SMF Ad Revenue Sharing Mod (Official Beta Testing Thread)

Started by karlbenson, March 04, 2007, 01:53:33 PM

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karlbenson

Ad Revenue Sharing modification v1.0 by Karl Benson (BETA VERSION)

Warning: This is a beta

Tested & Works for 1.1.2 and Installs on the DEFAULT skin only.  I haven't written the manual edits out yet, until I get a finalised code.

This is a brand new mod with extensive coding.  I've been working on this for over a month on a clean fresh 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 forums.  I've tested it extensively to the point where I'm confident to install a modified version on my own forum.  Any bugs in this will probably be limited to index undefined errors.

Warning: You should NOT use this mod if you have the Ad Management Mod by Jerm installed, any other advertisement mod or if you have manually inserted adverts into your pages.

Comments/Bug Reports/Errors/Improvements/Thoughts/Ideas/Better more efficient coding examples all welcome

Example Forum: http://www.adrevenuesharing.info

Download: LINK (40kb)

Description:

There are 3 advertising programs supported by this mod atm.  Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network (a.k.a YPN) [atm is USA only] and TextLinkAds referral ads

This mod enables your users to signup to any or all of those programs and then enter there ID into the Ad Revenue Sharing area of their profile.

When anyone views a topic, there is a chance that the author of that topic will have his ID's used to show the ads.  The rest of the time, board ads are used.

For any non-topic pages, a user is selected at random or the board ads can be shown.

This mod includes tonnes of settings/options to control position/colors/size of ads, control which users can participate based on membergroup, those who can see ads, banned users, reports, stats, etc etc etc

Images:

nitins60


nitins60

It looks great! I didn't go throug all things! But i just want to share this idea!

Depending upon no of impressions, ask users to donate/pay some amount of money to forum!

Like, 1000-3000 pay 5%,3000-6000 pay 10%,6000-10000 pay 15% so on   

krus

ads shows fine as guest but it doesn't shows after login

jacobselby

I love it, great job Karl, perfect mod for my website... please notify me when you finalize it!!  

karlbenson

Quote from: krus on March 05, 2007, 12:35:57 PM
ads shows fine as guest but it doesn't shows after login

It WON'T show you your own ads.  (this is a security measure to prevent accidentally clicking your own ads)
If your an admin (and logged in), it will never show you the board ads.
If there are no other participants in the ad revenue sharing program, and your an admin, it can't show you the boards ads, so it won't show any.

karlbenson

Quote from: nitins60 on March 04, 2007, 11:53:49 PM
It looks great! I didn't go throug all things! But i just want to share this idea!

Depending upon no of impressions, ask users to donate/pay some amount of money to forum!

Like, 1000-3000 pay 5%,3000-6000 pay 10%,6000-10000 pay 15% so on  

Hmmm.
a) It would be easy enough to have a field in the admin centre to enter your paypal/donate details/button. and have that appear in the users profile area to donate

b) as for selling impressions.  To be honest, transactions like this would probably be best done via the paid subscriptions mod.

Atm you could make a selling point of getting 100% adshare of own topics as part of your premium membership if you have the paid subs mod installed.

However I do have written on my features for future versions list to have a nominated membergroup.

Eg this could be your charter or premium membergroup.

Then the nominated group receives a share of all page views that would otherwise show board ads.

This way users who didnt have the paid subscriptions mod installed would still benefit.

What do you guys think?

karlbenson

Quote from: jacobselby on March 05, 2007, 12:43:17 PM
I love it, great job Karl, perfect mod for my website... please notify me when you finalize it!! 

Quote from: nitins60 on March 04, 2007, 11:38:24 PM
Sounds great, it will help to increase traffic

Thx guys, I hope it does too.

I was suprised that noone had done one before for smf.
This was my first MAJOR smf mod, so it was a big learning experience.
I was doing it to learn, not intending to put it on my own site, but after coding it, I changed my mind.

Exochat

MOD installed on my test forum perfectly on 1.1.2 and looks good but a couple of things

1) I already have a Google Adsense account with my main forum yet when I try and add the pub- ID in the box under the Admin CP it wont let me save it. I am putting it in the right box (and followed your screenshot to double check) and yet when I click SAVE it just blanks out the box so no ID appears. I have got the Adsense box enabled above it, so where am I going wrong?

2) Am I right in the way this mod works? That a member that wants to get paid signs up for their own google adsense account and if accepted they post the link into their profile. If so then how do Google work out to pay them a percentage? For example if I set the Moderators get 20% then how does google know to pay them 20% and me the 80% amount if someone clicks on their topic advert?
Could you try to explain it all in terms as how Google Adsense understands who to pay and what amount? Because to me it would seem that if their Google IDs are attached to the banner they would get the full amount, and alternatively if mine displays I would get the full amount so how is it worked out the share of it? Or is it all paid to the Admin and this mod just works out who's ads were clicked and their percentage like a big forum calculator and its then up to the Admin to pay out the correct amounts to whatever the profile says each one needs paid. 

karlbenson

1. if it fails the validation it wont save it.

(i need to add some error messages to tell users this)

publisher ids should start pub- then 16 digits is that correct?
(if its too short, could be failing length check)

could be a bug.

2. User needs to signup their own adsense account. (they will require a website to do this, and get accepted by google). Same goes for YPN (which is USA only at the moment).  Textlinkads you can just register as an affiliate
=> once they registered they need to go to the section to create their ads (in adsense/ypn/textlinkads, look into the html code they give you to find out their publisher/referrer id

The percentages are not in terms of pay.  They are in terms of chance/probability.
20% of the time, the moderators ad id will be used to show ads, the remainder of the time, board ads are used. (or in certain circumstances, random ids)

The moderator gets paid for the clicks when his ads are being shown.
The board admin gets paid for click when the board ads are being shown.

or put it simply in terms of a coin. if its heads, board ads are shown, if its tails, users ads are shown.  Any clicks when its heads will be paid to the admin.  Any clicks when its tails are paid to the user.

(Note the payments are between the programmes and yourself, this mod has nothing to do with payments, it just shows the ads)

nitins60

* How about a feature to limit no of impressions? If they want more, ask admin about paying etc...
* How about limiting no of times showing ads of a user per topic! If he has 50replies for a topic, but limit member/ads/topic to 15, so it prevents spamming. Otherwise, users keep on posting short messages, just SPAM

* however, there must be a global ads of a forum!

Just ideas! I am really lookin for final release ;D

Exochat

Quote from: karlbenson on March 05, 2007, 05:16:32 PM
1. if it fails the validation it wont save it.

(i need to add some error messages to tell users this)

publisher ids should start pub- then 16 digits is that correct?
(if its too short, could be failing length check)

could be a bug.

2. User needs to signup their own adsense account. (they will require a website to do this, and get accepted by google). Same goes for YPN (which is USA only at the moment).  Textlinkads you can just register as an affiliate
=> once they registered they need to go to the section to create their ads (in adsense/ypn/textlinkads, look into the html code they give you to find out their publisher/referrer id

The percentages are not in terms of pay.  They are in terms of chance/probability.
20% of the time, the moderators ad id will be used to show ads, the remainder of the time, board ads are used. (or in certain circumstances, random ids)

The moderator gets paid for the clicks when his ads are being shown.
The board admin gets paid for click when the board ads are being shown.

or put it simply in terms of a coin. if its heads, board ads are shown, if its tails, users ads are shown.  Any clicks when its heads will be paid to the admin.  Any clicks when its tails are paid to the user.

(Note the payments are between the programmes and yourself, this mod has nothing to do with payments, it just shows the ads)

Thanks for the reply.

1) I have already been accepted by Google a long time ago and making significant money with them. The ID I tried to use was on my Google Account for Adsense Content and started cad-pub-############# with digits afterwards. I have tried entering it fully, without the cad- part, without the pub- part and without any of the beginning and just the digits only, and all dont want to save at all.

2) I think I got you, so it isnt a percentage of the revenue, the percentage is how LIKELY it is their advert link they get paid 100% for gets shown?
Cheers.  

findallinone

Quote from: Exochat on March 06, 2007, 06:13:00 AM
Quote from: karlbenson on March 05, 2007, 05:16:32 PM
1. if it fails the validation it wont save it.

(i need to add some error messages to tell users this)

publisher ids should start pub- then 16 digits is that correct?
(if its too short, could be failing length check)

could be a bug.

2. User needs to signup their own adsense account. (they will require a website to do this, and get accepted by google). Same goes for YPN (which is USA only at the moment).  Textlinkads you can just register as an affiliate
=> once they registered they need to go to the section to create their ads (in adsense/ypn/textlinkads, look into the html code they give you to find out their publisher/referrer id

The percentages are not in terms of pay.  They are in terms of chance/probability.
20% of the time, the moderators ad id will be used to show ads, the remainder of the time, board ads are used. (or in certain circumstances, random ids)

The moderator gets paid for the clicks when his ads are being shown.
The board admin gets paid for click when the board ads are being shown.

or put it simply in terms of a coin. if its heads, board ads are shown, if its tails, users ads are shown.  Any clicks when its heads will be paid to the admin.  Any clicks when its tails are paid to the user.

(Note the payments are between the programmes and yourself, this mod has nothing to do with payments, it just shows the ads)

Thanks for the reply.

1) I have already been accepted by Google a long time ago and making significant money with them. The ID I tried to use was on my Google Account for Adsense Content and started cad-pub-############# with digits afterwards. I have tried entering it fully, without the cad- part, without the pub- part and without any of the beginning and just the digits only, and all dont want to save at all.

2) I think I got you, so it isnt a percentage of the revenue, the percentage is how LIKELY it is their advert link they get paid 100% for gets shown?
Cheers. 

Same problem came in my forum http://www.findallinone.com/forums/ .How to save google adsense code?  

karlbenson

#13
Quote from: findallinone on March 06, 2007, 06:38:22 AM
Same problem came in my forum http://www.findallinone.com/forums/ .How to save google adsense code? 

I've managed to post my mates adsense code on your forum pub-1111111111111111 (4 chars, 16 digits)

From all the ad revenue sites I've ever seen, they always say it follows the standard bit of pub- then 16 digits.  Thats why I set the validation to reject anything but something which followed that format.

I'll need to modify the validation to accept cad-pub- adsense ids, but how many digits are there after the cad-pub-

I can't find any cad-pub- references on the internet, only ca-pub
Also do you know of other variations (worldwide?)

I'll need to loosen the validation a bit.

karlbenson

Quote from: nitins60 on March 05, 2007, 10:16:42 PM
* How about a feature to limit no of impressions? If they want more, ask admin about paying etc...
I did initially have a similar idea,
As with before, I want to avoid any business of having to take payments. I've tried to write this mod to compliment the Paid Subscriptions mod which does an excellent job.
percentages as opposes to impressions means that it can cope with the forum starting off small and growing big.

I definately will try to add nominated groups for extra percentages from board ads share.
Again percentages are much easier to work with and work fine if you don't have the paid subs mod installed.

Quote from: nitins60 on March 05, 2007, 10:16:42 PM
* How about limiting no of times showing ads of a user per topic! If he has 50replies for a topic, but limit member/ads/topic to 15, so it prevents spamming. Otherwise, users keep on posting short messages, just SPAM
Currently only the topic author benefits.  Posters in the topic gain nothing other than increasing their post count, which may entitle them to an increased percentage from their topics.

I will seriously consider allowing posters in the topic to benefit aswell.  However I am concerned with the extra load having additional mysql queries will have on big forums, especially when a topic reaches 1000 posts and having potentially selecting a random user from 500 posters in a topic.

Quote from: nitins60 on March 05, 2007, 10:16:42 PM
* however, there must be a global ads of a forum!
I'm unsure what you mean, you can set the board ads via admin > ad revenue sharing panel > settings page in your admin area.

Quote from: nitins60 on March 05, 2007, 10:16:42 PM
Just ideas! I am really lookin for final release ;D

me too

Exochat

Quote from: karlbenson on March 06, 2007, 01:56:00 PM
Quote from: findallinone on March 06, 2007, 06:38:22 AM
Same problem came in my forum http://www.findallinone.com/forums/ .How to save google adsense code? 

I've managed to post my mates adsense code on your forum pub-1111111111111111 (4 chars, 16 digits)

From all the ad revenue sites I've ever seen, they always say it follows the standard bit of pub- then 16 digits.  Thats why I set the validation to reject anything but something which followed that format.

I'll need to modify the validation to accept cad-pub- adsense ids, but how many digits are there after the cad-pub-

I can't find any cad-pub- references on the internet, only ca-pub
Also do you know of other variations (worldwide?)

I'll need to loosen the validation a bit.

Copied and pasted the Adsense Content from my google account, but changed four numbers in the sequence to different numbers to obviously protect anyone using my adsense code... but it is the correct AMOUNT of numbers.

ca-pub-8707302040758420

i believe it is 16 digits after the ca-pub- part. hope that helps.... like I said, I have tried on the ADMIN tab on the package part where you put your adsense code, and also on the Profile section.... and i have tried without the CA, without the PUB and just the digits only and none of it works as when you click save it just vanishes and the box is blank again.

By the way, if it also hopes then it is a 1.1.1 forum with the 1.1.2 upgrade package installed and no other Mod packages at all installed.  

karlbenson

pub-8707302040758420 would work, (just tested) but with ca- it won't
It would be pointless you entering it because I doubt it would still credit your account.

I'll work on adding support for ca-pub tomorrow.

findallinone

Quote from: karlbenson on March 06, 2007, 01:56:00 PM
Quote from: findallinone on March 06, 2007, 06:38:22 AM
Same problem came in my forum http://www.findallinone.com/forums/ .How to save google adsense code? 

I've managed to post my mates adsense code on your forum pub-1111111111111111 (4 chars, 16 digits)

From all the ad revenue sites I've ever seen, they always say it follows the standard bit of pub- then 16 digits.  Thats why I set the validation to reject anything but something which followed that format.

I'll need to modify the validation to accept cad-pub- adsense ids, but how many digits are there after the cad-pub-

I can't find any cad-pub- references on the internet, only ca-pub
Also do you know of other variations (worldwide?)

I'll need to loosen the validation a bit.

I think your format is correct pub-16digits.why it is not working sometimes i don't unstand.1st day i placed pub-16digits => not saved,2nd day i placed same code(pub-16 digits)=>saved,3rd day(today) same code=>not saved,i don't understand this. http://forums.findallinone.com/index.php

findallinone

#18
Some questions and suggestions,
1.How to place 2 google adsense units after 1st post?
2.After user login,no ads are displaying,it is better to display admin ads instead of keeping it emty.eventhough user clicks that ad ,no problem,because it is admin's ad.
3.How to apply adrevenue sharing to other themes(skins)? manualedits.txt file is empty. suppose how to apply to this theme http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=80 ? i would like to use this theme.
4.you have shown one example forum above,it is empty,it is better to make one forum,show that forum,it will be popularised,you will get some money from that.
5.if user does not have adsense account,he or she need to register,if he or she clicks register option,it is going directly,admin is not benefiting from it.it is better to display admin adsense 'Register' option,admin will get some income from that.
http://forums.findallinone.com/index.php

karlbenson

Quote from: findallinone on March 07, 2007, 04:57:44 AM
Some questions and suggestions,
1.How to place 2 google adsense units after 1st post?
Currently its only possible to select one adsense unit.
I've got it on my list to explore adding more sizes.  What sort of units are we talking about (sizes?)

Quote from: findallinone on March 07, 2007, 04:57:44 AM
2.After user login,no ads are displaying,it is better to display admin ads instead of keeping it emty.eventhough user clicks that ad ,no problem,because it is admin's ad.
I logged in as a normal user and see ads fine.
Are you logging in as the admin?  if there are no other users participating or as I see from your board, newbies are not allowed to be selected randomly for non-topic pages and if you are logged in as admin, it can't show you ads.

If you were shown your own ads and you clicked them, you would get BANNED by google.
In this case it is ESSENTIAL that you are not shown ads.

Quote from: findallinone on March 07, 2007, 04:57:44 AM
3.How to apply adrevenue sharing to other themes(skins)? manualedits.txt file is empty. suppose how to apply to this theme http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=80 ? i would like to use this theme.
I will post the manual edits once this mod is a released version and not a beta.  This is because I'm constantly changing things (even just to make the code more efficient), so I don't want to have to keep changing it

Quote from: findallinone on March 07, 2007, 04:57:44 AM
4.you have shown one example forum above,it is empty,it is better to make one forum,show that forum,it will be popularised,you will get some money from that.
Sorry, I've got a modified version of this running on my proper forums. http://www.youposted.com

Quote from: findallinone on March 07, 2007, 04:57:44 AM
5.if user does not have adsense account,he or she need to register,if he or she clicks register option,it is going directly,admin is not benefiting from it.it is better to display admin adsense 'Register' option,admin will get some income from that.
http://forums.findallinone.com/index.php
I didnt know they did those sorts of referrals.  I will look to add that into the next release.
(On searching I just discovered https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25889&ctx=sibling )

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