Evangelists, Focus on Standard Ad Code

Published on Jan 7, 2007 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development, quality (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

Here’s ad code of a kind I see way too often:

<IFRAME SRC="http://ad.de.doubleclick.net/adi/SNIP/B1713703;sz=728x90;ord=[timestamp]?" WIDTH=728 HEIGHT=90 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR='#000000'>
<SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.de.doubleclick.net/adj/SNIP/B1713703;abr=!ie;sz=728x90;ord=[timestamp]?">
</SCRIPT>
<NOSCRIPT>
<A HREF="http://ad.de.doubleclick.net/jump/SNIP/B1713703;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=728x90;ord=[timestamp]?">
<IMG SRC="http://ad.de.doubleclick.net/ad/SNIP/B1713703;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=728x90;ord=[timestamp]?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=728 HEIGHT=90 ALT="Click Here"></A>
</NOSCRIPT>
</IFRAME>

It’s the code, uncensored except for “SNIP,” we used to receive from ad partners. To ensure quality, we had (and my former colleagues probably still have) to rework every ad that came to us. It made all our attempts harder to output valid code.

This ad code mess needs to stop. While at GMX we tried to talk to ad companies to use standards-compliant code, nobody seems to talk about this important aspect in public. Monetized websites take it easy and use the code they receive from advertising partners, like DoubleClick or Falk. That code sucks. It’s one of the brakes in the process of getting larger sites to use higher quality code, and join the web standards cause.

I don’t want to mention Google here. Although sophisticated in certain applications, their frontend code is bad much of the time. Hopefully, Ian and Co. bring change; my suggestions to get Google’s AdSense code fixed didn’t go anywhere.

I urge us members of Web Standard Project, Webkrauts, and other standards-oriented organizations to focus on ad providers in our work, too. Let’s start by lobbying the Interactive Advertising Bureau?

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)