Google AdSense: Where to place?
 

As many members suggested, I will be testing out Google AdSense on GFF. I do not want the ads to be hinder the GFF experience. Which location(s) would be best to place Google AdSense on?

The bottom of course. Or LeHahs signature.

Between the Forum Jump thing and the vb credits seems like the best place. But as long as it's under the quick reply box I'm happy.

Just before the footer, I guess. Placing the ads in the footer template itself isn't recommended since Google doesn't want you putting them on search pages, who's online pages (basically pages without actual content).

There's a couple of vB mods to take care of this.

Go for sticking them on the bottom. Seems to work well.

I agree with the bottom. Its out of sight and everyone will know they're there.

If we know they're there, we can use them. Its best to keep them at the bottom for now, right?

Would it be possible to have AdSense, but then some members could also "subscribe" to not see the ads ever, kinda like the $3/month subscription in last.fm.

As for location, somewhere on the bottom would be good to not see it. :p Bigblah said it can't be in the actual footer code, but I think it can still be modified so it appears to be in the footer, though just not in the actual footer code. Perhaps just move the powered by/copyright info to a right cell.

You could always place some 'text link' lines which are really about 20 pixels high near the top of the page, but I would keep block ads for the bottom, or at the very top next to the GFF logo

Either place them at the bottom of each page or put them into the loading screens which appear after you have posted.

At the bottom. Most of us probably don't even scroll down far enough to see them very often, and when we get the jones to get some click-throughs for the site, it won't be intrusive at all.

I think additional ads should be placed in the trading forums, especially the My Stuff forum. Like at the top of each page and in between every post in My Stuff.

Haha, add some vB code to let a poster place ads in his/her post. Swet.

Bottom of the page. SB Forums had 'em at the bottom below Quick Reply. Quite a painless addition =)

I think the only logical spot is in place of the GFF Banner.

At the bottom would be fine. I don't mind the implementation on Blah's Serious Business forums.

The bottom is also my first choice. I don't think it would be too bothersome down there.

I thought that Google had rules prohibiting the use of advertisments on sites that offer music and other illegal fun for download? I mean, GFF doesn't have actual files for download, but if a Google spider pokes in that subforum and sees a bunch of posts about MUSIC and FTPS and WAREZ, it might raise a few alarms at the Googleplex.

Of course, places like Galbadia Hotel use Adsense, and they have lots and lots of direct links to music, so I'm probably worrying about nothing. I can't help but think that it might be safest to avoid using ads on the My Stuff subforums anyways, though.

Oh yeah, and I'd say that the bottom is the best place for the banners. I think that it'd fit in a bit better right above the vBulletin copyright notices, instead of at the very bottom.

I didn't even notice the ads were there!

By the way, I'm clicking on every ad.

jeremy

Excellent, the AdSense code is live.

Hopefully this will go a long way into easing the burden of funding GFF, bobo!

A suggestion - although I'm not sure if this is possible, and that Google is not allowed to spider any of the contents of the Request Forums, Sewers, or Concert Hall, perhaps it may be prudent to use some kind of code to avoid showing ads on these, um, TOS-sensitive content forums :D

Please don't.

Google isn't that stupid. Plus, they had to settle with advertisers on the order of millions for fraudulent clicks, so they're not really in the mood for that sort of thing right now.

Aren't these ads supposed to reflect the content on the forums.

We should be seeing discounts for anime DVDs, right.

The bottom is good for the ads to be out of the way, but how effective are they if they're out of the way? MoDaCo Forums has an implementation that I like because people are guaranteed to see the ads, but the ads are not too in-your-face. Essentially, after the first post in a thread, there's a table that has some Google ads, and then the rest of the thread continues after that.

See here for an example:
http://www.modaco.com/RealOne_Player...e-t224125.html

They also have an Adsense row on forums themselves, where all the threads are listed. See here for an example:

http://www.modaco.com/Smartphone_Articles-f18.html

A similar implementation would allow GFF to maximize its advertising revenue by getting more people to see the ads.

First of all, no one actually bothers to click the ads.

Secondly, entering a thread takes you to the last post, so you'd miss the ad bar.

It is? I guess this ad-blocking software is better than I thought...

Nice, glad to see it finally implemented. The location is perfect, and it blends in nicely. Bravo!

Just replace any of Megalith's posts with an ad. We can pretty much logically assume that he's saying that the topic of the thread sucks in some way. :edgarrock:

Yeah, at the bottom is fine. The way the layout is currently setup, I don't see much where else to put them. Looking at this reply box right now, I guess an ad could be fit in the space to my right or left.

Unfortunately Adblock plus another Firefox extension make most ads totally invisible.

I guess it can't hurt to have them, anyway.

I just noticed the ads at the bottom of the page. Excellent choice of location. It blends in nicely! It's also much better than pop-ups. ;)

I didn't even notice the ads down there until it was mentioned in this thread, hehehe.

Thank you for finally getting this implemented. ;)

I don't think the priority is to maximize the advertising revenue. Rather, it's just to get enough to fund the monthly expenses of the server :biggrin:

Well yeah :) I'm just dubious as to how effective the ads will be if they are at the bottom of every page. I guess we'll have to give it some time and see.

I'm just wondering, how has the income from this been so far?
Beyond our wildest imaginations? Insufficient? Is bobo rolling in bling now?

Yeah, I'd like to know how it's doing as well. =p

Is bobo the only one that can access the adsense control panel? >=/

I didn't notice the ads until I noticed this bumped thread. Silly me.

I am also curious as to how much this is producing.

You're not likely to find out, either. Google has a policy restricting the discussion of profits from AdSense.

oh! I guess i'll whitelist the board because my adblock totally remove it >.> I'll try to click it once in a while

They've recently removed the clause prohibiting disclosure of profits, though.

Good luck getting bobo to put it anywhere other than the bottom of the page, but thanks!

Thank you. We'll take it under advisement.

Now run along, little girl.

I think we should place it in styphon's signature. Just by visiting the banned members thread you'll see plenty of them to click on. :3

No, we should put it in Miles' signature. With 2,147,483,649 of his posts littered throughout the board, there's no other logical place for it to be.

It's better blending in to the background. No one wants flashy ads. The boards are still going to crash eventually, no matter how much bobo makes.

I think it would be worth a shot to try some of disgust's ideas. If the ideas don't work out for one reason or another, it's easy enough to revert back to how everything is now.

Let the ads where it is right now. Most users won't see the difference anyway.

Maybe bobo should ask for donations.

Found this interesting site:
http://www.text-link-ads.com/link_calculator.php

According to this, selling a single link ad just before the Gamingforce footer will get you $89 per month :P

What exactly happened to this, anyway? I've got all the adblocking junk on my PC switched off right now, but I don't see any Google Adsense presence.

Come to think of it, you're right. My best guess is the account was suspended for either violating some terms of service, or had fraudulent clicks :p

I thought it was weird how, just today, whenever browsing Gamingforce I was having to press the back button twice to get to the previous page I was at. So I rolled over the back button after following a link, and a http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com URL shows up.

Heh: Doubleback

Although upon looking at this thread, I do see somewhat of an explanation. I never noticed that Google ads were to be implemented. They never even appeared on my thing anyway.

They came and went. We're not really sure why they went.