Ezoic & Invision Compatibility

[Unlucky]

We are testing Ezoic on one of our websites and already have seen an improvement in revenue generated in the first few days.

However we are spotting some compatibility issues which are going to be a show stopper unless we can get them resolved.

Is anyone successfully using Ezoic with the latest version of IPS community and how did you get things like your front end block manager, sign in as user and live meta tag editor working, or are you using Ezoic successfully without any of issues with those?

Thanks in advance.

[asigno]

I haven't tried the live meta tag editor, is this Invision feature or Ezoic App?

[Unlucky]

10 hours ago, asigno said:

I haven't tried the live meta tag editor, is this Invision feature or Ezoic App?

Thank you for your info sent in PM.

[Unlucky]

@asigno

Are you having any problems with member IP addresses?

We are getting the Ezoic servers IP's instead of the member IPs registered in the CMS

We have logged a call about this with invision but the only support we have is a suggestion to switch on the setting -Trust IP addresses provided by proxies?

This has made no difference unfortunately and invision say any more support is outside the scope of their support.

I just wondered if any Ezoic users have found a solution?

Ezoic have offered the following support to help but we have no idea which file we would need to add this code in.

By implementing the XFF header, Ezoic will send the IP address of the original web visitor through to your server in the X-Forwarded-For header.

How to Add the XFF?

• In PHP it is available in: $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']
• You need to put the code above in a file that all of your pages access (e.g. header.php, init.php or config.php)
• You should see $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], which you can replace with$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']

 

• In .NET it's available in:  HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["X-Forwarded-For"]

 

Thanks in advance if anyone can offer any help or suggestion

 

 

 

[G17 Media]

42 minutes ago, Unlucky said:

@asigno

Are you having any problems with member IP addresses?

We are getting the Ezoic servers IP's instead of the member IPs registered in the CMS

We have logged a call about this with invision but the only support we have is a suggestion to switch on the setting -Trust IP addresses provided by proxies?

This has made no difference unfortunately and invision say any more support is outside the scope of their support.

I just wondered if any Ezoic users have found a solution?

Ezoic have offered the following support to help but we have no idea which file we would need to add this code in.

By implementing the XFF header, Ezoic will send the IP address of the original web visitor through to your server in the X-Forwarded-For header.

How to Add the XFF?

• In PHP it is available in: $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']
• You need to put the code above in a file that all of your pages access (e.g. header.php, init.php or config.php)
• You should see $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], which you can replace with$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']

 

• In .NET it's available in:  HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["X-Forwarded-For"]

 

Thanks in advance if anyone can offer any help or suggestion

 

 

 

It's definitely outside the scope of IPS support if you are self-hosted -- this is something your sysadmin can advise on.
I'm assuming Ezoic's solution is acting as a reverse proxy -- like CloudFlare, and so the situation is not too dissimilar.

 

Changing 'Trust IP addresses provided by proxies' isn't hugely advisable because then anyone can spoof IP addresses (if your webserver is contacted directly).

You will need to configure your webserver (nginx or apache) to accept the X-Forwarded-For header from a trusted proxy list that Ezoic specify. 

 

That may not fix your other issues that you described in the first post though (certain things not working). It may be that Ezoic is caching too aggressively and isn't meant for a dynamic community like Invision. This is something you'll have to explore with your sysadmin or Ezoic's support.

 

Edited July 30, 2019 by G17 Media

[asigno]

Hi @Unlucky I'm not having any issues, I'm using the "Trust IP addresses provided by proxies?" and have Ezoic deployed through Cloudflare.

If you use the XFF header it needs to be on every page of the site so you'll need to add it to the head of a template file which is used across all pages.

[Unlucky]

10 hours ago, asigno said:

Hi @Unlucky I'm not having any issues, I'm using the "Trust IP addresses provided by proxies?" and have Ezoic deployed through Cloudflare.

If you use the XFF header it needs to be on every page of the site so you'll need to add it to the head of a template file which is used across all pages.

Hi,

So putting it in the head section of the  global template file would be ok?

Also we use cloudflare to. Is there anything that needs to be configured in cloudflare to make the Trust IP addresses provided by proxies?"  work?

Thanks,

Edited July 31, 2019 by Unlucky

[asigno]

Not that I remember, I've double checked my template files and I don't have the XFF header and don't have issues.

Maybe it's worth turning off any caching and seeing if that resolves it, could be an issue with how the cache has been set up.

[mtlurb]

It seems, we lose the control over the ads with ezoic, I can't decide which member groups see the ads or not.

Anyone knows how to address this?

[asigno]

I set a cookie to certain user groups, Ezoic then don't display ads to those browsers with cookies.

I use GTM to set the cookie on login.

1. I have a custom JS variable, which returns the member group:

function() {
 return window.groupId 
}

2. I have a lookup table which then changes the output as it's just the DB number of the group and I'd like it readable

3. Then I have a custom HTML tag to create a cookie with noAdverts = true

<script>
    var memberType = {{Lookup table - Group ID}};
    if (memberType === 'Admin' || memberType === 'Moderator' || memberType === 'YOC Member' || memberType === 'Supporter' || memberType === 'Corporate') {
  var expirationTime = 7776000; // THREE month in seconds
        expirationTime = expirationTime * 1000; // Converts expirationtime to milliseconds
        var date = new Date();
        var dateTimeNow = date.getTime();
        date.setTime(dateTimeNow + expirationTime); // Sets expiration time (Time now + one month)
        var expirationTime = date.toUTCString(); // Converts milliseconds to UTC time string
        document.cookie = "noAdverts = true; expires=" + expirationTime + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, ""); // Sets cookie for all subdomains
    }  
</script>

4. Ezoic's tech team make a change their end to only allow ads to be served to non cookied browsers

 

It's not perfect, as I didn't bother to set a script to remove the cookie on logout. But I also didn't want those users to see ads if they did log out, so set a 3 month expiry.

It's possible for anyone to manually create the same cookie value and they wouldn't see ads, but I think it's very unlikely for someone to do this.

Edited August 22, 2019 by asigno

[Unlucky]

On 8/22/2019 at 3:25 AM, asigno said:

I set a cookie to certain user groups, Ezoic then don't display ads to those browsers with cookies.

I use GTM to set the cookie on login.

1. I have a custom JS variable, which returns the member group:

function() {
 return window.groupId 
}

2. I have a lookup table which then changes the output as it's just the DB number of the group and I'd like it readable

3. Then I have a custom HTML tag to create a cookie with noAdverts = true

<script>
    var memberType = {{Lookup table - Group ID}};
    if (memberType === 'Admin' || memberType === 'Moderator' || memberType === 'YOC Member' || memberType === 'Supporter' || memberType === 'Corporate') {
  var expirationTime = 7776000; // THREE month in seconds
        expirationTime = expirationTime * 1000; // Converts expirationtime to milliseconds
        var date = new Date();
        var dateTimeNow = date.getTime();
        date.setTime(dateTimeNow + expirationTime); // Sets expiration time (Time now + one month)
        var expirationTime = date.toUTCString(); // Converts milliseconds to UTC time string
        document.cookie = "noAdverts = true; expires=" + expirationTime + "; path=/; domain=." + location.hostname.replace(/^www\./i, ""); // Sets cookie for all subdomains
    }  
</script>

4. Ezoic's tech team make a change their end to only allow ads to be served to non cookied browsers

 

It's not perfect, as I didn't bother to set a script to remove the cookie on logout. But I also didn't want those users to see ads if they did log out, so set a 3 month expiry.

It's possible for anyone to manually create the same cookie value and they wouldn't see ads, but I think it's very unlikely for someone to do this.

@asigno -  Is this something you can offer to other members for payment?

If so, how much?

Many thanks,

Edited August 25, 2019 by Unlucky

[asigno]

The code is all there to do it for free, are you already using Google Tag Manager (GTM)?

[Unlucky]

On 8/26/2019 at 12:38 AM, asigno said:

The code is all there to do it for free, are you already using Google Tag Manager (GTM)?

Hi no never used it before

[Unlucky]

I have now created a tag manager account and have added the code to the head and body section.

But I am not sure where I set up 1,2 and 3.

Any pointers much appreciated

[asigno]

Hi

both 1&2 are variables, 1 custom js variable, 2 custom - user defined - lookup table.

3. is a custom html tag

[Morgin]

On 9/28/2019 at 11:19 PM, asigno said:

Hi

both 1&2 are variables, 1 custom js variable, 2 custom - user defined - lookup table.

3. is a custom html tag

When you say "2 custom - user defined - lookup table" do you mean you added a new table to your DB to do group lookups for ezoic?

[mtlurb]

Anyone is able to display add in the /discover/ feed past the first 20 or so items displayed?

It seems like ads don't show in the section of the page that dynamically shows when scrolling down the page.

[asigno]

On 10/25/2019 at 4:13 AM, Morgin said:

When you say "2 custom - user defined - lookup table" do you mean you added a new table to your DB to do group lookups for ezoic?

No, I have added JS to the template to send the group ID to a JS variable. I then use a lookup table in GTM to read that variable and choose whether to set the cookie to not show ads.

<script>
var groupId = {expression="\IPS\Member::loggedIn()->member_group_id"};
</script>

 

[AlexWebsites]

Revisiting this topic. Are you still using Ezoic successfully?

[asigno]

4 hours ago, AlexWebsites said:

Revisiting this topic. Are you still using Ezoic successfully?

Sure am, is there anything I can help with?

[AlexWebsites]

1 minute ago, asigno said:

Sure am, is there anything I can help with?

Thanks for responding. They reached out to me claiming a potential revenue increase vs Adsense so I’m thinking of taking a look at their platform. 

[asigno]

You definiately get better revenue from Ezoic over Adsense as you have access to Google's premium inventory. There's a couple of downsides 1. You have to pay in advance for use of their platform by credit card, rather than them take it from your earnings which are paid by PayPal. 2. There's various levels of paid plans, the more you pay the more you make. But there's no automatic scaling of plan. It'd be better if it automatically scaled based on volume and ad inventory and just charged you from your payout.

If these two issues were combined in one solution it would be an incredible product. I'd still recommend it though.

Edited September 8, 2021 by asigno

[AlexWebsites]

Thanks for sharing this info! How does the integration work, is it through a universal tag/code or actual individual placements of tags/code? Any site issues, caching issues, etc?

[CoffeeCake]

5 hours ago, asigno said:

1. You have to pay in advance for use of their platform by credit card, rather than them take it from your earnings which are paid by PayPal. 2. There's various levels of paid plans, the more you pay the more you make. But there's no automatic scaling of plan.

This is surprising news, as someone who has also been in contact with them. Can you elaborate?

[asigno]

@CoffeeCake I've realised my comment wasn't very clear. There are different types of plan, e.g. Ezoic+, Premium and Pro. Premium and Pro are both invite only, which I am on. But inside these plans there are different tiers you can pay for. Essentially the higher priced tiers allow more availability to the premium publishers. They have paid plans up to $50k a month. The good thing is you can't choose a plan above the predicted revenue you'd make, and I believe it auto-scales down if you had a sudden traffic loss to mitigate the fees being more than the revenue.

With Ezoic+ I belive there is a fixed percentage of revenue option, but this is for low traffic sites. You'll still make more money than with Adsense but you won't get access to the premium inventory. And even with a premium plan, the highest paid ads will go to the highest paid plans.

12 hours ago, AlexWebsites said:

Thanks for sharing this info! How does the integration work, is it through a universal tag/code or actual individual placements of tags/code? Any site issues, caching issues, etc?

I use their native CloudFlare integration and automatic ad-placement. It took a few weeks for their platform to learn, and I get more ads than I'd like. But I've setup my site to remove ads for paying users. I'm not sure I've got that balance right yet. You can control the ad-placement and maximum ads shown in the platform.

They also have a designer view, where you can view your site and choose where ads are placed. It's'really easy to setup, depending on your plan, they can also do it for you.