Detecting AdBlocking software?

Question

I was recently visiting a site and noticed that the page had a section that said it noticed that I was using AdBlocking software and could I kindly turn it off to help suppo

Answer 1

You could do it on server side by pairing requests for html pages and for the acording ads (probably with some unique identifiers to each request ...) ... But this is just an idea, i've never tried it and never even seen it used.

Answer 2

This is something that simply can't be done server side - there's zilch reason for person to knock on your door and say "Look at me, I have AdblockPlus!". When on the client side, adblock is actively trying to influence the page content, which is something you can see happen and see that they are using an adblocker.

Anyway, I happened to know that newgrounds.com is doing this too. (their new layout was screwed up for adblock plus users - as a response they made a contest for the best "if you're not going to help us through our ads, go and buy something in the store"-banner.

A quick look in the source of newgrounds told me they are doing this with some simple javascript. First in the document:

var user_is_leecher = true;

Next there is a external script tag: src=checkabp?thisistotrickabp=***adress of ad affilliate***

Now the joke: they simply trust adblock plus to filter that script out, as all that's in there is: user_is_leecher = false;

From there, they can do just about anything.

Answer 3

I believe that is much easier to do it on client side than in server side. Ad blockers are installed on the client, so they can manipulate DOM and block ajax requests. That's why I believe it makes more sense to detect on the client than on the server.

Anyway, this is a standalone simple plugin that detects users with ad blockers enabled, it's open-source and the full code is on github:

https://github.com/retargetly/mockingbird

It's more publisher oriented so they can easily show messages on the ads containers or in a popup. The plugin is frequently updated, and it's worth a try. This is the fiddle also:

http://jsfiddle.net/retargetly/9vsha32h/

The only method you need to use is

mockingbird.adsBlocked(Obj)

The call can be done anywhere in the code and you don't need jQuery to make it work.

Wish you luck !

Answer 4

A few good answers here, so I'll just add this:

use some ad management system (You can write Your own). With that, track every ad that's being displayed (and make it obvious, like ads.php or showad.php or whatever). If that script is never called, the user is using SOME form of ad blocking software.

Be sure to handle each and every ad through that handler, though. Mod_Rewrite isn't required, it can be done using simple PHP.