Why are there ads at the top of the page?

Question

I came on to check admin, call Jimmy stupid, the norm, and I was greeted by ads being between the header towards the top of a page and the "All Activity," "Questions," "Unanswered," etc. tabs. Why is this?

EDIT: They seem to be gone now.
EDIT: Maybe just for me?

Comments

They did show up on mobile although there are none now

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Still showing up for me on all platforms.
Of course, I have no problem with ads showing on this site and I've kept it whitelisted for years. This new spot is irritating, though.

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Yeah, those are really weird.

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Ads are still showing up at the top for me on mobile... I don't know what made it change on my computer.

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I think that Google decides where ads go, so it's not a new format or anything that's doing it. It's happening to all of us, I guess.

Answer 1

That's strange. I had an email from Google Adsense (our ad provider) recently about some changes to ads, I think maybe they are more automated than they used to be (previously they were always in set positions).

But I haven't had time to read through it all fully. I will take a look and try to ensure they stop showing up in annoying places! The ads on Pokebase should mostly be removed for higher-reputation users anyway.

UPDATE:
Checked into it and Adsense are indeed placing ads in new positions automatically. I've gone through and removed various ads that were coming up in bad places. With the settings I can only remove 10 locations total, so if there are still bad placements I will turn off the auto thing completely.
I've also removed ads on Pokebase for users over 1000 points. We used to have this but somewhere along the way it got removed, probably in the last redesign.

Comments

"The ads on Pokebase should mostly be removed for higher-reputation users anyway."
What does this mean? Will users with higher ranks have less ads than those that are just registered users?

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The price for Pokemondb Premium Ad Removal™️ is: git good lul

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Seems these new ad spots are appearing site-wide, not just on PokeBase.
I thought I'd quickly mention here that ads are also appearing between paragraphs. The front page is a good way to illustrate this, as are the move lists on Pokedex pages. On some occasions, ads between paragraphs will appear multiple times in one page.
All of this showed up overnight, basically. Looks like Google just decided this entire website is adspace!

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I’ve even noticed them appearing in the middle of answers: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/594678061069238272/639090065925996544/image0.png

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The only new spots I've noticed ads appearing are on the top of pages, which, as I stated, stopped for some reason on my PC, and off to the right in the same area as the useful posts, which I do get on my PC. Are you guys only noticing the ads in these inconvenient places on mobile?

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Made some updates (see answer).

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Does the 1000 points thing only apply when your on the section you have 1000 points on or is it sitewide?

Also its kinda a shame. This is the only website I turn Adblock off.

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@Gekky I only did it on Pokebase, forgot about RMT. There are no ads on Meta anyway.
I can't do it for the main site (e.g. the Pokedex) due to the way that works so you can marvel at our adverts to your heart's content over there!