Why We Removed Ads from Our Free Tools (And Put Them Only on Blog Posts)

This article was originally published on Jo4 Blog . We built a suite of free developer tools: JSON formatter, JWT decoder, QR generator, UTM builder, and about a dozen others. Then we added AdSense to every page. Then we removed it from most of them. Here's why. The Original Plan The logic seemed sound: Free tools bring traffic (SEO) Traffic sees ads Ads generate revenue Revenue funds development We added a simple component to our UtilityPageLayout : // Before: Ad on every utility page export fu