Miscellaneous Hacks - Rotating Banner System

With the Rotating Banner System software, you may publish literally anywhere standard banners and advertising, with no restriction but your imagination. Unlike many other products, it allows to show an unlimited amount of banners and advertising, which are randomly shown at the places you choose, and you may refer generically to an Ad by using specific placeholders.

Also the management is straight-forward and simple to use. Forum administrators with maintenance rights may add, edit and delete records from the Administration Control Panel (ACP), one of each representing a banner. After saving the new banner settings, they are immediately visible at your board.

Compatibility: from vBulletin 3.6.5 onwards

By the way, I do also install the hack on your boards, but since I am very, very busy, it may take some time (weeks) until it gets done.


Tutorials:

• How-to create my first banner (Flash).

Updates:

• 2.0.1: Simple click tracker added, HTML help included.
• 2.0.3: Small bug fixes; additional banner list, navigation bar, E-Mail field for banner event notifications and automatic save on scroll setting; absolute URL to rbs_banner.php in order to allow click tracking on non-standard pages; supported languages: English, Italian; Help file clean-up.
• 2.0.5: Small bug fixes; additional details in banner list; email notification for epired banners.
• 2.0.6: vbCMS compatibility bug fix; additional banner lists.
• 2.0.7: Usergroups filter: now it is possible to define a list of usergroups which may show a banner; additional vbCMS compatibility bug fix.
• 2.0.8: Various fixes and most of all, inclusion of the right files: admin_rbs.php, cpnav_rbs.xml
• 2.0.9: Extra comma fix in new record creation.
• 2.1.0: Fix for an occasional banner type selection bug, when the sample banners have been deleted or disabled.
• 2.2.0 (Major upgrade): Up to 10 different banner locations. Requires changes to your existing placeholders in your templates, since a more generic format has been chosen. If you don't need more than 2 different locations, you don't need to upgrade. Changed files: rbs_banner.php, admin_rbs.php
• 2.2.1: Minor bug fix in files: admin_rbs_h_banner_list.php, admin_rbs_v_banner_list.php
• 2.2.1: Hotfix for Max Clicks saving bug.
• 2.2.2: More listings and less files. PDF Help. Separate Italian add-ons and help. Duplicate button.
• 2.2.3: Minor bug fixes. Changed files: product-rbs.xml
• 2.2.4: Flash Banner support (beta). Changed files: product-rbs.xml, rbs_wrapper.swf, admin_rbs.php, English Help.
• 2.2.5: Hotfix for vBulletin 4.0.2 compatibility bug.
• 2.2.6: Checking for installed Flash Wrapper rbs_wrapper.swf; A few English FAQ; Help files. Changed files: product-rbs.xml
• 2.3.0 (Major upgrade): New modules: Delete Expired Banners, Disable Expired Banners; Detail Banner Statistics with unique access key for your customers; Updated help; Changed files: all.
• 2.3.1: Hotfix for missing field in rbs_hist table. Changed files: none, just update product.
• 2.3.2: Added: Unsupported option for setting any number of available positions between 1 and big bang. Fixed: Small bug and speed issues. Removed: Italian translation. Italians may now request support at www.vbulletin.it. Changed files: admin_rbs.php.
• 2.3.3: Fix: Copy selected forum ID's during banner duplication. Changed: start and end hours for new banners are set to 0:00 and 23:59 respectively. Changed files: admin_rbs.php.
• 2.3.4: Option: Send Mail Before. This option allows to schedule expiring banners differently. New variables for emails: $rbs_enddate: This variable holds the formatted banner ending date and time based on the standard formats for date and time in vBulletin settings; $rbs_name: This variable holds the banner name. EMail Notifications option description: Added direct links to the email phrases for quick changes. Changed files: rbs_mail_cron.php.
• 2.4.0 (Major upgrade): Removed: Option to enable or disable mailing. Banners with email addresses to notify are handled. Setting to reset mailing in single banners. Now, if mailing should be repeated, you will have to edit the banner from phpMyAdmin. Added: Order links in lists. The initial state is ordered by ID, as before. By clicking the titles, the other voices can be ordered. Clicking twice inverts the order. This works in all lists. Options to prevent counting and reducing thus a tiny bit of load. A new bunch of demo banners for new installations. Demo banners are locked into database in order to avoid 30% of the questions because of the 'experts' deleting them before trying the product. They can be disabled and modified though. The true experts can delete them after all testing from the database by using phpMyAdmin without side effects. Changes: Phrase for emailing about expiring banners, now also with direct links to the phrases. Demo banners. Our old publisher ID is replaced with the new ones, and old demo banners are updated with the new ones, if found. The functions have been exported to includes/functions_rbs.php. This makes the product code smaller and easier to maintain, and runs faster on sites where caching/acceleration is enabled. Changed Files: all *.php
• 2.4.1: Option Likelihood. This new option adds a weight to banners and allows thus to show one banner more often than another. The default weight is 100%. We also make sure that the final date of the default banners falls into a valid range. Changed files: includes/functions_rbs.php and rbs_stats.php.
• 2.4.2: Workaround for update sequence problems.

Hacks and unsupported add-ons:

• Banner Rotator Widget To CMS
• Rotate banners in-place
• Italian Translation

[webmaster74]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

Here, as an unofficial addon, you get the autorefreshing page (tested). It needs:

- a text editor;
- a refresh time of your choice (see metatag refresh in file, now at 10 seconds);
- a banner location (see placeholder in file, now at position 0);
- at least a banner for that location;
- a global target of a new page aka _blank (RBS options), else you jump into the iframe;
- a template modification for a 468x60 banner:

<iframe src="rbs_iframe.php" align="center" frameborder="0" height="60" width="468" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Please note: with smaller banners you get white borders, with larger than the iframe area, they are clipped.

could this be used to add a rel="nofollow" to links??

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

y2ksw?

What do you think guys?

You don't want to pass all of your PR juice to advertisers, do you?

Originally Posted by webmaster74

I respect your opinion Videx but beg to differ.

My advertisers paid to display their banners on my site, and they get that.

I don't want to lose my PR to them by providing them with links on every single page

You are laboring under a widespread but nonetheless false understanding of how a page passes PageRank. A link pointing to another page is a "vote" for the destination page and may add PageRank to that destination page. The originating page loses nothing.

The equation for this is:

PR passed = .85 * {PR of originating page} / {total # outgoing links on the originating page, incl. internal navigation links}

Note that using nofollow still counts as an outgoing link in this equation.

[webmaster74]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

You are laboring under a widespread but nonetheless false understanding of how a page passes PageRank.

Thank you djbaxter for your kind reply. I appreciate your taking the time to do so.

Originally Posted by djbaxter

A link pointing to another page is a "vote" for the destination page and may add PageRank to that destination page. The originating page loses nothing.

That is not what I learned. I?d appreciate it if you could sustain your argument with any solid proof from the horse?s mouth (google in this case)

Originally Posted by djbaxter

The equation for this is:
PR passed = .85 * {PR of originating page} / {total # outgoing links on the originating page, incl. internal navigation links}

Dj, such formula, if correct, would not be something that google published. So where does this come from Sir?
I?d appreciate it if you could provide any solid argument on this.

In fact, if that were true, my site should not be at all having any issues with PR because we have literally thousands of back links in facebook group discussions. Facebook as you surely know is a PR9.

My site used to be a PR4 for many years. It recently, in an enigma lost more than half a million of pages in google?s index (as estimated by site:mysite) and dropped to PR2. Despite thousands of back-links on Facebook groups, we are still PR2 and not moving any inch forward. The same can be said about the number of pages in Google index: stable at 150-200K.

Kindly check this where I explain this issue
http://forums.seochat.com/link-popul...rs-457075.html

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Note that using nofollow still counts as an outgoing link in this equation.

Sir, if the nofollow has no effect on your PR, why do big sites such as Facebook add target="_blank" rel="nofollow nofollow" to every single external link?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

That is not what I learned. I?d appreciate it if you could sustain your argument with any solid proof from the horse?s mouth (google in this case)

Sure. Look up the original patent for PageRank. It's in there.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

Dj, such formula, if correct, would not be something that google published. So where does this come from Sir? I?d appreciate it if you could provide any solid argument on this.

See the original patent.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

In fact, if that were true, my site should not be at all having any issues with PR because we have literally thousands of back links in facebook group discussions. Facebook as you surely know is a PR9.

As you yourself point out below, Facebook links are nofollow so they do not pass PR to you. Besides, there are other factors that may discount whether or how much PR is passed to your page by a link from another site. If you have kept up with Google updates over the years, you would know this.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

My site used to be a PR4 for many years. It recently, in an enigma lost more than half a million of pages in google?s index (as estimated by site:mysite) and dropped to PR2. Despite thousands of back-links on Facebook groups, we are still PR2 and not moving any inch forward. The same can be said about the number of pages in Google index: stable at 150-200K.

1. Panda updates.
2. Recent additional updates targeting the value of certain types of links and content.
3. As I said, you yourself point out that those Facebook links are nofollow.

This is not rocket science.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

Sir, if the nofollow has no effect on your PR, why do big sites such as Facebook add target="_blank" rel="nofollow nofollow" to every single external link?

Largely as a spam deterrent. And the target=_"blank" part opens the link target in a new browser tab or window. Nothing to do with PR.

[Steve038]

Hi guys, I just installed this mod, and its great! Well done to the creator of it.

Just one question, and I apologise in advance if this has been covered somewhere in the 123 pages of this thread so far, but I figured it'd be faster to just ask here than look through every page for an answer. Is there some code I can add to give me more margin space between my banner and everything around it? I've used it in ad_navbar_below but my banner is really close to some of the page link text above it, where its easy to accidentally click on the ad banner instead of the page link text. Eg, the ad banner sits really close to where I have: "Forum>my website name>General Discussion, and I'd like to move it down the page slightly.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by addamroy

Awesome I've been using this, so far so good.

Can i ask a question though?

Is there anyway you can make this addon track clicks even if we don't use an image?

I'd assume if we use an image and a link url, the system will generate a unique link for the ad, that when clicked will add a click to the counter. Is there any way you can have the add-on display this link for us on the manage banner screen so we can put this link into the ad text manually?

The reason I say this is because I use this addon to display text ads, and not banners, but would still be able to track clicks on these ads as well, I believe generating the unique URL for us without requiring an image would be awesome.

You may insert into your text banner the click tracker and refer to the banner id itself. We have talked about it several times here in this thread, last time not too long ago.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Steve038

Hi guys, I just installed this mod, and its great! Well done to the creator of it.

Just one question, and I apologise in advance if this has been covered somewhere in the 123 pages of this thread so far, but I figured it'd be faster to just ask here than look through every page for an answer. Is there some code I can add to give me more margin space between my banner and everything around it? I've used it in ad_navbar_below but my banner is really close to some of the page link text above it, where its easy to accidentally click on the ad banner instead of the page link text. Eg, the ad banner sits really close to where I have: "Forum>my website name>General Discussion, and I'd like to move it down the page slightly.

This is a pure HTML question. You may put a div tag around the placeholder with the necessary margins.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

You are laboring under a widespread but nonetheless false understanding of how a page passes PageRank. A link pointing to another page is a "vote" for the destination page and may add PageRank to that destination page. The originating page loses nothing.

The equation for this is:

PR passed = .85 * {PR of originating page} / {total # outgoing links on the originating page, incl. internal navigation links}

Note that using nofollow still counts as an outgoing link in this equation.

No matter how hard you try to keep your PR up, it doesn't work any more for already quite some time as it had before, because as far as I know, Google has not renewed their rights on a relative patent held by somebody else.

Also, the "ranking" (i.e. at which position your pages show in searches) is undergoing a lot of changes lately, all of which are favouring real information and penalizing "page rank thiefs".

Under these aspects, follow or nofollow have not a lot of meaning towards ranking, at most it does mean now the real thing: follow or leave that link

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

Dj, such formula, if correct, would not be something that google published. So where does this come from Sir?
I’d appreciate it if you could provide any solid argument on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

It is something which in fact was published world-wide by its inventor

The formula is far more complex but essentially the incoming page rank was somewhat (0.85 + adjustment) * (1/(# links on a page)). Thus it was a good idea to have very few links on the originating page.

Talking about most forums and sites, they have so many links on a page that looking for a good ranking was simply impossible.

For this reason, I believe Google has abbandoned the "old" ranking formula and now looks for better ways, giving a lot of SEO masters headache. Fortunately, genuine information is the winner, and always was. Thus, if you want to index your site well, produce real information

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

y2ksw?

What do you think guys?

You don't want to pass all of your PR juice to advertisers, do you?

The outgoing link is just voting that link.

The page from where you advertise from (originator) will loose a little of ranking, but you would loose it with any kind of link, internal or external. However, since ranking has changed, you should concern more about information. Now, good information adds way more rank, than a number or less of links to another site subtracts from.