Ads are currently served up by the ad module using a little javascript that calls the locally hosted adserve.php. It is already possible for a remote website to also call adserve.php with the same javascript, but at this time the ad module is unable to differentiate between ads displayed locally and ads displayed remotely. The feature to be added during ALPHA development is the introduction of tokens which can be provided to remote hosts, and then will allow the ad module to track ad views and clicks on remote sites as easily as on the local site.

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jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented
Title: ALPHA: Add support for hosting ads on remote websites » Add support for hosting ads on remote websites

The schema has been defined for hosting ads on remote websites.

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

As of version 0.6 of the ad module all underlying logic for displaying and tracking ads on remote websites is implemented, however instructions are not yet provided to users. In addition, statistics are not yet filtered by where they were displayed/clicked.

Patrick Nelson’s picture

Patrick Nelson commented

Hi Jeremy,

Does the support for remote displays include the ability to have a permanent link back to the originating site?

Regards

Patrick

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

I don't understand what you are asking. A permanent link for what?

The goal of this functionality is to basically allow you to set up your own ad network, displaying ads on any number of remote websites whether or not they are running Drupal. It's a work in progress, as is this entire module.

Patrick Nelson’s picture

Patrick Nelson commented

I think you've kinda answered my question - setting up an ad network is precisely what I'm aiming to do. Ads displayed on remote sites that attract potential new advertisers would need to let those advertisers know where they go to buy / create an advert that will display on the site they were visiting too and therefore a link to the original site (i.e., mine) would be necessary. That's what I meant.

Regards

Patrick

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

Okay, so you're basically looking for the ability to customize how the ads are displayed. Yes, I plan to add this functionality.

If you wish to help out with this effort without contributing patches, it would be helpful if you could just detail thoroughly all features you think are necessary when hosting ads on remote websites. This could include customization of what is displayed as you've requested above, management of remote websites and their owners, etc...

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

The new ad_remote module is a proof-of-concept implementation for this. The user interface for actually generating snippets could certainly be improved, but the core functionality works in both the 4.7.x and 5.x development trees.

Still to be done, the ad_cache_file logic needs to be updated to track the hostid when remote ads are viewed.

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented
Status: Active » Fixed

It is now possible to display and track ads on remote websites. The user interface for setting up remote ads is _very_ simplistic and there is no user interface for monitoring ads on a per remote site basis, but the core functionality is implemented.

psicomante’s picture

psicomante commented

great work. I would looking the core code functionality. Thanks.

Anonymous’s picture

(not verified) commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)