You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to notice LCE has become significantly more aggressive with advertising recently. I'm still tweaking it, but there will continue to be more ads that you're used to seeing for the foreseeable future. I wanted to explain what's up.

LCE has been able to remain free for many years because of the advertising that covered our expenses. With the economy being what it is, however, advertising revenues have plummeted. The drop has been both significant and persistent. This year, the LCE site has been making less than it costs to run. While I can (and have been) picking up the slack, that's not sustainable long-term. And you know at LCE, we're all about what's sustainable long-term.

I struggled with this decision for quite a while. A lot of advertising that appears on weightloss sites is not necessarily consistent with our orientation and approach here at LCE. So it's hard. I have mixed feelings for sure. But I made a commitment when I took over LCE that I would do my absolute best to make sure the site remains here for the community, and I take that seriously. While LCE is, in every sense of the phrase, "a labor of love," even love's gotta pay the bills.

I AM working on multiple strategies to help support LCE as fast as I can implement them - increasing advertising is one of those strategies. The ads are served by a service that will gradually learn which are the most effective for us so as to maximize their contribution to supporting the site (and allow us to ditch what isn't helping). I'm also hoping they will become better targeted to our interests as a community over time, which should be a natural consequence of optimization process. That will help as well.

Anyway, thanks for your patience. I'm sorry for increasing the "spamminess" factor of your LC home. It wasn't my first choice. But I trust you to understand why I'm doing what I am and that my heart firmly remains with the well-being of this community.

Peace out.

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I was going to comment to you that I liked the ads. I know everyone may think I am weird. But I KNOW they can help a site stay afloat. I really do like the book ads for Amazon because they are the types of books that we are looking for. I saw several on here this morning that I might check out. And whenever I buy anything on Amazon I come here first and click your link so that you get the commission (as big as it is, but I know it helps!).


katlupe

Thank you, Kat. I appreciate it (and you're right- everything does help)!

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I am not minding the ads either! I clicked on the Julian Bakery ad and purchased 2 loaves of their bread. I got it yesterday. It's really GOOD! (expensive, but good) I'm gonna do a review of it in the product review forum. I LIKE ads that are relevant to my interests. Like knitting ads, I LOVE seeing what's out there!

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Well, I'm working on trying to make more of the ads more relevant to us and our content and cutting out more of them that are further off-base. It's definitely a process.

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I'm SURE it is! And we appreciate the process you're going through!

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