So it wouldn't be impossible if I used the Ad-Sharing version (just as long as I turned it off), right?

Not really, no. I'm afraid it's just not built to do what you're after.

Any chance that you will make this track ad clicks??? Then have it show how many clicks or impressions the ad gets to the buyer through some type of login area?

Thanks,
Itworx4me

Red,

I appreciate your work on this item, it's something I need and will really use.

I've got one error that I have found so far, it's with the threadbit ad. This shows up at the top of the Forumdisplay page when it's turned on.


Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second argument in /forumdisplay.php(905) : eval()'d code on line 119

When it's turned off, no error.

Any idea where that might be coming from?


Another question:

If you notice in my header I have the large Google ad and 7 smaller 125x125 ad locations. I would like to fix it so that each of the smaller locations is controlled separately. Right now I moved the right and left ad location to those and that's why there's 3 and 3 the same. An alternate would be to fix the random ad display on the left and right locations so that instead of all 3 having the same ad, they each have a different ad from the random list.

Again, thanks for your work.

Skip

http://www.sportsmanshomepage.com

That is not likely. It was intended for people using third party trackers like phpAdsNew, Google Adsense, Yahoo Ads etc. The other good reason not to is that currently aside from the optional Adsharing, this modification ads no queries to the running of the forum. Tracking would add database queries on every page by necessity, not something I want to do.




Are you using the latest version release a few hours ago? It should fix the first problem. As for the second, there's no way to control individually more than the default featureset without a significant amount of work. Sorry.

Sorry if this has been discussed before... I was wondering if this ad management system has a randomly appearing full-page ad feature where users must click a "Click Here to Continue" link to reach their desired page?

It doesn't, that was something I was going to add into the latest version but never got around to. I'd like to add it at some point.

I'll try changing the versions tonight.

I may look through that install file and see if I could code in an extra sport or 2.

Skip

Sounds great. I'm sure we'll have some tools to control these pages? I was envisioning something that allowed me to control the frequency of the full-page ads, and which members would be forced to view them.

Maybe something like this?

20% Unregistered Users
5% Registered Users
2% Moderators

I'm using header, footer, and left column right now...on my main page the column works perfect, but on any other page it strecthes out about 100 pixels throwing the layout off a bit. Can anyone tell me how I can fix this? Should I edit something in the left column template or header? thanks in advance.

Updated from 2.01 to last one on vb 3.6.5

Thanks.

I doubt it would be a per Usergroup setting, just a single percentage for anyone set to see ads. Which is slightly naff I agree, but there comes a point at which it all gets terribly complicated. For the admin, not me.

Yes, I updated and it fixed it.

I'm not picking, but just making a suggestion.

The idea of this hack is excellent and very much needed. However, vBulletin itself has way too many whistles in it that few people ever use. The deal is it causes unneeded bandwidth transfer and server clock time issues that slow the sites down.

For me personally, I can see no reason that I would ever use the ad revenue sharing thing. Not that it's that many bites and processes, but a few here and there would save a lot if it were removed. We run a quarter million hits per day, and a small amount makes a big difference when you add it up.

If all of that code were stripped out of it it would cut down on a lot of unnecessary things.

The Forumbit, Treadbit, and Postbit routines pretty much need to be there like they are so you have control over where in those items they appear and how.

The right side, left side, header and footer ads are basically place anywhere you like so long as you take the right and left template and edit them like the header and footer templates to do away with the 2 leveled box, centering and columns.

If it were simplified down to where you could readily go in and add controls for say 15, 20 or whatever you need of these go anywhere you place them ads I feel like it would be more useful to a lot more people.

Skip Walden
Skip's Outdoors Publishing

after the upgrade, my ads are no longer showing....

Having one % would defeat my purpose of "click to skip ad". I was hoping to have this as a registration *perk*.

Here's how i envisioned this working. Tell me whether any of this can cripple the server, or if it's not feasible. Keep in mind that I'm not a programmer, so some of these routes might seem a bit crazy. you have been warned. :)

* Two new fields would be created inside the usergroup table called "skipad" and "skipad_tmp" or something like that.

* The admin sets % variables for each usergroup and stored in each appropriate field. All skipad_tmp fields are set to 0 in the database.

* On every page load ( above the HTML tag) the value of "skipad" is grabbed. If the value of $skipad_tmp is less than (100/$usergroup_skipad), then add 1 to the value of $usergroup_skipad_tmp. If $usergourp_skipad_tmp == int( 100 / $usergroup_skipad_pct ), then redirect to skipad.php. The value of $skipad for that usergroup is reset to 0. The desired URL will be passed to this new page and placed inside a link allowing the user to "skip the ad".

Example:

$usergroup_skipad = 5%
$usergroup_skipad_tmp = 0

100 / $usergroup_skipad = 100 / 5 = 20
This means... when $usergroup_skipad_tmp reaches 20, the user is redirected to the skipad.php page. $usergroup_skipad_tmp is then reset back to 0, and the process starts over again.

If $usergroup_skipad_tmp doesn't = 20, then it increases by 1. And it will continue to do so until it hits 20. At which point, it gets reset to 0.

Over time, the law of averages will kick in. Is something like this feasible?

If you are using a custom delimiter or anything other than | to separate items in your Adcode or settings, ensure they match up with your specified delimiter in Global Settings or the ads won't show.

How so? All the new Ad-Sharing feature adds if turned off is a handful of extra IFs to process, nothing worth thinking about. Actually the 15/20/whatever extra generic placements would add just as many if not more IFs to deal with plus they'd have to use the global hook which would mean they're dealt with on every page load. Certainly it would be more of an issue than the Ad-sharing, although still not much of an issue I would think.

In short, don't worry about it. If anything is a concern to a large board it should be that they are using the plugin system which doesn't cache the code and keeps it in memory. If performance is an issue for you then I'd suggest taking the plugin code to a standard php file and not using the plugin system. All you'd need to do (I think, never done it myself) is transfer the plugin code to php files then alter the plugin to use include(yournewphpfile.php) and call the code externally.

I think you're right about the generic ads. While I don't want to add them as predefined for the reasons above, the code was deliberately written to be easy to extend and fiddle with. A short tutorial and a bit of cutting and pasting should have people adding more if they want very easily. I'll add it to the list...


Hmm. You really want those ads don't you? :p I'll have a look at per-usergroup and per-forum settings like this in the future, I've only just released one version with major changes I won't do another one for now.

It's not a vital tool, but it would be nice. :)

Many Thanks RedTyger for this absolutely well designed and support plugin! This plugin worked flawlessly on my site (my first one!)

Thanks for your patience and support. This is definitely should be voted as mod of the month! Good luck!

Yes, custom usergroup and forum permissions are a logical next step. Keep your fingers crossed for the future.


Great to hear, you're very welcome.

Hi guys,

I was using the vB Ad Management system, and I was wondering if I can insert PHP into the advertisement code. I've tried almost everything, but I just can't seem to get it working. Any suggestions?

I've tried:
Regards,
LPX

No, can't do that.

Well, is there any possible way around this? :( I really need this.


edit: Maybe I can add the PHP codes in the template and then assign a variable, then call the variable with JS?

No, PHP cannot be used in templates.

Hi RedTyger,

Love your mod. Just wanted to check if it is possible to display ads in a continuous mode instead of random?

Continuous mode...you mean sequentially, first then second then third in the list? It's not I'm afraid.

Hi, I have installed it and set it up, but I can't get it to show the openads ads.
I have tried different types of openads ads and none of them display. I know the ad codes are working because I can run it on a test php page.

If I just write "XYZ" in the banner area of VB Ads setup it does show the XYZ in my forum.

So apparently the problem is compatibility between openads and vbads.

Here is the openads code

My forum is at

http://www.snowbrasil.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1250

You can see the space for the banners between the posts, but nothing shows there.

And here you can see that the openads code works.

http://www.snowbrasil.com/ads.php

I appreciate your help.

Thanks so much

You can't use PHP in a vBulletin template. Sounds like OpenAds integration would require some kind of additional plugin, there might be one here if you search.

I thought I read on this same thread that vb ads was compatible with openads.
So I guess I have to use javascript instead.
Thanks

You have to use javascript or the phpadsnew plugin that adds an ad's tag to the code.

Hi all,

I'm still new to php and vbulletin. I wanted to ask if its at all possible to add two more rotating banners to the header and footer of my forum. Is that something that is pretty easy to do? Can someone give me a hand with doing that?

It would be much appreciated.

Very easy. Go to AdminCP > vBulletin Options > vBulletin Options > vB Ad Management (header & footer) and in both the random sections add your banner code for that section separated by a |. i.e.

<a href="nothing.htm"><img src="blah.jpg /></a>|
<a href="nothing1.htm"><img src="blah1.jpg /></a>

Then go to AdminCP > Styles > Styles Manager > Edit Templates (Style dropdown menu) and edit the header and footer templates, inserting $header_advertisement and $footer_advertisement in the appropriate templates where you want the banners to appear. Then just adjust your vB Ad Management Global Settings as necessary.

Wow that easy.. I'm so glad I picked vBulletin and vb Ad Management!

Thanks heaps for your input. I'll go make the changes over the weekend.

Ok one thing that makes it a bit more complicated. I have one banner in the header that I want to show 728x90 banners and two banners under that that I want to show 468x60 banners. How do i make them only display one size?

<img src="banner.jpg" height="60px" width="468px" />

Perhaps i'm missing something. I understand how to put the 468 banner in the admin cp section in the rotation field. But that means that there will be both 728 and 468 banners in the same section. So if I then add the $header_advertisement to the header, then it will rotate between both sizes.

What I'd like to achieve is to have the top banner only show the 728 banners and the two banners underneath only show the 468 banners. I hope this makes sense.

And I hope I'm just missing something and this is still easy to do.

Thanks again for the help.

I cant get the revenue sharing to work ive tried everything with the one user but the link never changes to the one in my profile field ever.

In the static header adcode:

<a href="nothing.htm"><img src="largead.jpg /></a>

In the random footer adcode:

<a href="nothing.htm"><img src=smallad1.jpg /></a>|
<a href="nothing.htm"><img src="smallad2.jpg /></a>

You never see your own advertisements.

Upgraded to 3.03 and thanks again for all your hard work on it. ;)

Hi,

Thanks for a great add-on.

Just one thing... how do I have the side ads showing on the actual posting screens, but not on the threadlist?

Is this possible?