Click here or else: popup anchors over primary pages (efferent)

Text Menu




Newspapers, magazines, and other content providers need to find a way to pay for their content, and often turn to popup ads. These provide games (nicely subverted by Ley's War Games--Catch The LandMine!! [40]), travel brochures, wine, and other distractions for the weary websurfer who just wants to catch up on the news. Often these appear uninvited over the content page and obstruct the readers' view. These are essentially large single anchors, as clicking on them will bring the reader to the advertised site.

Readers are confronted with anchors they did not originally seek and must either:

  • Wait. Some of these anchors are timed to expire, in about the same amount of time it takes off line to shuck off the advertising covers that many newspapers are wrapped in. Readers may have to close the page anyway, as it slips behind the main page--akin to tossing out the newspaper ads.
  • Act. Others stay until readers either click on the anchor (leading away from the content they wanted) or click on another part of the page (which may lead away from the front page). This annoying experience will depend on your browser and the popup denial software you or your company have installed.

Often, business popup anchors are misleadingly animated. Obitz' Catch the Taxi [51] invites readers to "play" to move the porter to the pretty girl as taxis go back and forth. Yet actually clicking on the anchor to play will merely open the travel site.

Note: Analyzed ad is not displayed as permission was not granted by Obitz.