Please Post Forums that have Ad's in Left/Right Margins.

[David Copeland]

Please post any sample sites that have ad's on
the left and right side of the forum page.

To see a sample of what we have done at our
forum and the ads that we placed on the right
margin, go to www.ipiu.org/forums/index.php

(There seems to be enough margins on both
sides of the forum page to insert several small
box ads, without cluttering up the page. I'd
like to see some samples of your work.)

Thanks,

David

------------------------

David Copeland

Forum Director:
International Private Investigators Union (IPIU)

Forum Page: PI Forum (http://www.ipiu.org/forums/index.php)

Forum Consultant:
Motion Picture Actors Guild (MPAG)

-------------------------
copeland@ipiu.org

[David Copeland]

I'm surprised no one yet has a forum with ads
placed on the right and left margins of the web page.

This forum does not seem to allow any right and
left margins, but I have seen others they have allowed
for margins.

Does anyone have any test forums that may
help me with this layout?

David

[wajones]

http://www.purecrap.com/nuke2vb/forum.php

[David Copeland]

Nice!

Thanks. (Any others?)

David

[harfang]

No ads, but plenty of space if I needed it.

http://mocksports.com/forums/

[David Copeland]

That is one smart looking forum and site!

I like the color scheme too.

Any other samples?

David

[David Copeland]

Great looking forums.

IDEA:
Most people read from Left to Right,
and most photo layouts are designed
to reduce eye strain by understanding
we begin on the Left side of a page and
read to the right, then return to the next
lower line on the left.

PROBLEM #1:
If a viewer begins reading 1 or 2 inches
in from the left edge because there is a
left Menu or Ad, then his/her eyes begin
to strain towards that far left. We do not
read a book from the left by ignoring the
first one inch of words and letters.

PROBLEM #2:
If a viewer reads from left to right, his/her
eyes will do a return to the far left, and
then jump to the next start point. There
will be a constant urge to go left.

SOLUTION:
Take a look at the following web page,
where the ads appear on the far right:

www.dvdpricesearch.com

http://www.dvdcouponpost.com/

http://www.time.com/time/

Although the choice is a personal decision,
I am looking for samples of VBulletin Forums
that are integrated with the ads either on
both sides, or on the right side.

Is the choice of "right side" simply an html
programming code?

David

[Blackjack]

Not really ads, but menu on one side, buttons on right.

http://thzclan.com/forums

[mjames]

http://www.sports-central.org/community/boards

[David Copeland]

M. James,

Your link doesn't work because it's missing the last /

The correct one is:

http://www.sports-central.org/community/boards/

(But I didn't see any right-margin ads?)

David

[mjames]

Originally posted by David Copeland
M. James,

Your link doesn't work because it's missing the last /

The correct one is:

http://www.sports-central.org/community/boards/

(But I didn't see any right-margin ads?)

David


The link should have worked. I just tried it and it did. And yes, there is an ad at the top right of the page...

[Blackjack]

That ad is at the top of the page, not the left and right margins

[mjames]

I saw another forum site posted above that had something similar to what we have and I thought that was what you were looking for, thus I posted my site. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[janw]

Maybe this one: http://www.icqforum.f2s.com/php

Jan

[David Copeland]

Nope.

The ads on that one were on the top margin,
not the right margin (right to the forum menu)

Any others?

[wajones]

:confused:

[David Copeland]

wajones,

Was that a question?

I'm still looking for forums that have the header
on the RIGHT margin instead of the top, so that
I may place our ad links and pictures to the
right of all the discussions.

Anyone?

David

------------------------

David Copeland

Forum Director:
International Private Investigators Union (IPIU)

Forum Page: PI Forum (http://www.ipiu.org/forums/index.php)

Forum Consultant:
Motion Picture Actors Guild (MPAG)

-------------------------
copeland@ipiu.org

[Pingu]

Well, we have a margin on the left.
The first margin was sized for 88 pixels buttons and such. But the problem then was that the whole forum wouldn't fit in a 800x600 window without adjusting it to look really ugly.
The left margin we have now is about 100 pixels, leaving space for 60 pixels stuff inside the margin. Still the forum doesn't fit, but it's acceptable now, although the margin doesn't leave much space. At least not enough for advertising stuff...

We could have done a simpler design. That would have given us more space to do things with small sized banners and things. But...

All in all everything is possible, but you really have to consider the 800x600 look. By having a side margin we already skipped 640x480 completely...

It's still heavily under development...

[Bane]

You have a link to it pingu?

[Pingu]

Umm, well, yeah, that would help :o
http://www.paysforum.com/forums

The lay out is about done. But the whole thing isn't ready yet...

[David Copeland]

I'm not speaking about large ads in the margins of
all the forum pages. Just something to generate
some revenue.

Below are some sample sizes of what I'm looking to
squeeze into the RIGHT margin of the forum page:

In Christine Ryans Topic, she has a small graphic
box in the upper left hand corner of her topic:

http://www.ipiu.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=270

And also:

http://www.ipiu.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=272

Could the margin you have on the left be easily
reversed to the right? (Most people read from left
to right, and most premium magazine ad pages are
on the right of the two page spreads)

[Pingu]

Well, everything you see is just one big table, so the margin could just as well be on the right. As a matter of fact, we started out that way, but we ran onto some things. Can't remember what exactly now :(
In our case the edges are made out of little pics (20 pixels.) Take them all out and we would have around 80 pixels more screenwidth. That should be more then enough to display those little ads you are talking about, and still maintain a layout that would keep 800x600 users happy :)

[Bane]

I have a forum with a menu on the left hand side. Still working out the bugs but it will do what you like. Switching the menu to the right would be simple.

http://www.influx9.com/forum/

The menu will easily hold an 88x31 (standard button) image, which is used by some networks. In fact, if you would like to see it with a button I can add one for a day or so when I come home tonight.

To be honest however, I have run into some problems. 800x600 displays have to scroll, unless you fix the time as I have in the forumdisplay.

As I said.. still a bit rough, but it should give you an idea.

[David Copeland]

Thanks for the very kind reply.

Is the 800x600 a thing-of-the-past? In other words,
most of our screens are set at 1024x768. Or are
most users choosing 800x600?

--------------------

We want to use the RIGHT MARGIN to insert a bunch
of small boxed ads, such as the following sizes:







--------------------

As you can see from the sample sizes above, having
them on the RIGHT MARGIN of the forum should fit in
very well, without being too distractive.

David

------------------------

David Copeland

Forum Director:
International Private Investigators Union (IPIU)

Forum Page: PI Forum (http://www.ipiu.org/forums/index.php)

Forum Consultant:
Motion Picture Actors Guild (MPAG)

-------------------------
copeland@ipiu.org

[Pingu]

Well, this reply is a bit late :(

Don't throw out 800x600 users! Not sure if 800x600 users are still the majority now, but let's say that half your visitors use that resolution...

One thing that will really make trouble is the lastpost display. It displays time and lastposter and let's the forum run right out of the screen. I have fixed that by putting a <br> into the template to split time and lastposter. Another fix might be using <smallfont>...

But the bigger problem is with newreply. This is the one page I haven't been able to fix yet in 800x600 :(
Above each post are the icons that can be "assigned" to the reply. In the reply screen those icons stand next to each other, 7 icons width and I havent's figured out how to deal with that, (say make three rows of 5 icons, instead of two with 7...)

By the way, don't completely rule out 640x480 either. Someone on my Forum is complaining that the screen doesn't fit his 13' monitor (running on steam?).......

[Menno]

Just build flexible designs (called fluid), that will ajust themselves to the window size instead of pre-determined width (called ice).

[Pingu]

I am using fluid, me thinks. There isn't a single spot where I've used hardcoded settings.
Nope, not true, the left margin uses hardcoded sizes, but the table containing the Forum itself is completely fluid. And still the reply thing won't fit the screen because I can't get the rows of icons to break up in a different manner :(

[David Copeland]

Bob McCambridge has done an excellent job working
on our ad placements within the right-side margin
of the forums page. I am extremely pleased with
his dedication in working with my staff, and doing his
best in keeping our forum host site up and running
too.

It appears he has chosen to add our ad boxes in the
footer template, which appears on the right margin.
The few forums I have seen where the ads are in the
left margin is suggesting the ads are placed in the
header template instead of the footer template.

What I like is that Bob has chosen not to hard code
hack the software, but has simply chosen a built-in
means of the software to allow us to place our ads
so that future upgrades will be smooth.

Anyone else using their ads in the right margins?

David