Ad Blockers & Analytics: What Webmasters Should Know And Do

Ad blockers have been around for some time now and are widely used. The question around the end of the “free internet” and the impact on sales is not a new topic, and I won’t discuss it here.

But as of September 16, 2015, ad blockers entered the world of iOS devices when Apple announced they would allow third-party development of “content blocking” apps in its new operating system, iOS 9. One of them, Crystal, became in a few days one of the most downloaded paid apps from the App Store.

Unfortunately for website owners, Crystal (and probably other content blockers) not only blocks ads from being displayed on Web pages, but in some cases can also prevent pages from rendering properly.

More importantly, Crystal intentionally blocks analytics scripts from being downloaded and therefore executed. Result? A visit to your site from an iOS 9 device using Crystal won’t be reported in your analytics platform.

Why This Is A Major Issue

I understand internet users not wanting to see ads cluttering a page. Yet we have to acknowledge that many companies depend on income from ads (but again, this is not the point here).

I can also understand users not wanting to send data back. In my opinion, however, sending analytics data (page view, device, operating system, geolocation, language and so on) is not in any way harming a user’s experience on the Web. Actually, it helps create a better internet. A great search experience not only stems from search engines being smarter but also from websites being optimized.

Websites need analytics data to understand how they can improve, what pages are performing well, who their audience is, where it is and more. The best websites out there in terms of user experience are the result of extensive A/B testing, which is impossible without analytics data.

Below are proposed solutions to solve rendering issues and to get analytics data back. But first, I’d like to quickly explain how ad blockers work.

How Ad-Blocking Apps/Plugins/Extensions Work

Thanks to the AdBlock Plus FAQ page and some testing of the Crystal app, we are able to understand better how these content blockers work and, therefore, find potential solutions.

There are two systems in place: element hiding and asset blocking.

• Element hiding: Through DOM manipulation, the app (or extension) injects an inline