adsense after 1st post

[dcallan]

Hi guys, I'm thinking about implementing adsense after the 1st post on everypage of a thread (10 posts per page), I have three questions, have the people that placed adsense here experieced positive CTR and revenue increases compared to other locations on their forums. I know specifics isn't allowed but general - very good, excellent, poor or general CTR ranges is ok. This board is an example of a board that uses it. http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread12725.html

I at the moment have my ads near the bottom of the page, but ctr is generally below the half percent mark and not making much really.

Question 2 - I got the code below from the daniweb forum and added a bit of stlying in myself however it only works on the first page, that means if a thread spans 2 or more pages, the ads still get placed only on the first page. I tried using <if condition="$post[postcount]==1 || 11 || 21 || 31">
and thought this would work if ten posts per page were displayed but it went all weird, any good at conditionals here?

<if condition="$post[postcount]==1">
  <!-- text advertising -->
  <br>
  <div align="center" class="smallfont">
  
  <table class="tborder" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" width="100%">
  <tbody><tr>
  	<td class="tcat" align='left'>Relevant Advertisements</td></tr>
  <tr><td bgcolor="#F8F8F8" align='center'><script type="text/javascript"><!--
  google_ad_client = "pub-************";
  google_ad_width = 728;
  google_ad_height = 90;
  google_ad_format = "728x90_as";
  google_ad_channel ="8546929806";
  google_color_border = "F8F8F8";
  google_color_bg = "F8F8F8";
  google_color_link = "22229C";
  google_color_url = "22229C";
  google_color_text = "22229C";
  //--></script>
  <script type="text/javascript"
    src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
  </script></td>
  </tr></tbody></table>
  
  </div>
  <BR>
  <!-- / text advertising -->
  </if>

Question 3 - I installed the mod_rewrite (available from that link I gave above) hack the day before yesterday, what is people experience with this, has it been helpful. I know vb gets spidered by default well enough but keywords in the filenames should really help right? Anyone use this before. I guess it will also help zone in on very targetted adsense ads too. I know I ask many questions but any answers are much appreciated. Thanks for your replies.

-- Dave

[dynamite]

1) I have been running adsense just below the navbar on my page for a little over a year, and I am averaging a .5% clickthrough rate. I have had as high as a 2.5% and as low as a .1%, so I think it just depends on the surfer and what it displayed that catches their eye.

2) I think with the conditional you could use

<if condition="($post['postcount'] == 1) OR ($post['postcount']== 11) OR ($post['postcount'] == 21)">

and so on, but why not just put it right below the navbar so it will display at the top of everypage. I guess it requires the viewer to see the add to read the next post.

3) I have no idea on this one, but if it is spidering all of your site the it shouldn't matter. I haven't much of a problem with keyword on my site.

[dcallan]

and so on, but why not just put it right below the navbar so it will display at the top of everypage. I guess it requires the viewer to see the add to read the next post.

Because I want to try and make as much money as possible so Yes this is the idea, the user specifically 'has' to read or at least glance the ads to read the next post, hopefully this will drive up CTR.

I did have leaderboard in the navbar before, the ctr fluctuated similarly to the way yours is, but when I moved to a skyscraper (in an attempt to improve) to the right colum I stupidly didn't create a new channel for this and can't remember the date or this change, so now I just have one channel called 'forums' which actually scans leaderboard and skyscaper data. I therefore have nothing solid to go on.

Yes that conditionals look like it should work, I really should know that considering I'm a final year computer science student.

Yes spidering is happening by default pretty good, but i think it may improve rankings. Anyone else any thoughts on these issues? Thanks for your help dynamite, much appreciated.

[Jake Bunce]

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=797154#post797154

[hankster]

Forums generally get very poor CTR and in fact many banner serviceswill not even accept forums into their programs because historicallythey do so badly. It is very doubtful that no matter what you do youwon't significantly change the CTR rate.

[dcallan]

Thanks for all the replies so far, hankster yes I know forums get poorCTR, but I guess if I can at least CTR a bit and then maybe increasetraffic via the mod_rewrite hack I mentioned above, I am on the rightroad.

I read about a variable called google_page_url (or something like that)that you place in adsense and it will use the url pointed to by thatvar to target the ads but display them on the current page.Digitalpoint does this, it uses its archive pages to target ads for thecorresponding thread page. The archive is less cluttered so target isbetter I believe, maybe I will try this, wondering about the legalitiesof it though.

[Mike Warner]

I did this after the frist post and it wasn't good. People hated it. I now have it at the bottom of each thread (not under the last post, as this would only show on teh last page of multiple page threads.) This is much better and easier to implement. I also added a side bar ad for forum indexes only. This also works well. I'm now thinking of adding it to the archives which is again supposed to be a great place to put them.

BTW - my paying users do not see any adsense.

[Lenni]

i added adsense after the first post of each thread and do recognize some more clicks.

[dcallan]

Yes lots of people have them on the archive, don't think that manypeople visit the archive though, so guess it depends on your personalranks in the engines.

'it wasn't good' - I may just display it for guests then, (aftera little test on the members) but the thing about it is members comeback and don't click the ads anyhow, so don't think it will make muchdiffy.

I try it from sunday night - ready for the full business week and tell people how it has gone.

oh mike could you not use
<if condition="($post['postcount'] == 10) OR ($post['postcount']== 20) OR ($post['postcount'] == 30)">
type of conditional, assuming you have 10 posts a page, I know its yourold implementation but I believe thats how you would do it

[dcallan]

i added adsense after the first post of each thread and do recognize some more clicks.

That is good news, a member called fansofrealitytv did this too and heused the word significant to describe the increase, so hoping to havesomething good to report back at the end of next week.

[hankster]

As an example, my Archives get 1/3 the views that my forum does but theincome is 4X what the forum is... that would make it about 10X moreeffective.

[cirisme]

2) I think with the conditional you could use

The only problem with this is that you have to define it for every page, and what if they've customised the number of posts to show per page?

Personally, I just use something to the effect of:

<if condition="!$show['hasfirstpost']">
<if condition="$show['hasfirstpost'] = true"></if>
<!---ad code--->
</if>

at the bottom of my postbit. Works like a charm.

[Lenni]

The only problem with this is that you have to define it for every page, and what if they've customised the number of posts to show per page?

then do try something like this. shouldn't it display the code always after the first post of a page no matter how many posts per page?

<if condition="$post[postcount] % $vboptions[maxposts] == 1">

[Mike Warner]

oh mike could you not use
<if condition="($post['postcount'] == 10) OR ($post['postcount']== 20) OR ($post['postcount'] == 30)">
type of conditional, assuming you have 10 posts a page, I know its yourold implementation but I believe thats how you would do it

You could, but ins't it easier to find the template with the reply button at the bottom of each thread and insert the ads above that?