Dynamic Forums

Does google allow Adsense on cgi or php forums

[OziBen]

We have a very active forum, would this not be a good place for Adsense?

Would this help to get these files listed

[BriGuy]

Ozi:

My guess is that forums would be a BAD place for ads.

I think a lot of people would do a lot of looking on the pages and not much clicking.

[Dave_Hawley]

Forum traffic is normally of low quality. But having said this, you have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Dave

[james007]

I am running it on certain forum pages, but stopping them appear on pages where I think my users are doing other things.

So (and I've posted this elsewhere here) my phpBB installation will not post ads if...

if (is_integer(strpos($REQUEST_URI,"privmsg")) or is_integer(strpos($REQUEST_URI,"search")) or is_integer(strpos($REQUEST_URI,"posting")) or is_integer(strpos($REQUEST_URI,"profile")))

However, regular surfing the forums will produce ads.

[WebDevInfo]

I'm running Google AdSense ads on my forums and I reckon they're producing the best CTR of my sites, but I can't be sure because Google doesn't tell you where the clicks are coming from, which is a pity.

[ewanfisher]

The best place for me to run ads is on a forum I run. But google denied me. :(

[beggers]

Based on my experience, cgi-based publishing systems and phpBB boards are spidered properly by AdSense. The ads match the content perfectly.

[peewhy]

The best place for me to run ads is on a forum I run. But google denied me

Would it be surprising to hear that Google might monitor the words on the street ... forum talk and hear the latest methods of covert promotion then put a block on it?

[ewanfisher]

We have to remember that is not really about us making money. It's about Google making money. Therefore they should be helping us do well which makes them do well.

[altyfc]

Bear in mind that forum users are often repeat visitors. Once they've seen the AdSense once, and maybe even clicked, they're never likely to click again... they're there - afterall - for the forums.

Paul

[james007]

I couldn't disagree more with that last statement - simply because the ads constantly change.

[altyfc]

Many forums users log into their forums several times a day... the ads don't generally change that rapidly.

Paul

[werty]

My forums were not allowed... I have one that is CGI and on that is PHP. it must have been due to the content...

I am still trying to figure out what I am doing wrong and will attempt to create a new forum/cms that will be picked up by adsense...until then I will be jealous of every site that has adwords on it.

[weldonj]

Can anyone post some links to their forums with adsense running? I'd like to see some examples of it in action on forums.

[Keyz316]

Sure... not certain if I'm allowed to post this, since the rules on linking are a little strange to me here. I guess, delete if you must.

This one is mine, which runs AdSense (delete if necessary)
<snip>
(adsense in rotation - you may have to refresh or browse)

Also some more I've noticed running AdSense lately:
<snip>

I'm pretty sure I've seen quite a few more as well... though these were all I could dig up in a reasonable time hehe. These are also primarily web development and musician related, as those are the types of forums I go to - I'm sure there are plenty more in regard to sports, cars.... knitting etc etc hehe ;)

For my own forum, the results for the first few days were "decent" (as in not very good - several dollars, since we're not allowed to say exactly hehe)... but I was concurrently running the same AdSense code on another of my sites, which is very heavy on content (which generated more dollars). Within the last 2 days or so AdSense has stopped showing ANY paid ads on the forum, other than on the main entrance page (since all other pages are PHP/dynamic). Browse the other forums I mentioned, and I think you will see the same effect on all of them (I guess this could be an issue with vBulletin, or maybe they just stopped indexing everyone's forum pages. I also added some lines to my sessions.php file to cancel session hashes when the AdSense spider arrives - but it had no effect either way.

Anyhow... I'll also substantiate what the other person said above, that forum-ads in general do "not" perform as well as on other sites (by my experience). Advertisers often share their interest with me though in different approaches, such as sticky forum topics, oversize banners, contest sponsorships, etc. I do not let my advertisers run me though - even though the pay is not high, there's a long line of them waiting for spots to open on my forum, and I'll ask advertisers to leave if they want special treatment over other members.

I see more forums with no ads than those with ads.... but for a lot of people such as myself that's not a viable option - my forum is the most resource-intensive application I have, and pretty much takes a full dedicated server to run... I'm in college, and can't foot the bill without advertisers - so I do my best. :)

Well, I hope this info proves useful to the discussion.
Peace.

[edited by: Jenstar at 8:56 pm (utc) on Nov. 3, 2003]
[edit reason] no URLs please [/edit]

[ewanfisher]

The forum software we run I "tweaked" myself to make it fully Search Engine Friendly (SEF) for Googlebot, and others, to easily crawl. Each thread is spidered and listed in SERP. I get great search engine traffic on this site under hundreds of keywords. You do not have to be a member to read the threads but do require to be a member to post. *watches the amount of members rise*.

So the whole site is fully static and SEF, but Google still refused me to run AdSense. Saying that:

Unfortunately, at this time, the site you have submitted does not meet all of our requirements

I still cant find why it doesn't meet all their requirements.

It would be good if Google published a, so to say, "step through check list" which would help us identify why our sites aren't being accepted.

[Keyz316]

Interesting.... can you message me your site's URL? And perhaps if you're willing any info on what you did to make it SE friendly :)

Peace.

[cdkrg]

I have a well moderated forum with excellent content (this got me accepted in AdSense). I use AdSense and it is working out quite well.

It's extremely active (about 2000 posts a day) and right now the CTR isn't too good but i am redesigning the whole site for the ads.

The site members love it and they often go to my site to ask questions and find that the AdSense ads answered some of them before a human got around to it.

[Keyz316]

cdkrg - can you message me your URL as well? Thanks :)