Should the “Todays Deals” panels show to members?

Also sometimes called “Deal of the Day” or “Deal Reveal” but they’re basically Chain Reaction ads right?

Worst still, on the forum overview on a desktop browser, there are two of these panels – one at the side, one at the bottom.

I have to click an ‘expand’ button to see it, otherwise I don’t see anything, save for a ‘reveal’ button.

I think the idea is that you have the option to look at deals if you want, but not if you don’t.

Yeah, sorry I should have been clearer about that. I only see the reveal button as well, but as far as I can tell the ads are served when the page loads. I’m finding the forum really clunky and slow atm so it’s annoying that I’m downloading ads for the site as a member, even if I can’t see them without clicking on the link.

Ah, no issues there for me.

The script ads about 0.2 seconds to the page load according to our tests. It’s not just CRC that appears in there. The tech behind it (Skimlinks, that adds our affiliate link to all outgoing links so we earn commission) scans the wider cycling retailers and generates automatic deals based on the claimed discounts. If any one retailer dominates it’s because they are offering better deals at the moment.

I really appreciate and respect you responding directly to these sorts of questions @Mark, I know you’re trying to run a business here.

If I block Skimlinks it reduces requests from 215ish to 170, and 7.5MB to 5MB. 20 product images account for a lot of that extra payload, as for some reason the side panel consists of 6 columns of 3 products each, even if you can only see one of those columns.

That all adds up to about 1 second on my fast laptop on wifi. On a mobile or low end tablet it will be even slower.

duplicate post

The RH column is not shown on mobile. This widget is a desktop only widget.

@Mark just had a quick look in developer mode connected to an iPhone XS, the column isn’t shown, but all of the source and images are still downloaded and processed. Making it hidden doesn’t help much.