This mod adds a Google Adsense large rectangle below the navbar together with an eye catching welcome message and a call to action (registration).
This ad is the best performing ad on my forum. I run a forum with a fixed width and I think that on a fluid style this mod won’t look that good, but give it a try if you want.
Installation instructions
In the template navbar find:
{vb:raw ad_location.global_below_navbar}
and add below:
<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">
<div class="ads_lr_wrapper">
<div class="ads_lr">
YOUR GOOGLE ADSENSE CODE HERE
</div>
<div class="ads_lr_welcome">
<p id="welcome_bold_big">Welcome to YOUR FORUM NAME</p><br />
<p id="welcome_normal">your forum for YOUR THEME</p><br />
<ul>
<li><b> »</b> some things people find</li>
<li><b> »</b> on your forum</li>
<li><b> »</b> some reasons why</li>
<li><b> »</b> guests should register</li>
</ul>
<br>
<p id="welcome_bold">...then you have come to the right place!</p><br />
<p id="welcome_normal">we will try to help you with your problem.</p><br />
<p id="welcome_bold_big"><a href="https://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/register.php">YES! I want to register an account for free right now!</a></p><br />
<p id="welcome_small">p.s.: For registered members YOUR FORUM NAME is free of ads</p>
</div>
</div>
</vb:if>
In template additional.css add:
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| #> Large Rectangle Ad + Welcome Text below navbar
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
.ads_lr_wrapper {
border: 2px solid #274C84;
-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:5px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomright:5px;
-moz-border-radius-topleft:5px;
-moz-border-radius-topright:5px;
background: #ffffff;
width:850px;
height:290px;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right:auto;
}
.ads_lr {
position: relative;
background: #ffffff;
width: 336px;
margin-left: 10px;
margin-right: 30px;
float:left;
}
.ads_lr_welcome {
background: #ffffff;
position: relative;
width: 460px;
margin-top: 10px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: 10px;
float:right;
}
#welcome_normal {
font-size:normal;
font-family:Helvetica;
text-decoration:none;
text-align: left;
}
#welcome_small {
font-size:x-small;
font-family:Helvetica;
text-decoration:none;
text-align: left;
}
#welcome_bold {
font-weight:bold;
font-size:normal;
font-family:Helvetica;
text-decoration:none;
text-align: left;
}
#welcome_bold_big {
font-weight:bold;
font-size:large;
font-family:Helvetica;
text-decoration:none;
text-align: left;
color:#274C84;
}
Notes, Problems, Solutions
Make sure to check and adapt especially domain to fit your forum.
Of course you should customize the welcome text to fit your forum and change the colors and size of the welcome box to fit your forums theme.
Side note
- Due to the large amount of text in the welcome box every search engine will index this text for all your webpages first.
- I changed my text to an image with an image map so that the link is still clickable. You might want to do the same.
- You can create your image map on this website if you don’t know how:
https://www.image-maps.com
Problem: I can’t see my Ad!
- Solution 1: You are logged in as Member. View your forum as guest because the welcome box will only be shown to guests.
- Solution 2: You are displaying the standard vBulletin Guest welcome notice (the ugly yellow one).Either deactivate it in your ACP or remove the condition:
AND !$show['notices'] from my code
Problem: I see the welcome but no Ads
- Solution 1: If you created your AdSense Ad Unit just now wait about 30 minutes and it should show up.
- Solution 2: Disable your Ad Blocking Software 😉 Sometimes Firewall Software also sometimes blocks Ads.
Of course feedback is welcome.
If you have suggestions to further improve CTR please let me know!
So far I made extensive use of Adsense channels to track each of my Ads separately. I also activated "placement targeting" for the best performing ad placements.
However I did not realize the full potential of "placement targeting" until 3days after I talked to my direct advertising marketer.
Q: What is the main goal of an advertiser? A: To show there ads to their target group which most likely will convert
Q: Is wider or narrower targeting more effective? A: I think it depends but mostly the more narrow the target group is, the better the Ads perform
Just as info to you: CPM prices for a very narrow targeting e.g. topics about "cough" or "skin rash" are 40-50$ (campaigns that my direct advertising marketer runs) Campaigns that are not that narrow e.g. health only get 10-20$ CPM. Yes, it makes that much of a difference.
So what did I do?
I created a separate channel for each forum category that is interesting to advertisers e.g. health, diseases, nutrition, alternative medicine, etc. for the ad in this welcome message.
Each of these channels was selected for placement targeting and got a description that outlined the topics in which these ads will be shown.
Then I created several large rectangle ads and assigned each one a category channel I created before.
Now each thread in a specific forum shows the Ad with the channel that was created for this specific forum. (At the bottom you'll find the condition chain I created to show different ad channel in each forum)
Now each advertiser can narrow down the placement targeting on my website to a certain topic which suites his campaign best.
For example an advertiser who is selling homeopathy can now target his Ads to my forum "alternative medicine" and his ads are only shown to people interested in "alternative medicine".
This way conversion and CTR should increase quite a bit and a lot more advertisers should use placement targeting on my website over time and with that increase my earnings.
To understand the naming concept for channels that I use read my post: The Secret to using Channels
Remember if you create these channels activate placement targeting for each channel and use a informative description! I used: and here is the condition code you can wrap around the above posted mod code:
<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search' AND THIS_SCRIPT != 'index' AND THIS_SCRIPT != 'showthread' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']"> WELCOME Message + LARGE RECTANGLE that is shown on all places except Homepage, Threads and Search. I called the channel "PatFra - LR - Welcome Remainder" </vb:if> <vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']"> <div class="ads_lr_wrapper"> <div class="ads_lr"> <vb:if condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID"> ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown on all Threads (and threads only!) in my "Health and prevention" forum Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Health & Prevention (PatFra = Patientenfragen.net = Website Tag | LR = Large Rectangle = Ad Size | WT = Welcome message in Thread = Ad Location | Health & Prevention = Forum / Topic) <vb:elseif condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID" /> ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown in my "Deseases" Forum Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Deseases <vb:elseif condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID" /> and so on....... <vb:else /> ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown in all Forums that are not interesting for placement targeting e.g. introductions, shit chat, news, etc. Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Rest </vb:if> </div> <div class="ads_lr_welcome"> Welcome message, for the code look in the mod thread above </div> </div> </vb:if> <vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'index' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']"> Welcome Message and Adsense Large rectangle Ad shown on Forum index only. Channel: PatFra - LR - Welcome Home This ad location is also interesting for many advertisers because some advertisers want to only show their ads on the homepage and not on subpages. </vb:if>To discuss my approach on Placement Targeting please go to this thread: Do you harness the full potential of placement targeting?Kind regards
admin
I was always a fan of nice blending with the visitor experience in mind.
I hate it to plaster Ads on my site without them adding real value to my users experience.
I was trying to implement this mod for my 3.8 forum.
I see in adsense ad in your website (Resource no longer exists) , the large rectangle does not show "Next ads" (the <> navigation to more ads at the left bottom of the ad.)
For me, I am getting this "Next ads".
How did you do that?
Thanks
I have a display issue when a member uses the google search. It looses all styling....
Of course the colors are what they should be. That makes an ideal ad placement, with no other adsense block above, so it gets the best paying ads.
Congrats and thank you for the code implementation although I don't have forums and don't want any.
When I showed my forum to my brother he said "oh you have 8 doctors online currently?" and I said "no, this is an advertisement" :D
thanks for that.
First of all i simply like the welcome message.
As I use a fluid Template so i change it slightly.
I add a additional CSS Class for a 100% Background and center your code.
As background Color i use the same that i yous for the navbar Background.
That is optical a good way to put the different widths together.
Greetings Christian
or this: Exactly Center an Image/Div Horizontally and Vertically
or you can try this: A centered Banner below the navbar that is loaded AFTER
Thanks for the share of the code, the welcome ad looks so much neater now I'll report back any changes.
You could center the whole welcome box but I really would not make it resizable.
On large screens like mine the big distance between ad and welcome text does not work like the idea behind this intended.
The idea is to have the AD directly next to the welcome text to make it part of the content.
The more distance there is between Ad and welcome text the less it will work.
I have spend the last day just slurping up the wonderful wealth of information on this forum.
Thank you so much!!
I have one question on this mod here.
If you look at my screenshot attached, the text is not aligned to the left like on your forum.
Can you perhaps help me with getting that done please?
Thank you very much! Here you go: (Resource no longer exists)
I just see that for some reason my forum sidebar is gone when I use this. (For a guest) As soon as I log in, I see it again. Can this mod of yours cause this perhaps?
Try to place the Code somewhere else in the navbar template.
i like this Tool, and i have integrated it into my Board. Thanks very much.
But i have a little Problem. In the Imprint Site (German Impressum) i dont like to show it. How can i remove it from the Imprint Site?
Any Ideas?
Thanks
sorry, can you help me please once again; please tell me where i can place this code? In the navbar?
And where there?
I don't want the Adsense Integration to my Imprint Page.
Thanks alot
This has jumped to my second biggest income ad in less than a week.
I also just centered it on my fluid skin, and I think it looks OK.
The tips I got on this site is really fantastic, and has made a huge difference in my adsense income.
Thank you very much admin!
However, I visited your site (Resource no longer exists) and saw the welcome ads for guest.
I really liked the blend you did and I then decided to register as I know you are doing good work and research.
Hopefully I will continue here, currently busy in my revamping my old forum to VB.
Good luck.
Here is one such page : The World of Employment in India - Career Situation - Sharing My Experience !:eTI
However, I saw almost no effect in CPM, its only available to guest. Prior to your idea, I was using something similar, ie. showing ads similarly but without border etc. and with only intro to thread along side, now I have used intro to site also.
Very bad CTR though, between 1-2% ..
What do you suggest, what I can do to improve CTR, currently I am thinking to change the location of word "advert" or I should completely remove it as one of my other site, I once I had removed it, CTR doubled and CPM still not affected even after 6-7 months.
Thanks for your advice, obviously having never used it, could you explain the best way to have this adsense addon by using the TMS?
New tms for the Master Style, choose template header insert first:
{vb:raw ad_location.global_below_navbar}than choose the option add below and insert in the second field:<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']"> <div class="ads_lr_wrapper"> <div class="ads_lr"> YOUR GOOGLE ADSENSE CODE HERE </div> <div class="ads_lr_welcome"> <p id="welcome_bold_big">Welcome to YOUR FORUM NAME</p><br /> <p id="welcome_normal">your forum for YOUR THEME</p><br /> <ul> <li><b> »</b> some things people find</li> <li><b> »</b> on your forum</li> <li><b> »</b> some reasons why</li> <li><b> »</b> guests should register</li> </ul> <br /> <p id="welcome_bold">...then you have come to the right place!</p><br /> <p id="welcome_normal">we will try to help you with your problem.</p><br /> <p id="welcome_bold_big"><a onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Outgoing', 'www.YOURDOMAIN.com/register.php']);" href="https://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/register.php">YES! I want to register an account for free right now!</a></p><br /> <p id="welcome_small">p.s.: For registered members YOUR FORUM NAME is free of ads</p> </div> </div> </vb:if>The css part I would insert into additional.css as well.PS. Thanks for the help
I you got the system who TMS works you will love it!
If it is able to find the first text field.
TMS is a on-the-fly search and replace feature.
It makes editing original templates unnecessary.
Ater each upgrade TMS will tell you if any TMS modification does not work anymore with the new templates
(this means it can't find the search code anymore).
You can then correct it and rebuild all TMS modifications
(that is one click) and you are done.
I LOVE this mod and would not want to miss it.
Greatest mod ever.
Sorry I don't understand all clearly. But I try to answer.
TMS is working with CSS Templates as, well. You can for example implement nearly all changes into TMS.
How do you use the TMS to add code to the additional.css? The file itself is blank so there's no code to add after, before or replace?
i have a fluid forum and i cant use this great adsense placement, i tested it but its deformed shape i visited also the sites wich you present to how do that for a fluid page but i didnt understand.
can you help me please ?
and thank you for theses ideas.
i have also a fluid Forum (vB4.04) but it works great!
(you can send me the link by MP if you want)
the welcome message work but its fixed and and not fluid as the forum !
any way to get the same width as the forum ?
The welcome box performs best when the ad is directly next to the welcome text which was created in the first place to optimize blending and prevent the "in your face" character of Ads placed alone in this position.
yes this is exactly the problem, this distance is soo big and that dosent help in blending,
if i can fix the adsense width i will add more texte to fill the gap, its possible to get a full wide rectangle ?
The additional.css however is a template that wont be overwritten with any upgrade so you are safe to add to it whatever you want ;)
This seems to overwrite any changes I've made to the theme (as you'd expect) and any thing I've added to the additional.css (ie. this adsense styling) so I have to make the changes everytime, I was hoping the TMS might be a way around this.
I'm guessing as long as my theme css ends in the same thing everytime I could still add the adsense code to the end of the additional.css everytime even if it's rewritten everytime
This way with each theme upgrade you would only overwrite css necessary for your theme.
Would be much more elegant this way.
Very good work!
Which ad format do you use?
But that is something everyone has to test for themselfs.
Does the first AdSense Ad Unit really gets the highest paying Ads
I am not sure that switching the loading order will increase revenue anymore but when I have the time I will test this in the near future. It is on my list. :)
If it does not work with this setting then you are showing vbulletin notices to your guests.
That is what this condition does:
Only show ads if
- the page is not the search page (THIS_SCRIPT != 'search') and
- vBulletin does not show notices (!$show['notices']) and
- the user is a guest ($show['guest'])
vBulletin conditions are not that hard to read ;)
Also do you know a way to php include an rss feed instead of welcome info.
The "next ad" depends on the number of ads available for the targeted keywords on this specific webpage.
2 300x250 ads in the header below navbar None in the posts
Now:
Using this method with 1 LR with a welcome message next to it Testing a MR in the 1st post LU above "preview post" etc. links
I can say my total earnings have taken a SLIGHT drop by removing the 2 header images and just using 1 large one. BUT, my bounce rate has dropped about 6-10+%!!! And by looking at my registration stats, I'm going to assume that the bounce rate is dropping bc of that, thus increasing my pageviews!! Here's my registration stats! Over double what I was getting:
Seems the img button isn't working good so here:
Image link
Now the goal is, to convert these people into paying members!!! It's quite nice to see all my stats start increasing with just this lil change. I'm getting more returning visitors...roughly an increase of 20% since implementing this!
Thanks to this site, I'm more informed on how I need to be keeping track of my ads, how to do split testing, and the various placements to try out! It's been great and I'm very excited to see how my revenue will increase in the future with just using these new tools presented on this site.
please tell me
You need to change "YourImprintPage" of ocurse to the script name.
Thanks again.
.ads_lr_wrapper { width:850px; height:315px; border: 2px solid #274C84; -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -khtml-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -moz-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -khtml-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -webkit-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); background: #ffffff; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; }Thanks for that, I have the CSS like this but the shadow doesn't show in either FF or IE?,
Is this correct?.
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | #> Large Rectangle Ad + Welcome Text below navbar +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/ .ads_lr_wrapper { width:960px; height:290px; border: 2px solid #2564A0; -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -khtml-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -moz-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -khtml-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -webkit-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); background: #ffffff; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; } .ads_lr { position: relative; background: #ffffff; width: 336px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 30px; float:left; } .ads_lr_welcome { background: #ffffff; position: relative; width: 460px; margin-top: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 10px; float:right; } #welcome_normal { font-size:normal; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_small { font-size:x-small; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_bold { font-weight:bold; font-size:normal; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_bold_big { font-weight:bold; font-size:large; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; color:#274C84; }TIA. :)The URL is: (Resource no longer exists)
The Welcome box does the greeting part and does not look so good with an additional vbulletin notice (the yellow build in guest greeting).
Deactivate your vbulletin guest welcome notice and you'll see the Box.
Or remove the condition:
thanks for the information. I just removed the condition but the box below the new welcome message still appears. Did I forget something?
And is there a way to center it or to add some free space above the new welcome box between the ads and the welcome box?
Thanks
Should I add margin-top: 10px; for example?
YEP that solved it :-) Thank you for the help
I am in the video game niche so expect a lower than average CTR and lower CPC :(
Pages With Too Many Ads "Above The Fold" Now Penalized By Google's "Page Layout" Algorithm
I think this part is the most important for us.
I wont change a thing unless I am affected.
This is a new update so just measure search engine traffic for a few weeks after implementing, maybe you'll be fine. My site, battleforums.com , got destroyed with an 80% decrease in traffic.
So just a fair-warning to keep alert with this new Google update.
Did you change anything else besides implementing my Ad?
I still stand by it that I doubt that this Ad placement will trigger the new algorithm:
Site is very authoritative and been around for 9 years + with steady traffic. Went from 1,000-1,100 visitors/day to 200-250. Drop came all in one day. No other site or ad changes.
MASSIVE NOTE: after making this post I dove very deep into my analytics and it appears that I may be having a hosting issue.
I pay a lot of money for a good host but it appears they may have been overselling on my server and causing some issues. SO, this could simply be the result of slow page loads.
I will update you guys as soon as I find out more from my host. Rather angry with them right now.
Even though I doubt that it is my ad placement I can't give you more than my guess.
I personally wont take them down untill I see negative effects on my traffic.
Do you have a specific date when the drop occured?
That said I just wanted to experiment and see if it changed any traffic stats I'll keep you posted. With this being my best paying ad I was slightly worried about seeing a massive drop but after one day I have seen my ad in the first post increase massively obviously due to the top on not being there. I also added the square in the last post so none of my ads appear above the main content in the thread.
This is where I think my theory above about google's ideas might be slightly flawed as in a thread page the main content is in the posts quite far below the ad, whereas if this ad only appears on the home page of the forum it is the main content as registering is the main activity from the forum home page.
Like I say only a test and I'll keep you updated, hope I'm wrong as I think this is the neatest and best place for an ad unit for non registered users.
Put mine back to how it was, as far as my experiment went this ad position has no negative effect on google rankings.
How did you determine this?
.ads_lr_wrapper { width:850px; height:315px; border: 2px solid #274C84; -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -khtml-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px; -moz-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -khtml-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); -webkit-box-shadow:4px 5px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6); background: #ffffff; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; }Do you have a solution for a placement where the content floats arround eg a div with float:left;?
Your current soltion adds the AdSense correctly but below this placement there is white space.
Any idea?
Regards
Decrease the hight of the box if you have white space below the ad.
Or decrease margin-bottom for the distance below the welcome box
I am curious how it performs.
Maybe I have to try it out on my own.
congralutions, nice mod and placement for Adsense!
I am testing your nice Mod with a little modification, on a my forum (work in progress). I inserted the code for the "navbar" in a new "notice message", so I can manage well the forums where insert Google Adsense, and those forums where I can have better earns with other affiliations and programs.
Then, I will change the text on the right, with a title and a description better for seo, and to describe well that forums.
Please, Can I have your help to centered well your Mod on my site?
I would like centered it as on your site patientenfragen.net, with the same width of breadcrumbs, above.
(Resource no longer exists)
Thank you admin, Regards
I would not use the yellow notices.
Better to implement an Ad Server and create different ad units for your subforums.
You can do that by using conditions.
Will save you a lot of work in the long run
Please try yourself
I have this problem in both Chrome and IE9 ---- and I tried pasting it into a text editor.
Like I said, I can't reproduce it ;)
I changed the welcome box text to an image (including my ADVERTISING marking).
The reason for it is that SEs are indexing all my pages with my welcome box text as snipped which isn't that good SEO wise :)
Changed it here too so if you want to have a look just log out and check the welcome box
If you run my Ad Placement you might want to consider the same
Should I still make the changes?
Just put the image code and the image map code inside the and remove the text.
@peterherman: You don't need to if your pages get indexed right however it can't hurt either
CSS code, or HTML code?
Thank you.
I have the exact same problem ---
Does it happen in other browsers too?
This is part of the code I used in my additional.css template:
.ads_lr_wrapper { border: 2px solid #555555; -moz-border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px; -khtml-border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px; border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px; -moz-box-shadow: 4px 5px 8px rgba(255,255,255,0.6); -khtml-box-shadow: 4px 5px 8px rgba(255,255,255,0.6); -webkit-box-shadow: 4px 5px 8px background: #131313; width:850px; height:290px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; }Can you perhaps point me in the right direction please?Thank you so much!
You should try it. It's great ;)
That is what I used....lol
Just missed the one part. Now all good. Really awesome addon!
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | #> Large Rectangle Ad + Welcome Text below navbar +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/ .ads_lr_wrapper { border: 2px solid #274C84; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:5px; -moz-border-radius-bottomright:5px; -moz-border-radius-topleft:5px; -moz-border-radius-topright:5px; background: #ffffff; width:850px; height:290px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; margin-left: auto; margin-right:auto; } .ads_lr { position: relative; background: #ffffff; width: 336px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 30px; float:left; } .ads_lr_welcome { background: #ffffff; position: relative; width: 460px; margin-top: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 10px; float:right; } #welcome_normal { font-size:normal; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_small { font-size:x-small; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_bold { font-weight:bold; font-size:normal; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; } #welcome_bold_big { font-weight:bold; font-size:large; font-family:Helvetica; text-decoration:none; text-align: left; color:#274C84; }It might be the Tynt javascript code that messes up the copy&past for some users.
I'll think about removing it