Back in March, after being approached by an advertising publishing platform, we began a trial that promised greater advertising revenue, more granularity, and the freedom to restrict ads that perhaps are less in-keeping with our morals than we’d like. So, two months on, how has it gone?

Er… well, none of the above promises actually materialised. The opposite in fact. Visitor numbers halved, advertising revenue dropped by more than that, and some boring yet quite invasive websitey stuff had to be handed over too.

So here endeth the trial, and we’re pleased to say that reverting back to our previous platform has restored our advertising revenue immediately (which we continue to give away to those who need it more than we do), and visits are on the way back up too. Phew.

So we’re back to where we started, which isn’t a bad place to be after all, but do let us know if anything negatively affects your user experience (and thank you to those that did get in touch with feedback during the trial).

The lesson here is perhaps to be happy with what you’ve got, and that sometimes (ironically!) marketing isn’t always entirely truthful. That said, if you could click on an ad or two…

TLCB Team

On TV, at the cinema, in magazines, on radio, on billboards, in social media, on buses… advertisements are everywhere. Including this decaying back-alley in the corner of the internet.

Following this site’s one-and-only upgrade in a decade of operation two years ago, a greater degree of advertising has been permitted at The Lego Car Blog, with colourful boxes trying to sell you stuff appearing in the side bar, in-between posts, and between paragraphs.

As we don’t ask our readers for money nor receive any kind of endorsement or sponsorship from LEGO (and rightly so – they’re a reputable organisation), these ads are what keep the lights on at TLCB Towers, and they do a little good in providing revenue that we can give away too.

Amazingly, The Lego Car Blog’s success has meant we’ve appeared on the radar of an award-winning publishing platform, who have somehow not noticed our gross incompetence and instead focussed on the number of eyeballs (like yours) that this site receives.

Therefore we’re currently undergoing a trial with said publisher to explore additional advertising revenue, more tailored to our readers, and with far greater granularity. This will allow us to exclude advertising themes we’re not happy with (gambling, sexualised content, get-rich-quick schemes and so forth), although of course the ads that you see here at TLCB (like any site) are mostly based on what your search history reveals about you.

For a while this means you might see an increase in the number of adverts as the publisher optimises where and how they should appear. Please bear with us through this stage, and if you have any comments on your user experience here at The Lego Car Blog, do please let us know so we can feed this back.

If it all goes wrong we can revert back our previous (and more-than-adequate) advertising solution, whilst if it works you should see more targeted advertising that also generates us a greater revenue stream that we can do some good with : )

Thanks for visiting us

TLCB Team

Nine months ago our benevolent overlords here at The Lego Car Blog ceased support for our ancient site structure. This meant, after years of procrastination writing ‘Your Mom’ jokes and Googling pictures of Rachel Weisz, that we had to actually do some work. And that doesn’t come naturally to us.

Somehow the site remained functioning as we transferred it to its new structure, and – for the first time in TLCB’s history – we also broadened the advertising spaces beyond WordPress’s own platform.

This means – unless you have some fancy ad-blocker – that there will probably be an ad to the right of this text. Perhaps one above it. And maybe even one in the middle too.

These ads will vary depending upon where you live, the sites you’ve visited, and your demographic, and seem to encompass everything from clickbait ‘news’ to luxury cars, via toys, clothing, houses, holidays, tv subscriptions, and tech.

Of course the increase in the number of ads shown here is generating a corresponding increase in revenue, and is something we’ve stressed about doing for some time.

We know we’re very lucky to have a platform like this to a) write ‘inane blather‘ (our favourite comment from a disgruntled reader so far), and b) that such a privilege should ideally be used for good. And ‘Your Mom’ jokes.

Thus the advertising revenue brought in by the colourful boxes dotted around this site is donated to those who need it more than we do, so we really are keen for them to stay. But only if that’s OK with you, our readers.

So nine months in, if the ads are an issue, please let us know. If not, and – better yet – if they actually warrant your click occasionally, we’ll keep them going and continue to share what this crumby little corner of the internet miraculously generates with those in greater need.

Thanks for your time

TLCB Team

If you’re a regular reader of this dilapidated backwater of the internet you may have noticed some changes recently. Yes, after years of enhancing basically nothing about this site whatsoever, we’ve finally upgraded something!

We kinda had to actually, as our previous site structure had become unsupported many years ago, which we had solved by just ignoring it. Anyway, it was finally time to actually do some work and upgrade TLCB properly, which over the last few days we’ve done. Probably very badly.

No matter because the site does seem to be – somewhat miraculously – functioning as it should. However this upgrade did cost something, and thus we’ve decided (as we’ve been mooting for some years now) to permit a greater degree of advertising here at The Lego Car Blog.

This is to a) pay for our recent upgrade, and b) because we do feel some responsibility to maximise this platform for good causes, and thus we will continue to donate our profits to people and organisations who need them more than we do.

We hope the new ads aren’t too intrusive (and if you feel like clicking on them please do!), but if you have any problems or complaints, or you find something somewhere on the site has broken and we’re not paying attention, please do let us know in the usual ways.

TLCB Team