Not a bug External Advertisements Broken on New Posts

[423]

Affected version

2.0.1

Whether hardcoded or displayed through the advertisements system, advertisements seem to be broken by something on the "New Posts" pages. There may be others pages where the scripts are broken, but I haven't found them yet. This is evident in both the default and 3rd party themes I've tried.

If this has been posted already, I'm sorry... nothing came up with the search terms I used.

 

[423]

I'm also still trying to figure out how to display the sidebar with it's advertisements on pages such as New Posts and What's New, this could be a related issue, or it could be my ignorance.

 

[423]

I should also mention that the advertisements include both Adsense and Amazon, so it's not related to one specific script type.

 

[Mike]

I assume you're talking about the header ad on your site?

It's worth noting that I don't see an ad in that position on any page, other than your forum overview that has other ads in position. I suspect that may indicate issues with your ad code then.

Worth noting that on the other pages, there is evidence that the ad is being processed and expanded by the ad network, just no ad is being displayed. That would mean that the behavior is happening internally to the ad network as opposed to the value not being processed.

 

[423]

There is a Google Ad above the breadcrumb, but it doesn't display on "search results". Is that normal? How would I display ads on the New Posts results page, including a sidebar ad?

 

[423]

@Mike I still feel like there is something wrong here.

 

[Mike]

To reiterate, I don't see ads displaying on any page (search results, threads, etc) other than the forum list page. The behavior is the same as I mentioned before -- the ad is being processed but nothing is being displayed. I can't really comment as to why that's happening specifically but you'll need to try to identify why as that's likely the key to the problems.

There isn't an explicit sidebar position on the new posts page, so that would likely require a direct template edit.

 

[423]

@Mike
Maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying... but I see adds on EVERY page except certain areas including the New Posts and Conversations... but in those areas, the space for the ad is present, but something appears to be conflicting with the script that loads the ad code. Does that make more sense? If I have an ad displayed in below the breadcrumb, that should appear everywhere, no? Same with the footer ad? In the Conversation page, it shows the sidebar with Amazon ads working, but the Google Ad, for which the space is still visible won't load the ad code. The only time I've seen this in the past is when some script is conflicting with the ad code.






These are ads that display on the homepage, thread lists, and post pages:

 

[Mike]

I'm not seeing an ad on most pages. However, the fact that space is being allocated -- and I can see an iframe -- means that the ad code itself is loading and being processed by the browser. What is displayed in that location is then entirely down to the ad provider; the iframe is just not returning any content from when I looked. Unfortunately, we wouldn't have any direct control over that. I could really only recommend checking your ad code and if you're sure it's right, you may need to contact the ad provider. (I have certainly seen other XF2 installs with Google ads running, for example.)

 

[Pierce]

Could be ad balance setting?

Also it happens to me on Google as well. Your best off using the browser dev tools to establish what is happening. And I'm sure you'll verify that the code is being inserted into the source of the page.

 

[dutchbb]

I have the same problem on xf 1.5 for some time on the find-new, search and conversation pages (all ads). The adsense code is on the pages correct so i am thinking this is something from google. Before they did show.

Changing it to an other banner code does not work. I also have google dfp for showing rotating sponsor ad banners and they do show.

So adsense does not want to show ads on those pages for some reason?

1 thing i could find is that adsense is showing on my popular content but not top posters. First one can be accesed if you got the link or are logged is, second one only when logged in. Adsense has access to crawl al my pages.

https://forum.bodybuilding.nl/find-popular/content/
https://forum.bodybuilding.nl/top-users/

Conversations i do not now how adsense access it, find-new has nofollow+noindex on them and search results has noindex. I did read google does not crawl pages anymore with noindex after some time and this is then the same as noindex, nofollow. But adsense does not use googlebot?

I also did a test with media pages. I had set albums to only show for members and after some time google did not show any ads on them. The code was still correct on the page and adsense should have acces to them. Now guest can see albums again and adsense is comming back for some. Then i blocked them in robots.txt (googlebot only) and not showing again (mediapartners allowed).

I did the same for some media catagories that are not blocked in robots.txt or noindex/nofollow and they are showing, So i am thinking it has something to do with what adsense crawls and what we set for googlebot has effect on it? This is recent so must be a change or fault from there side.

 

[dutchbb]

Looks like more people having the problem.

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4858142.htm
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4882168.htm
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4880773.htm

Could have something to do with the better ads standard testing or ad-balancer. I'm thinking they are doing some tests that has effect on the mediapartners bot, so will have to wait until that is fixed.
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4880967.htm

Noindex, nofollow pages or blocked with robots.txt could also give a signal now that those pages are of low content and not show ads for that reason. Same for member only pages?

https://www.betterads.org/standards/

Google is also comming with his own adblocker for chrome this year so i think they are doing this to be ready for that because the adblocker will only block ads if they do not comply with the better ad standards.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16797522/google-chrome-ad-blocker-release-date-announced


This can be checked in you webmaster tools to see if you comply. This has not been rated on my account yet.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ad-experience-unverified?pli=1

 

[423]

@Mike
Could it be the order in which the template containing the ad-code is rendered? Maybe it's not giving Google a chance to scrape the content, therefore it won't serve ads. It works just fine on XF 1.5 (my other site), it only started becoming a problem with XF 2.

 

[Mike]

For reference, I'm seeing the exact same behavior on your other site. This also includes issues with ads in threads. Placeholders are being displayed (grey boxes), but no Adsense ads (in threads; I get them displayed at other times).

 

[dutchbb]

Google is also doing a recrawl of all pages with mediapartners bot because of adsense brand safety.
https://www.google.be/search?q=adse...rome..69i57.3377j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

This is combination with the better ads standard and upcomming chrome adblocker is the cause i think. In some threads it is also not showing some ads, but on tag pages (i have those noindex) and account pages for example it never shows any.

I am showing adsense alone on thread and catagorie pages now and my adsense earning went up.