phpBB and Google AdSense

I’ve been using the brand-new phpBB forum software for the past few days now and I must admit I am very impressed. But that’s a post for another time! For now, I’ll discuss the optimal placement of Google ads within phpBB’s templates, the easiest method to do so, and most importantly, how to achieve all this legally under Google’s TOS.

What is allowed?

After skimming through Google’s Terms and Conditions, I have concluded that you may not place the advertisements in all areas of the forum. Here is the exact tidbit from the TOS:

5. Prohibited Uses.

You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to:

(v) display any Ad(s), Link(s), or Referral Button(s) on any error page, on any registration or “thank you” page (e.g., a page that thanks a user after he/she has registered with the applicable Web site), on any chat page, in any email, or on any Web page or any Web site that contains any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content

What this means

In the past, you would simply insert the ad code in just two phpBB templates: overall_header.html and overall_footer.html. This would display your advertisements at the top and bottom of your entire forum. This is no longer legal now that AdSense’s TOS explicitly states that advertisements on certain pages like registration is prohibited.

So how do we display the advertisements on the header and footer of our forums without violating Adsense policy? Unfortunately, this now means editing more than two phpBB templates. Fortunately, this article will go over the easiest method in placing Google ads in your forums. I will go over exactly which template files you should edit to yield the optimal page impressions/clicks.

But first…

Editing ad code from one file

Since we need to insert the ad code in more then two templates now, how can we easily update an ad code without having to go through each and every template file? We can eliminate this problem with the following easy fix.

Open up Notepad or your favorite code editor, and paste your ad code within this file.

Save it as googleads.html.

Upload the file with your favorite FTP to: http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/forums/styles/YOURTHEME/template/

To insert this file into phpBB templates, you will use the following ad insert code:

<!-- INCLUDE googleads.html -->

Where to place the ads

So now that you have the ad insert code, where should you place it?

As I mentioned above, we would have simply edited two template files in the past to display it in the header and footer of our forums. Now that this isn’t legally possibly anymore, we can achieve these same results by editing all the templates that don’t violate Google’s TOS.

The following guide is based on editing the prosilver theme, phpBB 3.0.0′s default theme. However, the following edits should work for most phpBB themes.

To edit the templates, login to your admin control panel and find Styles Tab > Style components > Templates. To the right, click Edit for the template you wish to update.

The index page

Let’s start off by editing the index page, the main forum page. Open up the index_body.html template file.

Step 1

Find (usually near the top) <!-- INCLUDE overall_header.html -->

Before or after, add <!-- INCLUDE googleads.html -->

Insert the ad code before if you wish the ad banner to appear above the header, or after for below the header. Most people post it after the code.

DO NOT DELETE THE ORIGINAL CODE.

Step 2

In the same file:

Find (usually near the bottom) <!-- INCLUDE overall_footer.html -->

Before or after, add <!-- INCLUDE googleads.html -->

Most people add this before the footer.

A few more pages to edit…

The above instructions can be applied to the following templates in the exact same way:

• viewforum_body.html – Viewing a forum template
• ucp_header.html and ucp_footer.html – User control panel template
• viewtopic_body.html – Viewing a thread template
• posting_layout.html – Posting a thread or replying template*

* Before editing the posting_layout.html template, you can read the following optional step on how to optimize this specific template.

The ‘posting a thread / replying to a post’ page (optional step)

After nearly a decade of running forums, I have found that an additional template can be edited to generate greater ad impressions and clicks.

NOTE! If you are doing this optional step, do not apply the second step to posting_layout.html; in other words, carry out step 1 but skip step 2. This means not adding the ad code to the footer of posting_layout.html.

To apply this optional step, open the posting_editor.html template file.

Find (somewhere near the middle) <!-- IF S_HAS_ATTACHMENTS -->

Add before <!-- INCLUDE googleads.html -->

This time you only have one choice: add before and not after.

Why the optional step and additional template?

This optional step still displays the ad banner at the footer of the ‘posting a thread or reply’ page. The only difference is how visible the advertisement becomes.

Without the optional step, the ad banner would appear directly above or below the footer. Either way, the advertisement would not be very visible. When a user creates a new post, the page is mainly filled with the textbox and forum options such as attachments. In most instances, the advertisement from the footer isn’t visible at all when they reply to a thread – unless the user has an enormous screen resolution.

Applying the optional step to the additional template effectively solves this problem. It will display the advertisement right above the Save / Preview / Submit button meaning that a user cannot miss it! This means more clicks and more profit for your forum!

Confirm the changes

To ensure that all your forum members can view the template changes, click the General Tab in the admin control panel. To the right, find Purge the cache and click Run Now.

Also, head over to General Tab > Server configuration > Load settings.To the right, find Recompile stale style components and select Yes.

And that should do the trick! The above techniques will help you get around the legal problems of the traditional method of editing only the header and footer templates, and help you position your advertisements for maximum clickthroughs and impressions. This is the simplest phpBB modification to use. Have fun monetizing your forums!

For live examples, checkout Rakion.biz and ieatgrenades.

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