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Warning:
There are new malware/viruses going around that
cause users to see bad ads on sites that have
nice ads. (It replaces the ads with its
own.) Webmaster friends of mine have
gotten complaints from users and I've already
heard of it happening to a few Coolmath users. So, IF you see
really bad ads on any reputable site, update your
antivirus, reboot your computer and run a scan.
That should take care of the problem. If
it doesn't, then you need to try a different
antivirus software. Just because you
are running an antivirus program doesn't mean
that you can't get infected. They need to
be updated regularly and you often need to run
more than one to catch everything that's out
there. We recommend ZoneAlarm and the free
version of AVG.
(Coolmath's
ads do NOT carry any viruses or malware!) |
I've written this to answer the
question: "Why are there ads on Coolmath?"
I started Coolmath as a "hobby site"
in the spring of 1997. Back then, I just hosted it for
free on my AOL account... I soon got tired of having
to tell people that my site was at
http://members.aol.com/coolmath2... What a mouth full!
So, that fall, I bought the Coolmath.com domain name.
Back then, domain names were pretty expensive and I had to
start paying for hosting, but I didn't mind just paying for
it out of my teaching salary. It wasn't that
bad.
Over the next three years, Coolmath
started getting popular -- nowhere near what it is now, but
my hosting company was starting to increase my monthly fees
as the site's traffic increased. The growth was a
blessing and a curse. When the monthly bill was
getting too much for me to pay out of pocket, I had to make
a choice: turn Coolmath into a business or take it
offline. Based on all the cool emails I was getting
from students, the second choice just wasn't an option.
In 2000, Coolmath became
Coolmath.com, Inc. and my brother-in-law, Phil, came on
board to help me with the business end of things. Over
the next four years, we tried everything we could think of
to somehow monetize the site (siteS by now) to be able to
keep everything online. During this time, our traffic
was increasing beyond our wildest dreams which, of course,
was raising our costs beyond our wildest nightmares.
At this point, we tried making parts of the sites
"subscription" areas that required schools and individuals
to pay for access. Of course, no schools have extra
money for this type of thing! And the whole point for
me was to reach as many students as possible... I want
to reach hundreds of thousands (which I'm now doing), not
just the 20 who can come up with some money to pay to see
the stuff.
From 2000 to 2004, Coolmath almost
went offline EVERY MONTH! Just when we were at our
wit's end and about to give up, we were accepted by an
advertising agency, BURST! These guys really saved the
day for us and the ads you see keep Coolmath (and all its
other sites) online and free for everyone. We are now
reaching over 300,000 students a day and this is what it's
all about. It's a good thing that we have ads
now because we are so popular that we are running server
farms with lots of servers all around the country!
We are with the
most reputable ad agencies in the industry and are VERY
careful about the ads we allow on our sites.
I check EVERY
SINGLE AD before it runs!
We never run flashing ads, "warning" ads, those obnoxious
"You are a winner" ads, dating ads or anything else that may
be deemed as inappropriate. We never run any ads
that have downloads for "smileys" and other things that
really just infect your computer with adware, spyware and
virusses. About 10% of our daily visitors receive a
SINGLE popunder, but
we NEVER use popup ads.
We do not run interstitials (these are the ads you see that
block the whole screen while you are in between to pages.)
Luckily, over the years, teachers
and parents have come to understand that we need to have the
ads on the sites to keep things running. Most of our competitors have gone in this
direction too -- either that or they are now subscription
sites.
Please help
support Coolmath by not blocking the ads.
If you see a popUP or any other ad
that concerns you on any of the Coolmath sites, please let
us know so we can remove it immediately. You can reach
me at .
Thanks for your understanding in
this matter and I hope you and your students have a great
time and learn a lot on our sites!
-- Coolmath Karen |