Based on ~10,000 unique IPs only about 35% have javascript turned on. Apparently Javascript is still the devil because the vast majority of visitors don't have it enabled. What this means to you is that although you may be getting X amount of unique visitors to your site every day only 35% even display Adsense. What I've found however is that letting visitors know they don't have javascript on leads to a higher usage of javascript which leads to more ad impressions which leads to more clicks. And of course that leads to more money. Especially when the site is crippled until javascript is turned on. There are a number of ways to cripple a site (but not to Google). http://open.icarusindie.com employs the clever empty href by default, onClick go to the link trick. No db required for that one. There's also a div that gets set to hidden by javascript which informs the user that javascript is required. I can't think of any reason Google would rank my site differently in the SERPs. The backlink bonus probably goes away for sites I'm linking to. Other download sites have an img that's actually a PHP script which is only set when js changes out the default image. I can then check to verify that the IP has js enabled before allowing a file to be downloaded. If they don't have js enabled I let them know that it's required. Over the last few months I had that requirement disabled. Revenue went down. Last year revenue went up when I enabled it but I wanted to see if hits were negatively affected. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter either way. People are still going to visit the sites and the number of JS enabled users does go up. Has anyone else tried to enforce javascript usage on their sites and how has it affected your adsense performance?
I can't believe my traffic would have javascript disabled. Although my AwStats isn't tracking 'Javascript disabled' so I can't check. Javascript is automatically enabled in Firefox and IE so how could 65% or your traffic have it turned off?
I doubt if that figure is correct. Javascript by default is turned on, I doubt if so many people will have it turned off.
I'm sure bots account for some of them but last year when I started my free ringtone site I had a rate of 65%. So either my visitors consist of a large number of bots or people are turning off javascript as a way to avoid ads. Since forcing javascript makes revenue go up, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are turning off javascript. I'd be interesting to see what kinds of numbers other people get. It's a very simple script to track it. Come to think of it I could probably just add an otherwise invisible link that when visited will mark the ip as a bot. There's a blog I know of that uses that trick to block bots from visiting the site. When you look at the source there's a big warning to not go to the link.
If the site he got the stats from is a IT website, then it would make sense that more people turn JS off as most people working in IT (programming, networks, etc) know that JS can do bad things. If it's a site that has nothing to do with IT, then feel free add me to the list of people that think that figure is incorrect
Well, I'll add the script to track bots and I'll get back with a new number in a month or so. I highly recommend tracking that information. You may be surprised at how many ads aren't being displayed.
That can't be correct! Almost 100% of my visitors have javascript on. I'd be lost without it! kumiko xo