent behaviour here?
Edit - maybe its because I am automatically logged in?
TJ, you are already logged in. The login cookie must exist on your devices so you, like the majority of users will see nothing different.
The same tech is used on many other media websites.
This one is an example. https://www.planetfootball.com/
I don't know if it's the way you've explained it or me being thick but something about those numbers seem off.
Full subscriber = £37/pa
No adds subscriber = £15/pa
Free member = £0.12/pa
Adblock user = £0.00/pa
If ads only generate 12p and blocking them costs you £5200, that's over 43000 users... Seems a high enough number for me to have understood properly.
Also interesting to see a good freelance article is only worth about £400. I'm glad I'm not in journalism or adventure writing.
*not to have understood properly.
Well, I'm struggling to sign in on an additional device. I can use my android phone or my chromebook, but I can't log into both at the same time.
Podge. Your maths is good.
Ah, okay. I need to ignore the whole new login page, click to accept the adverts which then lets me go to the normal forum screen. Then I can log in before. What a PITA!
Which is something you only need to do once. The cookie that is set by the consent popup is set to expire in 1 year.
Which is something you only need to do once. The cookie that is set by the consent popup is set to expire in 1 year.
I see the "accept cookies and adverts" pop-up everyday. My Mac is shut down every night though, not left on. Using Chrome with no ad-blocker installed.
I take it that even when we are logged in as subscribers we have to accept the 900 and odd cookies by default!? There's no way of swerving that?
It's important to understand that once you are logged in there are no ad cookies delivered by the site. You only get a tracking cookie when an ad appears. You don't get 900 cookies in one go. The consent required by GDPR is that you give advanced permission to all potential cookies that may or may not be needed when you visit the site. If you click accept and login as a subscriber you will get no further cookies.
I see the "accept cookies and adverts" pop-up everyday. My Mac is shut down every night though, not left on. Using Chrome with no ad-blocker installed.
If you are seeing repeatedly it is because the popup is not detecting the cookie on your devices. If you accept the cookie is saved on your device. The next time you visit this cookie is detected and the popup is bypassed. Something is preventing the consent code fomr beiong able to detect your cookie.
The code essentially does this
Page loads
Consent code: Does browser have a consent cookie?
If yes then don't display consent popup
If no then display consent popup
Without access to your device, browser and all the settings there's no way for me to diagnose why your machine is not storing the consent cookie. Shutting down you machine each night should make no difference to the cookie being stored correctly.
The consent code is the same as used here https://www.planetfootball.com/
You could try accepting the cookie on that site and then see if you get the same issue tomorrow.
@Mark so,
If you're not allowing trainers in your club then that's absolutely fine, but it might be an idea to tell customers that before they've got dressed to go out so they can make different sartorial choices. No-one wants stinky loan shoes I'm afraid.
I've had to switch browsers because even disabling my security measures didn't stop the ad block warning. Gods only know what's causing that, I've lost track of what security I've configured over the years. Over in Firefox World my credentials aren't cached and I have no idea what my STW password actually is so I had to do a password reset, the link in the email takes me right back to the Ad Block screen again. Is that intentional behaviour? I managed to drag the link cross-browser after a couple of attempts, but it's not exactly ideal. Can you perhaps allow half a dozen 'free' pages before going "it looks like you're enjoying the site..." and flinging up the block? What percentage of visitors are drive-by casual users who don't have an account and will never come back?
I understand completely why you've done this and I support you in it, it's been a long time coming TBH, but I can't help thinking that it could've been handled better. This discussion on this thread here is useful, but it's also behind the Ad Block warning so there's no visibility of what to do until you've got past the gatekeeping. There's also the small matter that Super Sticky doesn't exist any more so people who only use the Chat forum will never see it.
Maybe switch off the block, send out an email to members, give it a few days for folk to get their shit together, then switch it back on? You'll see the stats of course but I wonder how many users will see the popup and just go "**** it then." This move was never going to be popular as I'm sure you anticipated, but the noise I'm reading here is mostly confusion rather than rejection and of course that's only from the people who managed to get far enough to be vocally confused.
Those that block ads are worth £0.0 and there's no evidence that reducing the ads makes any difference to either of those numbers.
Do you attach zero value to content creators? If no-one is posting then there's no forum.
But people ARE posting. Those who click accept and continue and those who are subscribers ARE posting.
This is not a surprise move. We discusse it in this thread a few weeks ago. I was even asked when it would be activated. I said there's no time scale I can pin down but it will be in a matter of weeks. There has been no significant reduction in posts to the forum so far.
As to the adjustments you have suggested the answer is basically no. The consent by law has to happen on your first page. I can't delay it. Or I could but that would be a breach of GDPR. The consent popup (CMP) is not code we have any control over. It's a service that publisher subscribe to. This one is Uniconsent. It's very widespread. As I said, it's used on all of Planet Sports websites like planet football. I say that only to give you a chance to pop over there and see if you get the same problems.
Looking at our logs and traffic, everything looks normal. The same levels of traffic as yesterday. Up slightly on this day last week. Same number of forum posts and replies ie. around 1750/day
Mark, interesting and I'd not realised that traffic didn't add value. I wouldn't put much on our average forum ramblings but I thought a higher volume of engaged users would increase value to some extent. I'd guessed traffic=value was about the more traffic, the more ads shown.
I wouldn't expect more to subscribe if there were less ads but of the 40k+ non-subscribing users perhaps there would be less drift or better retention with ads presented differently. Based on the value of a subs vs a non-sub user it seems that doesn't matter - subs count and that's all.
Ad-free isn't a lot, granted. I'd rather £15/yr went to STW than any money going to those ad companies from this part of the internet. It's a shame there isn't enough value in bike industry-only advertising.
The risk may be that in a time when many of us are cutting down on apps and online time, 'ads or pay up' might be the prompt needed to visit less. If that has no impact on STW it's reassuring that the business won't suffer, but despite knowing almost zero about websites I'm not convinced that lower activity on a site is a good thing.