Problems with archiving and replaying current web advertisements

Abstract

Advertisements have always been a part of our cultural heritage, and this also applies to online web advertisements. Unlike print ads, there are serious technical challenges involved in archiving and successfully replaying ads displayed in web pages. To explore these challenges, we created a small dataset of 250 web ads. Ultimately, we collected and archived 279 ads, which we classified into 5 different categories: combination ads, image ads, embedded web page ads, video ads, and text-only ads. In our sample, combination ads were the most prevalent and, not surprisingly, text-only ads were the easiest to archive and replay. During the course of this study, we encountered five major problems in archiving and replaying the web ads. We detail the issues uncovered and provide suggestions for ameliorating the replay of some web ads, in addition to other dynamically loaded embedded web resources.