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Coming here from a Hot Network Question (everyone's favorite way to get site visitors), I happened to notice on this question:

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Looks like there are now careers ads embedded into posts, apparently as part of the SE careers A/B testing (or they have been and I've not noticed until now).

But scrolling down I see the same posting again:

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I also see the same on the right hand bar:

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It seems weird to me to see multiple postings for the same company as ads in the same thread though - is this intentional?

It sure looks awkward to me as a user and kind of... I don't know, tacky I guess.

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  • Appears to me as a bug, don't think it should happen. (the double ad, not ad being on top)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 3:57

1 Answer 1

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This is actually by design. One of the products we offer to companies that want to advertise with us is a Premium Company Page Ad Package:

Premium Company Page Ads give you the sidebar and the leaderboard. With a Premium package, your Company Page Ads will fill all available slots on the page—and they’ll never share the page with other ads. Both your sidebar and leaderboard ads will be updated automatically whenever you make changes to your Company Page.

(Emphasis added).

So that's what you're seeing there. As you browse around Stack Overflow and Server Fault, you'll see these pop up occasionally (where there's the same company displayed in multiple ad slots).

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    Sorry but that's just too much. SE is known for minimal advertising, and this, in my humble opinion, violates that rule by pushing something aggressively in our face.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 9:06
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    I agree with @ShadowWizard. I don't see the banner ads on SO anymore due to my reputation, but if I saw the same ad three times on a page, that's aggressive advertising. I think it's cool that you offer a package that ensures a company's ad is the only one on a page, but have you considered reducing the number of ads? Perhaps one banner and one sidebar? That would be less aggressive.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 9:49
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    Wow, I'm quite surprised this is intended functionality. It should be insightful that a frequent user of Stack Exchange thought this behavior was actually a bug, given how awkward and tacky it looks on the page.
    – enderland
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 11:33
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    It seems counterproductive to me. I would assume this was a bug, now I know its intentional, I assume that any advertiser who uses it on a technical is tone-deaf about the audience they're trying to reach, and therefore incompetent. Techies are not exactly renowned for enjoying this kind of nonsense...
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 14:48
  • Let's be honest, folks: the real problem with these ads is that they never once suggest you might have a case of the Mondays...
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 20:36
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    (I'm not going to argue whether is right or wrong) but this is what's called a full page takeover when we sell ads. It's not super common but I can tell you it's happened since the site first started selling ads. This is probably just the first time you noticed it. Might be more of a call to re-design the ads.
    – Juice StaffMod
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 20:42
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    @Juice nah. I'll just adblock it myself and not care. I'm not sure why my adblock didn't hit it anyways, now that I think about it. I'm more concerned that it makes a site I care about look quite tacky.
    – enderland
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 20:45
  • Also, for the record, I downvoted this because I disagree this is a good functionality for the site. IMO it's still a bug, even if it's a bug "by design."
    – enderland
    Commented Aug 4, 2016 at 18:07

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