The answer is at end of article........

One of most common debates around is over web advertising.

Some sites that you visit have so many animated banners that it looks like a shooting gallery! Others will throw up 20 windows of ads when you try to exit site. I call these tactics "scumvertising". I know of a number of people who have stopped using World Wide Web due to scumvertising. Some say, "The Internet should be free of advertising!"....

.... pardon? Why?

The very nature of life on this planet is dependant on advertising. A pretty big statement for me to make, so here's a simplified justification:

In animal world, strongest survive. The most aggressive, most brash of species will have tendency to be most successful in reproduction.

In plant world, some plants use elaborate ornamentation to assist in their reproduction. Some flower perfumes are so strong, they can be detected from miles away which attracts necessary insects to assist in pollination.

In world of business, those organisations who attract most paying customers grow. The ones that hide their candle under a bushel, no matter how good product or service is, will die. Successful businesses advertise. They use World Wide Web to do so. They pay others to display their ads which creates income for thousands of web masters. The ads also generate competition amongst businesses. The victor in competition gains sales. The sales generate employment. The competition leads to lower pricing and refinement of product.

OK, so comparison is taking it to extreme; but we seem to be living in a society of rampant consumerism, where we want everything for nothing if possible, and we want it now. If it wasn't for advertising, such as seen on World Wide Web:

- my computer would have cost more and I probably wouldn't have it - commercial software on my computer - as above - my internet connection - as above - freeware would not exist in levels available today - I may not be able to afford to offer as much information as I do to others - for free

Without advertising on our sites, World Wide Web would be elitist - available to only rich, government and academia. The Internet and World Wide Web, while having it's pitfalls as any human system does, is probably best thing to happen to our species in a very long time. And it has been on back of advertising that WWW has grown at phenomal rate it has.

In stark contrast, my dreams of perfect world dictate there would be no need for advertising as money would not exist - but in my perfect world there would also be no need for computers. I love Internet, and computering in general, but I would trade it in any day for a world without crime, pollution and crowding. The Internet has provided me with a living, computers helped me to emerge from gutter and to learn to exist in our society. I now not just survive, I thrive. It has allowed me to communicate my message to an audience of thousands, and to learn many valuable lessons in life from others.

The World Wide Web is slowed down by advertising you say? Yes, that's correct. But not as slow as needing to leave my premises to go to library to carry out research. It's not anywhere as near as slow as using postal service to deliver documents.

http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/payperview.htm.

Another popular ploy to encourage "eyeballs" (visitors) is to purchase site exit traffic. In this strategy, you pay a web site to redirect traffic to you when a visitor leaves their site. This usually occurs with a pop-up window. Is it effective? I guess best way to answer this is with another question. How do you feel when you leave a site and 20 pop-up windows litter your screen? While utilising this strategy may increase page views according to your server logs, I don't think that you'll make many friends or encourage sales. This option is usually charged "per view" i.e, every time someone exits site involved, you are charged. I can think of better ways to spend your advertising budget.

Yet another strategy that marketing agencies may convince you to try is buying redirects from defunct sites, or from domain names owned by them. The domain names they own are usually generic terms, words that web surfers may type into their browser address bar in hope that they will find something of relevance. Some clever individuals and companies have made a great deal of money through this scheme. They buy thousands of domain names, preferrably those that have existing traffic and redirect those visitors to their customers. Unless domain name that traffic is redirected from is specific to your line of business, it will probably be "low quality" (visitors not interested in your product) and once again serve only to annoy internet surfers. Again, this promotion method will "appear" to be successful as your site will gain thousands of hits. But unless product you are offering has broad appeal, money you spend may not be justified.

Still one of best and most ethical ways of purchasing web site traffic is utilising pay-per-click options offered by many major search engines. It can be very expensive; so you will need to do your maths first in order to justify it. Most of these search engines require you to bid on key words or phrases that users type in. The highest bid gets highest ranking on search results and advertiser pays amount bid every time someone clicks on their link. In this option, you will want to be listed in first page of results in order to be noticed.