AdSense, Chitika and advertising alternatives

Having covered recently how to modify a Blogger template (i.e., Layout) to add AdSense to your Blogger / Blogspot blog, we shall now look at a different way of placing said ads and also other advertisers, beyond Google’s AdSense.

Blogger-Earnings Google includes in the Blogger Dashboard an “Earnings” tab that makes adding AdSense very simple. There are also predefined “gadgets” that can be added in “Layout”. Yet some people might not like Google, because in the words of Vladimir Putin, it’s a CIA / NSA project, or maybe it’s simply because some people knowingly or unknowingly have violated the program policies and were booted off as a result.

Either way, picking an alternative is not easy, because despite the advantages of running such a business, few have managed to raise enough to be worthy of consideration and simultaneously stay independent / un-acquired by Google (that’s what happened to DoubleClick).

The most often mentioned advertising networks are advertising, buysellads, chitika, dynamicoxygen, adversal, bidvertiser, skimlinks, viglink, b4psads, intellilinks, exitjunction, infolinks, textlinkads, clicksor, qadabra, industrybrains, kontera, media.net, pulsepoint and valueclickmedia (all .com unless otherwise specified). However, just because they do not disclose a Google affiliation, it does not mean such an affiliation does not exist. Only a few years ago numerous websites, including PayPal, eBay and even Chitika were using some strange Google cookies.

Here’s my email exchange with Chitika regarding the use of Google cookies, etc.

OCT 05, 2011 | 04:02PM EDT
Hi ~,
Unfortunately we do not have an option for that at this time, although it is a wonderful idea! We will certainly consider it in the future. Let me know if you have any more questions or would like help getting started with your Chitika ads - I am always happy to help!
~

OCT 05, 2011 | 02:55PM EDT
Original message
I am considering replacing my AdSense ads with Chitika ads on all my sites. Is it possible to set up my account so that all my earnings (or a portion thereof) would be donated automatically to charity? If yes, do you have a badge that explicitly states this to display on my blog?
(I explain what and why at google-dmv)
Regards,
Sarah
Chitika Customer Support
For your reference this is Case #: 7150

OCT 7, 2011 | 04:17PM EDT

I've noticed on your chitika.com login page, at the very end, there seems to be Google AdSense code:
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js">
</script>
<noscript>
<div style="display:inline;">
<img height="1" width="1" style="border-style:none;" alt="" src="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/1031173913/?label=ZFBQCMHD1gEQme7Z6wM&guid=ON&script=0"/>
</div>
</noscript>
Why?
Cheers,

Sarah
OCT 14, 2011 | 04:54PM EDT
Hi ~,
I'm not sure why that is there! Good spot.. :) I can assure you we are not affiliated with Google in any way.

So much for an alternative..

Now you might think that some advertising networks are controlled by Google or, at the very least, are controlled by the same puppet masters to track people. My suggestion is not to think about that if you are trying to make money, it’s unavoidable and not something you can control. However, if you would rather avoid that ethical conundrum, you might consider using the same network used bye ThePirateBay – currently Exoclick (but that’s a real alternative only if you’ve high traffic).

Another way to pick an alternative advertising network is the Wikipedia list (wiki-adnet), then take the networks with a higher Alexa ranking (currently Zedo and Bing ads) but sadly, they are headquartered in USA, which means that they may be part of the same surveillance complex as Google. Another top is W3techs, which currently lists also Infolinks and PopAds (more precisely, in order, Amazon Associates, AdRoll, Infolinks, ExoClick, Commission Junction, OpenX, Yandex.Direct, Skimlinks, etc).

If you nonetheless decide to stick with AdSense, let us look at a trick to place AdSense in the middle of each article.

Find the tag <data:post.body/> (you must check Expand Widget Templates in Blogger console) and replace it with following code:
<div expr:id='"aim1" + data:post.id'></div>
<div style="clear:both; margin:10px 0">
</div>
<div expr:id='"aim2" + data:post.id'>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var obj0=document.getElementById("aim1<data:post.id/>");
var obj1=document.getElementById("aim2<data:post.id/>");
var s=obj1.innerHTML;
var r=s.search(/\x3C!-- adsense --\x3E/igm);
if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r+16);}
</script>
Note that you must replace  with block code provided by Google.
In every blog post:
Put a special comment

in the exact point you want to appear AdSense advertising.
Done!

The trick above is ubiquitous, being listed by numerous websites, so you may have more luck with it than what I used.

If using the old Blogger template, try the following code (find the tag <$BlogItemBody$> and replace it with following).

<div id="prv<$BlogItemNumber$>"></div>
<div style="clear:both;margin:10px 0">

</div>
<div id="fst<$BlogItemNumber$>">
<$BlogItemBody$>

</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var obj0=document.getElementById("prv<$BlogItemNumber$>");
var obj1=document.getElementById("fst<$BlogItemNumber$>");
var s=obj1.innerHTML;
var r=s.search(/\x3C!-- adsense --\x3E/igm);
if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r+16);}
</script>

If you are using self-hosted Wordpress, you might want to look for a plugin (we found one by BestWebSoft, linked below as wp-bw), as there are probably many more.

If, however, you would rather get your hands dirty and modify the template yourself, SideIncome provides the following code snippet to work with their own “Who Sees Ads” plugin.

[php]
/**
* Insert ads in the middle of a post - after 3rd paragraph
*/
function inject_ad_text_after_n_chars($content) {
$enable_length = 1500;
$after_character = 1000;
if (is_single() && (strlen($content) > $enable_length)) {
$before_content = substr($content, 0, $after_character);
$after_content = substr($content, $after_character);
$after_content = explode('</p>', $after_content);
array_splice($after_content, 1, 0, wp_ozh_wsa("AdSense-MidParagraph",false));
$after_content = implode('</p>', $after_content);
return $before_content . $after_content;
} else {
return $content;
}
}
add_filter('the_content', 'inject_ad_text_after_n_chars');
[/php]

Alternatively, for forums there usually is a plugin that allows you to add ads.

If, again, you prefer to mess with PHP yourself, the following code posted on SitePoint might help you.

$testimonialText = nl2br($testimonialText); // This will insert <br /> tags into the string
// Split on whitespace between sentences preceded by a punctuation mark
$sentences = preg_split('/(?<=[.?!;:])\s+/', $testimonialText, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
$banner = "<p><b>Google ads go here</b></p>";
$first = array_splice($sentences,0 ,14);
$output = join(". ",$first) . '. ' . $banner ;
$output .= join(". ", $sentences);
print ("<p>$output</p>");
echo '<pre>';
print_r($sentences);
echo '</pre>';

For better or for worse, AdSense and Google remain, by far, the largest networks in the world. Your chances of fighting them and winning are zero; so are your chances of succeeding in making money outside their reach – i.e., you have a better chance working with them then against them.

Alternative viewpoints: DailyBlogTips, WarriorForum, Flippa, BHW

Sources / More info: blogs911-adsense-mdl, sideincomeblogging-wp-adsense, sitepoint-forums, 84prod-admid, adsinmiddle, ggl-adsense, supp-adp, google-wd, wp-bw, wiki-adnet, w3t,