The world changes, and so do I.
By the time you read this, I’ll (hopefully) have implemented a couple of technological changes at Ask Leo!.
The big one?
No outside ads.
And that scares the pants off of me. But it’s time.
Advertising and Ask Leo!
Ads are gone from Ask Leo! because they don’t work like they used to. Fewer people visit the site, and search engines now show answers without sending folks to my pages. It’s very risky, but it’s time for a change. You can help by signing up for the newsletter or becoming a patron.
Website advertising is broken
You know what I’m talking about before I even say it: websites are plastered with ads that all too often obscure the content you went to the website to see.
And, yes, Ask Leo! has been guilty of this in the past.
The worst offenders, of course, entice you with clickbait headlines to get you to click. Hopefully, this is something I’ve avoided.
But it paid the bills. Website advertising allowed Ask Leo! to come into existence almost 22 years ago and has kept it a viable business ever since.
But the industry is changing.
Help make it permanent by becoming a Patron.
Search engine optimization is broken
The other part of the equation that has allowed Ask Leo! to operate is what’s called SEO, or search engine optimization.
In short, by writing quality content and structuring it in a way that was easy for the search engine(s) (OK, mostly Google) to understand1, Ask Leo! articles appeared in results when people searched for an answer to a question. They’d come to the site and hopefully get the answer they were looking for. The ads displayed alongside that answer were the “cost” that paid for me and my staff to do what we do.
Then Google started summarizing answers directly in search results. Rather than clicking through to the websites that ultimately provided the information, people did not need to go further: the answer was right there. This pre-dates AI, but AI, and the use of AI in lieu of traditional search, has exacerbated this.
It’s a great user experience — one fewer click for your answer! — but it removes the primary mechanism that sites like Ask Leo! use to pay the bills. If there are no visitors to the site (other than the Google or AI bots), there’s no ad revenue. It’s come to be referred to as the “traffic apocalypse“.
Fortunately, YouTube isn’t as far down this path and remains viable. But traffic on written articles on websites is clearly declining.
So, if site ads aren’t working and are on the decline, why have them at all?
Removing ads
By the time you read this, I’ll have removed the advertising network used by Ask Leo!. Even if you visit the site without being signed in, you won’t see a wall of ads.
This is a huge risk. While advertising revenue is down significantly, it’s not zero. I’m hoping we’ll make up for it in other ways, but it’s scary. Advertising saved Ask Leo! from shutting down completely around five years ago, so it’s not an easy decision to walk away from it today.
But for now, no ads (other than a few ads for patronage or my own products). I may opt to accept sponsorships with simple, single box ads. Should revenue not meet what’s needed to run the site, I may rejoin a less aggressive ad network. (Of course, just as before, patrons will not see any ads no matter what I elect to do.)
But the oh-so-common and oh-so-in-your-face wall of ads should be gone for good.
Other changes
While I’m at it, I’m streamlining the Confident Computing newsletter a little to make it easier to put together. If you’re a subscriber, you may have already seen that reflected in the most recent issue. Nothing drastic, just a little simpler.
Once the dust settles a little, I’ll embark on my next course, tentatively titled Linux Without Tears.
I’m also hoping to increase the rate at which I produce ebooks. That’s an idea in progress, though.
As I come up with ideas to make patronage more valuable, you may see some changes there as well.
Do this
Most of this is a behind-the-scenes look at what it means to run a web-based business these days. It’s probably more complicated than you realize. 
There are two things you can do to help, though.
First, subscribe to Confident Computing! My weekly newsletter is completely free. Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
Then consider becoming a patron of Ask Leo!. It’s one of the best ways to help ensure I can keep doing what I do.
Either way, I appreciate your being here, and I look forward to continuing to do this for a long, long time.
Podcast audio
Footnotes & References
1: It’s more than just “structuring it”, of course. There’s a lot at play.
Good for you Leo. Thank you for this wonderful site and your staff who also involve themselves in the responses. My wife is from your Tour Bus days, me more recently as she stepped away, but we rely on your knowledge often.
Folk can test if adding -AI to the search parameters will remove the AI summaries on Google.
Also Duckduckgo search has a way to turn off summaries (plus other less strong options).
Right now I am ignoring the AI summaries and still going down the list of results, because I have had some ridiculous AI answers about products on Amazon that have put me off using it.
Tour Bus was Bob Rankin. https://askbobrankin.com/
Leo .. oops, but she was a follower of you also, from back in that time frame. I do still read Ask Bob. You are the “go to guys”.
OH MY!!!
I was an avid reader ofThe Internet Tourbus, and was very sorry to see it shut down.
I’m very pleased to see that Bob Rankin is still out there and helping people!!! 🙂
Hopefully, Congress will pass a law classifying search engine summaries as plagiarism. It’s doubtful they ever will, as most of their decisions are paid for by big business.Maybe the EU will do someting to help.
A summary is not plagiarism, nor is it a copyright violation. Remember Cliff’s Notes?
That’s what makes this so very complicated.
I’ve come to the conclusion that “Free” isn’t worth it anymore and have started picking and choosing what I find useful then subscribing or donating to help out. It does add up after awhile, but I feel it is worth the expense.
I also use ad blockers (Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin) and white-list websites that I find useful.
So goes the world. I’ve followed your advice for years and found it most useful. Your articles have gotten me out of a few jams in the past. However I’ve switched over from Windows to a MacBook Pro and and you don’t cover that operating system. Wish you did. I may still become a Patron, but I’ll have to think about. Subscription budgets are limited. Whatever I wish you the best.
Leo’s friend Gary Rosenzweig has a great post on where to get Mac and iOS help: http://macmost.com/getting-help
Leo does a weekly podcast with Gary, the TEH Podcast.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll look in to it!
I haven’t ever figured out what TEH stands for. I haven’t seen it spelled out. If it’s there and I missed, it, I guess I missed it all right.
TEH Tech Enthusiasts Hour
Good luck.
I prefer not to sign up for Patron, but I would and have donated to pay for the services I receive using the one time payments options such as “Kup of Koffee”. I you set up this option, I will contribute once of twice a year and then again when an article strikes a special interest.
Thank you.
https://buyleoalatte.com
Leo, you wrote:
https://buyleoalatte.com
Well, I just did.
I’m on a fixed income, and can’t subcribe to your paid offerings; but I can spare the occasional donation now and then to help support your hard (and much appreciated) work!
Thanks!
Thanks for posting that link. For several years, I have been reading and gaining good info from Askleo.com
I’m planning to contribute to Ask Leo by using BuyLeoLatte.com. To do so, I need to first set up an account, right? (The username and password I used to use to access your members-only section no longer work.) Then I can use a regular credit card to donate, correct? Thanks.
There;s no need to set up an account to BuyLeoALatte
Payment can be made using PayPal, Amazon Pay, ACH Direct Debit, Credit/Debit Card, GPay, or Link
You shouldn’t NEED to create an account, though the checkout process will probably offer the ability (as so many online stores do).
This is what confused me. When you attempt to donate via Buy Leo A Latte without an account, on the left half of the Checkout page where it asks for billing details, there are also fields for Account Username and Create Account Passwords — both of which are labeled as required. This is what led me to believe that an account must be set up first before we can donate. So I went ahead and created a new account (my old username and password wouldn’t work), logged into the new account, and then the checkout process went smoothly.
Great to hear that you are diversifying by looking at Linux
Here’s an article from NPR on that:
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/31/nx-s1-5484118/google-ai-overview-online-publishers
This is all good stuff, and I will be tuning in as usual. Thanks very much.
Hi Leo,
I help run a website and we have been suffering the “traffic apocalypse”, too.
I would love to be able to get rid of the ads on our site, but then we would have no revenue to cover our costs.
You mentioned you will try to work on “other ways” to make up for the lack of ad revenue.
Would you mind sharing some of your ideas, please?
Patronage, ebooks and courses. And YouTube.
Worse, the summaries often don’t reflect the site content, especially with the proliferation of AI Slop sites (the summary often has the only info present). It’s to where sometimes there are no “real” search results on the entire first page, and maybe not the next. (My cynical little voice opines that the object is not to sell product to consumers; it is to sell ad campaigns to managers.)
I think sponsored, computing-related products that you have yourself checked out (at least enough to recommend to them to ordinary users) would actually be a good addition. Make the ad easy on the eyes and bandwidth — what we used to call a banner ad, or a textbox, and make it informative, perhaps with a link to your own review. We keep telling people to buy from trusted sources, take advantage of that.
Distrowatch does it right — the ads are unobtrusive, but legible, and very important, are relevant to the site focus.
I have read your newsletter for many years and received a lot of benefit (switched from LastPass to Bitwarden and using EaseUS Todo.) They are worth the cost, and so is your advice and analysis; I just signed up as a Patron. I feel I must financially help support you for the benefit I receive. I also increased my monthly pledge to PBS due to actions taken by our “leadership.” Thanks for all you do to make technology more understandable.
Leo – My partner and I had to be dragged into the computer age. We found you only a year a go and you have opened so many doors for us. We are sorry you are experiencing such unpredictable and highly speculative changes but are so encouraged by your willingness to “soldier on” and look to alternatives. We will be following you. Thank you.
I use the Vivaldi browser with DuckDuckGo set as my default search engine.
I like that, in the Vivaldi Settings, under Privacy & Security; I get 3 choices:
1. No Blocking
2. Block Trackers
3. Block Trackers & Ads (which is my selected setting)
I can also add Exceptions that can ‘Manage blocking level per site’
Vivaldi also has a button in the Address Bar called Reader View. I can use that so any trackers/ads on any site will be “ripped out”, making for an easier, distract-less read.
Of course, I’ve never had to use this on Ask Leo!
And whenever I do a search with DuckDuckGo, I ALWAYS turn OFF ‘Search Assist’, ‘Duck.ai’ & turn ON ‘Hide AI-Generated Images’.
I’d rather go to websites to get what I am looking for.
As always, thank you for all the help you’ve given to myself & others all over the world.
Your articles & answers are clear, easy to follow & very helpful.