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 support a small site like that. I was just wondering how you would do that? Would it be best done client-side or server-side?

Answer 1

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 2

All off the methods mentioned here rely on the ad blockers to strip out code. This doesn't work for some adblockers(like NetBarrier on Mac). You also have to keep updating your code when the adblockers catch on.

To detect if the user is blocking ads, all you have to do is find a function in the ad javascript and try testing for it. It doesn't matter what method they're using to block the ad. Here's what it looks like for Google Adsense ads:

if(typeof(window.google_render_ad)=="undefined") 
{ 
    //They're blocking ads, do something else.
}

This method is outlined here: http://www.metamorphosite.com/detect-web-popup-blocker-software-adblock-spam

Answer 3

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 4

I found this part in the code which seems to look like how they did it:

/*MOOTOOLS*/
window.addEvent('domready', function(){

$$('.cat-item').each(function(el) { 
    var fx = new Fx.Morph(el,{ duration:300, link:'cancel' }); 
        el.addEvents({ 
        'mouseenter': function() { fx.start({ 'padding-left': 25 }); }, 
        'mouseleave': function() { fx.start({ 'padding-left': 15 }); } 
        }); 
    });

    if ($$(".google-sense468")[0] && $$(".google-sense468")[0].clientHeight == 0 && $('block-warning')) $('block-warning').setStyle('display','block');

});
/*MOOTOOLS END*/

Answer 5

I guess there are several ways of doing it, but probably the easiest one would be to have some kind of background image, or text, that will be replaced when the ad is loaded. Thus, if the ad gets loaded, you see the ad. If the ad doesn't load, you see the text.

This example would be client side, done by either JavaScript or just plain CSS might even suffice.

There might be some server-side gimmicks that could do this too, but they would be unnecessarily elaborate and clunky. One method that springs to mind would include some kind of API with the advertiser that could be asked "did the user from IP such.and.such load any images?" and in that way get the answer. But I doubt there's such services - it would be much easier to do on the client side.

Answer 6

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 7

I don't think there is an easy way to do this. What you can do is to create "trap". Make a php script listen to a very obvious url like yourdomain.com/ad.png. You can probably achieve this by url rewriting. If this page is loaded you can note this in a session variable and send back a 1x1 blank png.

On the next request you can see whether ad.png has been loaded. If it hasn't you can guess that the client is using some form of AdBlock software. Make sure you set the appropriate http headers to prevent clients from caching "ad.png".

This is the only server side approach I can think of at the moment and it has some flaws.

• The png file can be cached regardless of the http headers
• This will not work for the first http request
• Some extra server load as browsers will keep hitting ad.png for each request
• That the image gets loaded from the server is no guarantee for it actually being displayed
• Probably more side effects that I haven't thought of

Please make a comment on this post if you decide to try it out.

Regarding a client side solution. This shouldn't be to difficult. You can create a tiny Javascript to run on page load complete. This script can check that the page contains the dom-nodes holding the ads. If you this when the page is loaded completely (not only the dom) you can check the width and height of your ad images. The most obvious drawback with this solution is that clients can disable javascripts.

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

What you can do to detect the adblocker on the server-side is somithing like:

<?php

  header('Content-Type: application/javascript');

  //Save it to session
  session_start();
  $_SESSION['noAdblocker']=true;

 ?>

 noAdblocker=true;

Save this file as ads.php

Now the index.php:

<?php
  session_start();
  $_SESSION['noAdblocker']=false;
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML><html><head>
    <!-- Now place the "ad-script" -->
    <script src="ads.php"></script>
</head><body></body></html>