HOWTO: Add Google AdSense to topics within InstantForum.NET

HOWTO: Add Google AdSense to topics within InstantForum.NET

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By Ryan Healey
InstantASP Support

This article details the steps necessary to automatically add Google AdSense ads within InstantForum.NET topics. Although you can easily display Google AdSense through the wrapper functionality without any code changes adding your AdSense advertisements in-line within posts will increase your AdSense visibility and hopefully click-throughs.

You could easily extend this example to append the Google AdSense code to each post or use the topic keywords to determine the ads displayed. We've kept things simple in this example and are showing ads based on our AdSense ClientID. We do intend to improve support in this area with future versions to provide several methods for serving your ads with no code changes.

Using the code in this example will allow you to add AdSense Ads automatically as the second post within any topic within InstantForum.NET. This is shown below...

This code can be applied to either the End User License or Developer License. You'll only need to modify a single code-behind file.

Open up InstantASP.InstantForum.UI\Pages\Post.vb within Visual Studio.NET
Locate the "InsertPost" method around line 660. We'll need to add a call to our new methods here.
Below the InsertPost method add the following code. You can also find this code in the attached file below.

InsertAdSensePost - This method actually adds the post to the InstantForum.NET database.

Private Function InsertAdSensePost(ByVal intTopicID As Int32) As Int32

    ' get adsense post
    Dim AdSensePost As InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic = GetGoogleAdSensePost(intTopicID)

    ' add the post as a reply to our topic
    Dim Topic As InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic = _
   InstantASP.InstantForum.Business.Posts.InsertPost( _
   CType(ForumID.Value, Int32), _
   AdSensePost.TopicID, _
   AdSensePost.ParentID, _
   AdSensePost.UserID, _
   ctlPostControl.MessageIcon, ctlPostControl.Subject, _
   "", AdSensePost.Message, "", False, CurrentContext)

    If Not Topic Is Nothing Then
        Return Topic.PostID
    Else
        Return 0
    End If

End Function
GetGoogleAdSensePost - This method simply returns a InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic object representing the Google AdSense post we wish to add/ You should modify the ClientID and AdSense client side code below to suite your requirements.

Private Function GetGoogleAdSensePost(ByVal intTopicID As Int32) As InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic

    ' IMPORTANT: Your AdSense Client ID
    Dim strAdSenseClientID As String = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

    ' ----------
    ' The actual Adsense Code that will be added to our post
    ' You can modify this to suite your requirements
    ' ----------
    Dim sb As New System.Text.StringBuilder
    sb.Append("<script type=""text/javascript""> ")
    sb.Append("google_ad_client = """ + strAdSenseClientID + """; ")
    sb.Append("google_alternate_color = ""D9DAD5""; ")
    sb.Append("google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; ")
    sb.Append("google_ad_format = ""234x60_as""; ")
    sb.Append("google_ad_type = ""text""; ")
    sb.Append("google_ad_channel =""""; ")
    sb.Append("google_color_border = ""676B56""; ")
    sb.Append("google_color_bg = ""D9DAD5""; ")
    sb.Append("google_color_link = ""800000""; ")
    sb.Append("google_color_url = ""800000""; ")
    sb.Append("goggle_color_text = ""333333""; ")
    sb.Append("</script>")
    sb.Append("<script type=""text/javascript"" src=""http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js""></script></div>")

    ' create an instance of our anonymous user, you'll use this user for the adsense post
    Dim User As New InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.AnonymousUser

    Dim AdSensePost As New InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic
    AdSensePost.TopicID = intTopicID
    AdSensePost.ParentID = intTopicID
    AdSensePost.UserID = User.UserID
    AdSensePost.Username = User.Username
    AdSensePost.Message = sb.ToString()

    ' return our topic object
    Return AdSensePost

End Function
Once you've added the two methods above simply add a call to InsertAdSensePost from our existing InsertPost method...

Private Function InsertPost() As Int32

    ' add post to database, we indicate this is not a poll below
    ' if successfull a topic object is returned with new post
    Dim Topic As InstantASP.InstantForum.Components.Topic = _
    InstantASP.InstantForum.Business.Posts.InsertPost(CType(ForumID.Value, Int32), _
    CType(TopicID.Value, Int32), CType(ParentID.Value, Int32), _
    MyBase.CurrentContext.CurrentUser.UserID, _
    ctlPostControl.MessageIcon, ctlPostControl.Subject, _
    ctlPostControl.Description, ctlPostControl.Message, _
    ctlPostControl.AttachmentGUID, False, CurrentContext)

    ' was post insert ok
    If Not Topic Is Nothing Then

        ' do we have a post
        If Topic.PostID > 0 Then

            ' call our method to add a adsense post
            InsertAdSensePost(Topic.PostID)

- we've removed the rest of the code for readability.
REbuild your solution within Visual Sutdio.NET and visit your forum installation. Add a new test topic and you should see your Google AdSense ad displayed below the first post in your topic.

Making these changes to Post.vb will ensure a Google AdSense ad always appears as the second post within any topic within InstantForum.NET. I hope this helps generate a little extra income from your community.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to leave some comments below or contact us.

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Tags:

Code Example, Google AdSense, InstantForum.NET