The 10 Online Ad Formats People Hate Most

The Business Insider asked usability testing firm Catalyst Group to come up with a list of online ad formats people hate most.

They are:

• Banner ads below headers
  
• Ads that look like content
  
• Dancing ads
  
• Auto-expanding half-page ads
  
• Banners next to logos
  
• Billboards in the top right corner
  
• Google text links interrupting content
  
• Ads with hidden close buttons
  
• Interstitials
  
• Page Take-overs

A couple points to remember while going through the list:

• People basically hate all advertising. But they also know and accept that it's the cost of free content.
• Advertising on TV, radio and print has always been interruptive and distracting.
  
• We are guilty of perpetrating a few of these units on our readers (sorry!).
• Which is why our goal here is to help publishers 1) choose the lesser of several evils 2) at least know what they're inflicting on their users, so that it's a choice, not an accident.