ad-delivery.net, measured on 91 sites
ad-delivery.net is one of the hostnames a page contacts while it is filling advertising slots. It belongs to the plumbing of programmatic advertising rather than to any product a publisher would name, which is why it shows up in a network log and nowhere else. It was contacted on 91 of the 5,294 sites in this index. Those 91 are among the heaviest pages in this index: a median of 18 companies contacted per site, sixth of the 88 companies here, and a median of 12 counted before the banner could be answered, which ranks 4th of 88, level with three others.
Twelve companies before the banner, 4th of 88
The median site in this group records 12 separate companies contacted before the banner could be answered. Three of the 88 companies profiled here have a higher figure and three more report the same 12. At least one company arrived in that window on 84 of the 91 sites, a share of 92.3% that ranks 56th of 88, so the distinguishing feature is not how often early contact happens but how much of it there is. The median count after the window closes is 4. The examples show the scale plainly: theverge.com recorded all 21 of its companies in the early window, lanacion.com.ar all 20, imgur.com all 14, time.com 22 of 26, ynet.co.il 20 of 27, aternos.org 15 of 29, corriere.it 11 of 23 and olx.pl 6 of 14.
A banner on 86 of the 91 sites
This is the group where consent tooling is nearly universal. A recognised banner was present on 86 of the 91 sites, leaving only 5 without. IAB TCF conformant tools were seen on 64 of them, OneTrust on 17, Cookiebot on 4 and Usercentrics on 1, each counted alongside the others. TCF is the consent framework built for programmatic advertising specifically, so its dominance here is the framework showing up where it was designed to be. Ten of the twelve example sites carried a recognised tool, eight of them a TCF one.
These pages reach outside sooner than almost any other group
Median first contact is 524 ms, which ranks 80th of the 88 companies here on a scale where rank 1 is the latest. Only eight of the 88 groups make their first outside request sooner. The examples bear it out: time.com at 157 ms, imgur.com 216 ms, letterboxd.com 251 ms, theverge.com 271 ms, aternos.org 321 ms, lanacion.com.ar 396 ms and msn.com 417 ms. The fastest single first contact recorded in the group was 85 ms. Median requests per page is 85, seventh of 88, and median tracker-classified companies is 3, 22nd of 88.
Two companions on almost every site
btloader.com is present on 87 of the 91 sites, 95.6%, the tightest pairing anywhere in this group's data. dns-finder.com follows on 79 sites, 86.8%, then Google on 64, Amazon Ads on 42, Comscore on 28, fastclick.net on 22, crwdcntrl.net on 21, and jsDelivr, Cloudflare Analytics and Criteo on 15 each. Two near-constant companions and then a set of names that are all recognisably part of the same trade: an audience data platform, a measurement firm, an exchange, a retargeting network. This is not a stack a site assembles piece by piece; it is what arrives when a page starts selling its impressions.
Who runs these sites
Every one of the twelve examples is ad-funded publishing. msn.com sits at global rank 63, then time.com, imgur.com, theverge.com, corriere.it, nexusmods.com, letterboxd.com, gsmarena.com, olx.pl, lanacion.com.ar, ynet.co.il and aternos.org, running out to rank 1,322. Four languages of news, two community sites, a classifieds marketplace, a phone specification database, a film diary and a game server host. Their company counts run from 10 on letterboxd.com to 29 on aternos.org, with none below double figures. MurmStack measures a single URL the same way and reports every field on this page for it.
| Site | Companies | Before consent | First contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| msn.com | 12 | 11 | 417 ms |
| time.com | 26 | 22 | 157 ms |
| imgur.com | 14 | 14 | 216 ms |
| theverge.com | 21 | 21 | 271 ms |
| corriere.it | 23 | 11 | 986 ms |
| nexusmods.com | 17 | 12 | 472 ms |
| letterboxd.com | 10 | 10 | 251 ms |
| gsmarena.com | 11 | 9 | 703 ms |
| olx.pl | 14 | 6 | 1152 ms |
| lanacion.com.ar | 20 | 20 | 396 ms |
| ynet.co.il | 27 | 20 | 506 ms |
| aternos.org | 29 | 15 | 321 ms |
| Tool | Sites |
|---|---|
| IAB TCF consent tool | 64 |
| OneTrust | 17 |
| Cookiebot | 4 |
| Usercentrics | 1 |
Seen on the same pages
Companies most often contacted by the same sites. Co-presence only — the crawl records what arrived, not who called whom.
- btloader.comTogether on 87 of these sites
- dns-finder.comTogether on 79 of these sites
- GoogleTogether on 64 of these sites
- Amazon AdsTogether on 42 of these sites
- ComscoreTogether on 28 of these sites
- fastclick.netTogether on 22 of these sites
- crwdcntrl.netTogether on 21 of these sites
- jsDelivrTogether on 15 of these sites
Questions
What is ad-delivery.net?
A request host involved in serving programmatic advertising. It has no consumer-facing product name, so what this index records about it is behavioural: it was contacted on 91 of 5,294 measured sites, and on 87 of those btloader.com was contacted during the same page load.
Why do these pages contact so many companies?
The crawl records the count, not the cause. What it establishes is the scale: a median of 18 companies per page, sixth of the 88 companies profiled here, and 85 requests on the median page, seventh of 88. Every one of the twelve example sites is funded by advertising.
What is the IAB TCF consent tool?
A banner conforming to the advertising industry's Transparency and Consent Framework, which encodes a visitor's choices in a format ad vendors can read. Tools of that kind were recognised on 64 of these 91 sites, more than any other consent product here.
Does having a banner reduce early contact on these sites?
This index cannot answer that. It records that 86 of the 91 sites carried a recognised banner and that the median site counted 12 companies contacted before the banner could be answered. It does not record which companies those were, so the two figures sit side by side without explaining each other.