Shylock Adsense Plugin Tutorial
A short tutorial on using the Shylock Adsense Plugin, since I’ve received a couple of questions over time.
What it can be used for:
- inserting either Adsense ads, or anything else really into posts. You can insert Adsense, YPN, CPM banners or buttons, a box with your top or favorite posts to bring them to the attention of your users
- controlling when the ads show and how. You can use no ads on the blog on article pages while they’re new, and you can set it up to start displaying ads once a certain period of time passes (you decide after how much time).
- block ads from showing on certain pages or articles. For example, you may have a page where you want ads, but you might prefer that your About, Contact or Advertise Here pages are ad free. Another use is for paid reviews, which usually ask you not to have ads in those pages.
Options:
Set Code #1-10
The plugin can remember 10 different codes that you might want to insert in your blog. Paste the Adsense code in the box, then either set it up where you want to appear below, or if you want to paste a second code, scroll all the way down, click Save, then click on Code #2 and paste another code. Don’t forget to save before you click on another Code area, or the code you just inserted will be lost.
Preview
It inserts your code in the admin page to show you how it would look like. I’m seriously considering removing this in future versions, because most people probably don’t read the entire plugin page and don’t realize that it shows their real ads. DON’T CLICK ON THEM!
Exclude posts and/or pages
You can choose not to display ads in certain posts or pages. Either because ads are not appropriate there (About, Contact, Advertise Here pages) or because you’re not allowed to have ads in paid reviews (the case for PayPerPost I think).
For this, go to the Manage page in your admin area, and see what ID do the posts or pages that you want blocked have. Enter those ID’s in the Exclude box, separated by commas and Save.
Displaying ads on the front page, categories, archive and tag pages
You can insert a maximum of 3 ads on these pages (the maximum allowed by Adsense), and you have drop-down boxes for each of them.
Code # - click and select the code you want inserted for that particular position
Alignment of Ads - choose where you want that particular code to be displayed (ad positions explained below)
Show to post number - choose where you want that particular code and alignment to be used in the page (posts 1-10)
Example of use: Code 1 at the Top of Post 1, Code 3 at the Bottom of Post 1, Code 2 at the Top of Post 3
Displaying ads in pages and single pages
The only difference from the front page example is that you’re missing the Post Number option. Other then that, its the same. Choose the code that you want to display and in what position.
Please take into account your typical post length and image positions when choosing the place and size of the ads, otherwise you might end up with a bad look for your article.
Single Page (older then X days)
Here you can choose to display a different ad setup for older posts, so you don’t annoy your regular visitors. Usually only search engine visitors come on a regular basis to old posts and now you can monetize those visits better by inserting more aggressive ads.
If there is any code selected in this area, then it will display this configuration to article pages once they turn the age from the box below. If you don’t select a configuration for this section, then all the posts use the setting you decided for the pages and single pages previously.
Ad Positions
Top - inserts the code between the title and the content
Top Left and Top Right - inserts the code in the top part of the content, surrounded by text
Middle - inserts the code in the middle of the post, between two paragraphs. Middle means here that it sees how many paragraphs there are in a post, then divides it by two and inserts the ad there. For example, in a 12 paragraph story, it will insert it after the 6th paragraph. You need at least 2 paragraphs in a post for the middle positions to display.
Middle Left and Middle Right - inserts the code in the middle of the post, surrounded by text. It actually inserts it in the top part of the second half of the post, so it might seem closer to the bottom.
Bottom - inserts the code below the content
Random - cycles the selected code among the positions that are not occupied by other ads. In order for the random setting not to use a position assigned to a fixed ad, you will need to insert the random one to the last setting in use.
Example: if you want to have a top left ad all the time and another one in random position, select first the fixed position, then the random one, like in the example pic below:
As you can see, I’ve got two ads for articles in this example, the random being the last one to be inserted. That’s because it checks where the previous ad was inserted, so it doesn’t use that position.
You can see how random works by selecting an ad and refreshing the page where it is inserted. You should see it in different positions every time.
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23 Responses to “Shylock Adsense Plugin Tutorial”
By Bubs on Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
I have the plugin installed and inserted the adsense code into slot #1. I just want my ads to show up in the middle right on the top 3 posts. Do I have delete my old adsense codes to get the plugin to work? Sorry but I am still a little bit confused. Thanks
By Alexandru on Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
If you’re talking about TraderBubs, you need at least 2 paragraphs in a post to show ads in the middle. The plugin counts how many paragraphs there are, divides the number by 2 and inserts it after that paragraph.
For example, if you have 6 paragraphs in a post, it will insert the ad after the 3rd one (which is considered to be in the middle).
Middle right and left work best on articles with more text then your blog has. Otherwise you don’t have enough text to wrap around the ad.
Anyway, you should have these settings at the Front Page settings for Middle right to show if you have articles with more text in them:
Code # - Middle Right - Post 1
Code # - Middle Right - Post 2
Code # - Middle Right - Post 3
By Bubs on Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for all the help. I think I will just keep the current layout that I currently have. My adsense numbers seem to be decreasing even though my readers have gone up, I just thought it was time for a change. Once again thanks, I have added your feed and am know a regular reader.
By Alexandru on Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
First of all, thanks for subscribing. Second, it’s not about the layout, but about the text. You don’t have enough text in your posts to use the middle options.
By Patrix on Sep 17, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for this great plugin. Although I think I’ve optimized my Adsense blocks enough, I like the option of suppressing the ads for new posts.
However, I have a quick suggestion. In your Exclude Page/Posts, it would be great if you could include the option for excluding certain categories. Often I like to make 1-2 line posts for which even the Top and Top Right/Left ad blocks are disproportionately large or for personal reasons, I don’t want ads on certain posts. Thus it would be great to exclude those categories from displaying any ads.
By Alexandru on Sep 17, 2007 | Reply
Patrix, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see what can be done, but the next version is still a few weeks away.
By John Place on Oct 3, 2007 | Reply
Great Plugin! I’ve been looking for something like this for months.
I previously tried Adsense Deluxe, but that plugin required the very tedious manual manipulation of posts (a waste of time, in my case) and couldn’t keep the ads from showing up in my RSS feed.
On the other hand, your fine plugin is fantastic. I can’t thank you enough.
By Alexandru on Oct 3, 2007 | Reply
Great to hear that John. Thanks for the comment
By Alfred on Oct 19, 2007 | Reply
First of all, awesome plugin mate.
dont remove the preview window, its very important, it help chk which ad is in which code.
Wishlist - Wish there was a command to manually add a code to a page.
This is usefull as I use your plguin to inject different adnetworks
By Alexandru on Oct 19, 2007 | Reply
Alfred, first of all, thanks!
Second, quite a few people want that, so it will be in the next version of the plugin. Hopefully in November it will come out.
By ovidiu on Nov 24, 2007 | Reply
hello,
I would love to use this plugin in conjunction with another plugin, but unfortunately it seems not to work. The other plugin is: http://thesandbox.wordpress.com/wpads/ and it helps me randomize my ads.
I.e. I can input 5 different ad formats into wp ads, assign them all to a “zone” and then just add this code to display ads for this special zone into shylock adsense, so wp ads would rotate between those ads for that zone and shylock adsense would rotate the position it gets inserted.
The problem right now is that, shylock adsense inserts the code but it seems not to get parsed, it seems wp ads comes before shylock adsense inserts his code
the wp ads code looks like: and after shylock inserts that, it should be parsed by wp ads.
I will also post on that authors page.
By ovidiu on Nov 26, 2007 | Reply
oh and one more question:
I understand waht Front Page(categories, archive) means, but what does Page and Single Page stand for? I mean single page seems to mean the view when viewing only one post. but page? does that refer to any page?
By Alexandru on Nov 26, 2007 | Reply
Ovidiu, single page means a normal post, and page means pages like About and Contact.
By Planet Lowyat on Dec 27, 2007 | Reply
Can I request for add COMMENT page for next release?
By José Martins on Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
I’ve installed the plugin witch is very good. Bur i’m having trouble in making it work in the sidebar. I put it in wordpress admin in the presentation page in widgets, but adsense don’t appear. Why?
Thanks.
By Mr Lifelesson on Feb 1, 2008 | Reply
This plugin is awesome. I had it installed and working in less than 20mins. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in making money with Google Adsense.
By jason on Apr 8, 2008 | Reply
This is a great plugin. I was wondering if there was a way to get an ad to align to the bottom left of a post.
When I select align bottom, it aligns to bottom center.
I would like to align the adsense ad as bottom left.
Thank you
By Tom on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
When I try to use the Shylock sidebar widget it just puts in an empty text box with places for title and code. Am I suppose to type in coding like “[ad code#2]” or something? Is it suppose to do that or allow me to select a code #1-10 that I’ve already put in to use? I would assume the latter so I could prevent it from showing on certain pages. Information on using the sidebar widget would be much appreciated.
By Alexandru on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
Paste the Adsense code in that box Tom.