AdSense Responsive Ads

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

And you want to allow square ads, which is why you didn’t add the custom css with height?

[ljpp]

@neil Once again thank you for this plugin - this single component is a make-it-or-break-it feature for our community that runs without any other funding.

I have been running AdSense banners with the Responsive setting ever since this feature was introduced to the plugin. Recently however the Responsive ads have started misbehaving – I seem to be getting larger ad units that break the intended UX (too much ad content above the fold). I also get ads that are too big for my iPhone SE – they produce a large white space on the screen unless I turn the device landscape.

I had a look at the settings and noticed that ad size is now a multi-select option. I tried searching here but I failed to find information how does this multi-select feature actually work – what ad sizes are shown and when if I choose more than one?

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@ljpp

I had a look at the settings and noticed that ad size is now a multi-select option. I tried searching here but I failed to find information how does this multi-select feature actually work – what ad sizes are shown and when if I choose more than one?

If you choose multiple sizes, the ad units will alternate between them evenly. So you could alternate between banner ads and square ads in the same ad slot, for example.

As for the ad height problems you’re seeing, you can try to add height rules to the ad slots like the first post in this topic shows:

This doesn’t work anymore!

@neil

(Optional) Controlling Ad Sizes

You can have full control over the dimensions of the responsive ad units because AdSense looks at the size of the container when choosing the size of ads to show.

Using a custom theme, you can use CSS to set the size of each ad slot. For example, to limit the height of the ads that show above topic lists:

.adsense-topic-list-top.adsense-responsive {
  height: 200px;
}

[ljpp]

BTW, I never got the responsive element size control working. Just noticed that Google has made some updates to responsive units in September.

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9467650?hl=fi

Max heigh/width would be an awesome addition to the plugin and make the fixed size options redundant. Perhaps something to consider for the development roadmap?

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

Max heigh/width would be an awesome addition to the plugin and make the fixed size options redundant. Perhaps something to consider for the development roadmap?

You can already do this see the (Optional) Controlling Ad Sizes section in the first post of this topic.

[ljpp]

BTW, I never got the responsive element size control working

But that was not the point. I’ve tried it a number of times, but for some reason it does not work as-is (in our scenario).

The benefit would have been simplifying the Plugin settings view, which is currently quite cluttered.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

I don’t know what you’re proposing, but I found this article that seems to say that responsive ads can ignore their containers now.

…responsive ad units can now resize the HTML parent container (e.g. <div> ) that they’re within. This allows them to automatically adapt to all the different ad sizes on publishers’ pages.

Note that for responsive ad units to work properly, they must not be placed inside a container with a fixed or limited height.

Cool.

If you want to limit the height of your responsive ads, you’ll need to modify your responsive ad code…

<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;min-width:400px;max-width:970px;width:100%;height:90px"

So do the same thing as the way it worked before with containers and css, but do it with inline styles instead to let Google “automatically adapt to all the different ad sizes” whatever that means.

BUT their examples show that using CSS should still work: @ljpp see this article:

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9183363

Are you sure you haven’t tried using CSS to control the max width/height of the responsive units? The two articles contradict each other, so maybe their examples are obsolete.

[Callum_OKane]

Getting the word advertisement, but there is no ad.

[Callum_OKane]

Why do I only get the word advertisement where an ad should be? This is my config

[Paracelsus]

Hi, I’m posting this to try to get some feedback on a recurrent and most annoying issue with ads:

When in mobile, it is frequent that the posts “jump” up or down (lacking a better description) even after everything in the page is loaded, being really really hard to read certain posts due to this involuntary vertical scrolling. The screen doesn’t stay still at the post, it jumps whenever one tries to put it in front again. I say this is because of ads since when they’re not there then the issue goes away. I have everything configured as it should, with responsive ads on discourse corresponding to responsive ad-codes on Adsense.

Does anyone recognize this behavior?
Could it be related to Adsense trying to “decide” the height of the ads the whole time?

[Paracelsus]

Replying to my own post, after searching for a while I stumbled across this post where the same behavior is described:

Adsense blank ads

I thought I’d provide an update on my experience with the Adsense plugin. Unfortunately it hasn’t been great. Typically the ad slots fail to load any ad unit, so all I see is a blank space (or the ‘empty’ colour that I set for the ad unit). I’d say about only 40% of the time are ads actually servered. When they are, the “nth” post ad unit is still flakey, sometimes delivering an ad. I thought it may be something to do with the way that the ads were being called, however I have a skyscraper ad …

The jittery on mobile seems to be exclusively related to the option to placed ads every nth post. Putting this to zero does in fact stop the problem, but it would be much nicer if the plugin authors could fix the issue instead.

[ljpp]

I don’t know what you’re proposing,

The UI proposal is to add max size parameters to the Discourse settings UI, instead of the current selection menu where you have a handful of fixed sizes available. Would de-clutter the UI, as responsive would be the default, with the possibility to limit the height.

Are you sure you haven’t tried using CSS

I suck at CSS, but to my knowledge it has been tried a number of times. Currently working around the issue by using a fixed size for mobile layout.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@ljpp

The UI proposal is to add max size parameters to the Discourse settings UI, instead of the current selection menu where you have a handful of fixed sizes available. Would de-clutter the UI, as responsive would be the default, with the possibility to limit the height.

I think I understand this. So what we would end up with is this:

The big problem with responsive ads currently is that it causing jumping in the page layout, which is horrible within a topic while you’re trying to read. I’ll try adding these new settings to see if it prevents the jumping, but I have my doubts about max height helping because a smaller add will cause the placements to shrink.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@ljpp I implemented what you suggested, and it simply doesn’t work. Not even a little bit.

I followed this article to try to implement something like the example. See this result, where I’ve included some debugging to show what the ins element’s inline-style attribute contains when the adplugin renders it:

Here are my settings:

Notice the final result after AdSense has finished its work has a fixed height of 280px, replacing the 90px that the initial ins style had. And AdSense didn’t even find an ad to show, but decided to make the div bigger anyway.

And anyway, these new settings don’t streamline the AdSense settings, they add a lot more that are even more confusing and don’t actually let you control the sizes with the new way that responsive ads work.

[Paracelsus]

Since the problem seems to be with the “responsive” settings, I tried this: Limiting the mobile bottom ad sizes (which is also the code use for the nth post ad, I think) to the two mobile formats available (320 width) plus one with width 336… and removed the responsive.

So far so good, the jumpiness is much much less than before.

[Cazadividendos (Luis álvarez)]

@Paracelsus

Limiting the mobile bottom ad sizes (which is also the code use for the nth post ad, I think) to the two mobile formats available (320 width) plus one with width 336… and removed the responsive.

Thanks @Paracelsus, I’ll try this too…

@neil

I think I understand this. So what we would end up with is this:

@neil, whats the difference between “Adsense post bottom” and “Adsense mobile post bottom”?

A tablet, iPad or other intermediate-size devices are considered as PCs or as mobiles talking about the ads plugin?

[Paracelsus]

@Cazadividendos

Thanks @Paracelsus, I’ll try this too…

@Cazadividendos so far the “only” disadvantage is that you can’t have wider ads between posts even if, for instance, you rotate your mobile to an horizontal view, the ads are “stuck” on those sizes you choose. And if you choose wider ad sizes, you will start seeing some that break the layout when mobile is vertical.

[neil (Neil Lalonde)]

@Cazadividendos

whats the difference between “Adsense post bottom” and “Adsense mobile post bottom”?

First one is not mobile, the other is mobile. It uses Discourse’s rules for telling what is “mobile” or not.

[jamesmarkcook (James Cook)]

@Cazadividendos

A tablet, iPad or other intermediate-size devices are considered as PCs or as mobiles talking about the ads plugin?

They will be considered mobile.

[ElForoViajero (elforoviajero.com)]

Hi,

Is it possible to add Google ads in the middle of a topic? Let’s say for every X replies, a ad could show? right now i see only top or bottom options.

Thanks!