I understand the whole point of a content based website is to generate ad revenue. I understand that, really, I do. I put ads on my website dreaming of beach houses and cars galore. I target market my blogs. I work to build a readership and hope they like to hear what I have to say.

But what happens when it is just too much?

During my daily info-seeking, I usually go to the Chicago Sun Times website. I started reading the Sun-Times in high school. Some of my favorite writers and columnists reside there. I think I might just go back to the old fashioned paper.

The second I hit the send key on my browser, I get one or two pop up ads.

Ok, I’ll just ignore those and move on. Most browsers have pop up blockers anyway.

As soon as you stumble on to a page, you are hit with ad after ad. Google Adsense ads, private ads, contests, contextual ads. You name it, it is on this website.

This, coming from one of the top newspapers in the entire country.

I started to wonder if this was monetization gone wild, or perhaps they are trying to compensate for the fact the internet has basically destroyed the print media.

Whatever the strategy, I personally don’t think it is paying off. Check out this Alexa chart.

Sun Times Alexa Chart

This seems to go against everything I would have believed about a newspapers website. I assumed traffic would have gone up, because more people were abandoning the old traditional way of getting their news.

But upon further investigation, It appears all major newspapers are having a decline in traffic.

Which makes me wonder.

It this because of the difficulty seeing the content because of the advertising, or maybe just an overall trend of people going to alternate means to find their news.

Things that make you go hmmmmm.