YouTube has started displaying server-side ads to combat ad blockers – Technology News

After YouTube faced problems with ad blockers, the company experimented with server-side ad delivery.

The developer of SponsorBlock, a crowdsourced extension for skipping sponsored segments, announced today that “YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad delivery,” 9to5Google explained.

At a high level, the new initiative is intended to address the problem of ad blockers.

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What's new?

With the new update, YouTube seems to be continuing its crackdown on ad-blocking tools with server-side ad insertion, a feature that inserts ads directly into the video stream.

This approach can protect against ad blockers like SponsorBlock, a crowdsourced extension that skips sponsored segments “by offsetting all timestamps against ad times,” 9to5Google explained. SponsorBlock's developer has set up a server that rejects submissions from browsers with this issue to prevent incorrect data entry.

This method is believed to be part of YouTube's ongoing efforts to combat ad blockers, including targeting third-party clients on mobile devices. Additionally, users are encouraged to subscribe to YouTube Premium as an alternative.

The plan ahead!

Experts believe that server-side advertising is a more general problem with full ad blockers, which YouTube has tried to counteract in various ways over the past year.

Currently, this feature is in testing and not yet widely used. Critics argued that problems arose while testing the ad infrastructure. However, YouTube has not provided detailed information about the technical changes made.

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