Fast Lane!

Happened on my site. I'll submit a ticket!

FWIW, I noticed that bulk mail images are broken. Site logo and other items. Seems like a bug.

I think IPB should migrate to this now since it's a standard versus custom. Custom requires in-house support of the code which alone is a decent reason to swap over. It also requires additional JavaScript overhead that is no longer required.

Everything is posted in my first reply is set up once and then it runs automated. The only thing manual is if you have direct sales that you manage via DFP (Admanager). I would always use Admanager up front since you will end up there if you scale. AdSense is integrated. You can set it up to keep your reporting in AdSense.

Not filling every impression is not great. AdSense (or if they are large, AdX) should always cover your fill.

You need to make sure the ad is not called and shown (but hidden by css). Do you know what folks are in your header bidding stack? I'm sure they gave you an ads.txt so you should be able to see it there -- if not directly in the header. They are likely taking a cut of the revenue is my guess.

Note 2: I directly edit the templates and don't use IPBs ad features. It only slightly slows down upgrades but gives you more control IMO. You most certainly need to do this to add anything to page headers, which is required for Ad Manager and prebid. Set it not to show when the width is too small. Also set the ad not to show (see my above note).

Here is what we do, at a high level. We are fairly optimized but there are many alternate routes that can obtain great performance. Ezoic is a good example. Avoid passbacks -- use header/server-server bidding. Passbacks kill CPM. We leverage Google Ad Manager as our ad server (previously known as DFP). We use header bidding via the opensource prebid.js script. We have roughly 5 header bidding partners in the stack. You have to negotiate these deals one by one and can get better splits with them (20-25%). In addition to this we fold server-server bidding into the prebid header via both Amazon (UAM in this case, https://aps.amazon.com/aps/index.html) and Media.net. Google adsense competes with everything on a price priority level. Basically, Adsense has incredible fill (every impression almost always filled) but not always the highest rates (and they take a ~32% cut). ref: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en If you are not familiar with header bidding (or server to server) it works like this. On every page load the header bidding code (prebid.js for example) will query all your header bidding ad partners for them to "bid" on your on-page inventory in a "blind" fashion (best bid without knowing what anyone else bids). As a part of your header, the server-server auction occurs as well where those ad networks/partners will provide their bids. After a set time (typically you set to around 700ms or so) the auction ends and all bids are passed back to Google Ad Manager. Google also then bids on your inventory (blind to the other bids). The highest bid wins. Since your header bidding ad partners typically pay more but have less "fill" you end up with a situation where they win say 10-30% of the time and pay you a lot more on a CPM basis (and you may negotiate a cut of 20-25% with them versus 32% to Adsense). The rest of the time adsense will win and fill the remaining inventory. The net effect is you make more. If I had to pick one network to use if you don't have time for many others, then I'd probably pick Amazon UAM in concert with Admanager, with adsense set up in price priorty. AUM has a solid set of ad networks they pull in, and they also allow direct Amazon ads (re-targeting, yay!) to your users which convert and hence pay well. There are no pass-backs since in this config its actually all server-server bidding w/ Admanager and adsense competing on price priority. So back to the forum. Some ideas. Mobile: 320x50 (or 100) ad above the topic but under the topic title. 300x250 ad under post 1. Another 300x250 ad somewhere around post 8 (assume 15 posts per page). 300x250 ad under the last post but before the reply box. On the index and forums pages, put a 320x50/100 at the top and one at the bottom. On the forum index if you have tons of forums then place an ad in the middle between categories. Desktop: Do the above, but use 728x90 ads instead of 320x50/100 and 300x250. Also ad a 160x600 ad unit on topic pages on the right. Make sure (this is important) that in the Admanager code you have custom ad sizes for each browser width. This is important so when someone shrinks the screen and IPB hides the right column in the responsive view, that ad is not called on a page load. That can be a major no no. You do this as follows in the page header (ref Google docs for more info.. this is just the key code elements): for browsers wider than 980 pixels show the 160x600 pixel ad. Else show nothing (no ad) var mapping_skyscraper = googletag.sizeMapping(). addSize([980, 200], [160, 600]). addSize([0, 0], []). build(); googletag.defineSlot('/123456/Forums-Topic-Side', [160, 600], 'div-gpt-ad-123456-1').defineSizeMapping(mapping_skyscraper).addService(googletag.pubads()); Also, to show mobile ads versus desktop it is as simple as mapping like below, where above 768 pixels wide will show the 728x90 ad and below that will show a 300x250 ad unit (on page load): var mapping_leader_rectangle = googletag.sizeMapping(). addSize([768, 200], [728, 90]). addSize([0, 0], [300, 250]). Now more advanced, you can do things like put conditional statements in the templates to not show certain ad units to members with post counts higher than some amount. I find that useful to reward frequent posters. Or you can filter by groups. This is all custom but not that hard. Hope that helps some. I didn't proof my above notes too well so pardon any short hand or typos! Note, I'm not sure on the UAM minimum page views to be accepted. If they don't let ya in then you can certainly find many header bidding partners that will let you in. https://www.google.com/search?q=best+header+bidding+partners

How many page views do you have per month? AdSense is the obvious place to start but there are much more advanced options including serving your ads via DFP (now called admanager). Getting that set up in the beginning will greatly facilitate future scaling for direct sales as well as header bidding and more advanced features. Put ads at the bottom of your topics. That will perform well. 728x90 on desktop. 300x250 on mobile. On the desktop view ad 160x600 on the right (sticky only if allowed by network).

I'll comment again // without monetization I'll stick with the web view. That way I can use header bidding and advanced advertising methods with custom placements. Maybe if I could white label this and charge an access fee to offset lost advertising.

Sent.

Huge SEO gains. No clue why this would not be on the menu.

I had to move to db's with pages so I could add comments, reviews, tags, breadcrumbs... etc.. To be honest you should be able to do this with Pages vanilla... not sure why not.

This is smart. We use GSE and track similar metrics to improve our site. Good call!

IPS had separate mobile and desktop themes for probably 10+ years. I think around 2013 / 14 is when they went to a single responsive design. I'm a fan of responsive but I do agree the mobile UI (based on screen width) could be tailored a bit more to include include functions that are currently missing. I manually ad back some features myself but others are harder. As easy example of something I think should be standard is custom profile fields that show on the left of a post under the author name are not shown on mobile. They form a big part of a members identify on many forums and without them the mobile view is less informative which makes the site less engaging.