New Ads Upsetting Page Format
 

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the proper place for this, but here goes ...

Recently, some of the new adverts (the tall, thin ones that seem to be placed at screen left) are destroying the format of the FT web pages: rather than aligning parallel to the thread lists, posts, or whatever should be displayed (as the right-aligned ads do), they're coming out 'on their own', with the main content being pushed down below them.

This has two really quite annoying effects: (1) you have to scroll down quite a bit to even see the actual content; (2) when you get to the content, the text fonts have been squished up, so that everything looks small and ugly.

This could be an issue with my browser (IE 8) but it only started happening recently, and with certain adverts (the new Expedia ad is one example).

I have no problem with adverts on FT and - yes! - I know I could subscribe to not show them - but is there something that can be done about this?

Cheers.

-- Henry

I'm encountering a problem, and I'm not quite sure if it's the same as this, but it seems like it might be related. I've noticed in the past couple of days that FlyerTalk will sometimes load a page seemingly normally, and then at the last minute, just as the page finishes loading, the blue banner at the top will disappear, and all the text will reduce in size. It doesn't happen on every page, so my assumption is that it is somehow related to the particular adverts being displayed - I can't say for sure, though.

I've been able to reproduce this issue in both Firefox and Chrome:

http://www.owenrudge.net/various/broken-firefox.png
http://www.owenrudge.net/various/broken-chrome.png

and, for reference, a "good" page in Firefox:

http://www.owenrudge.net/various/flyertalk.png

I don't use any sort of ad blocking software or other Firefox add-ons that may be modifying the page (indeed, it happens in Chrome too), and my page style and zoom settings are set to the default.

Any ideas what's going on here?

That's the same problem! Sometimes a simple "refresh" (f5) gets rid of it (if the offending ad is replaced by a more friendly one), sometimes it doesn't.

-- Henry

I can confirm that it seems to happen consistently with the Expedia advert. It seems to mess up the smilies on the posting page, too. It looks like it doesn't matter whether the advert is at the side or the bottom, if it's an Expedia HTML advert, it messes up the formatting for the rest of the page.

www.owenrudge.net/various/expedia.png

All we need now is a technically-minded Administrator to find this thread! ;)

-- H

Same here with the text being pushed down and compressed. Did think it was IE9 at first on my new laptop, but it does the same with IE8 and just now on my Android phone.r

Ditto the above, tall thin expedia ad appearing on the left side of the screen, causing the forum/message list to be pushed way down the page and compressed.

Using IE9 64-bit.

I did try to report the adverts here, but Google's site seemed not to accept my submission. :? I'm guessing there's little the FT admins can do about it (particularly as they are, I presume, in the US, and these adverts seem to be UK-specific), and it's either Google or Expedia that need to be complained to.

You cannot subscribe to not show them right now. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/techn...g-premium.html

We're going to find and remove the ad that is causing this.

Thanks!

Paul

It's good to know that you're 'on the case'! However, a couple of points:

(1) It's not just the Expedia Ad, but one or two others (at least) that I've noticed.

(2) I haven't actually had it happen for a while, now.

-- Henry

Thanks Henry -- best thing to do if you see this type of behavior is to post a screen shot and if possible let me know if it is an AdSense ad.