Easy Ads provides a unified and intuitive interface to manage multiple ad providers on your blog. Currently supported are Chitika, BidVertiser, Clicksor, and, of course, AdSense. The list of ad providers will be expanded later on at your request.

AdSense dumped you? Don't be heartbroken; there are other fish in the sea. You may find happiness with BidVertiser, Chitika or Clicksor. Use Easy Ads, and you may get lucky!

Note that this plugin requires PHPv5.3+. If it does not work on your web host, please consider Easy AdSense Lite or Easy AdSense Pro.

Features

1. Tabbed and intuitive interface for multiple ad providers (AdSense, Chitika etc.).
2. Rich display and alignment options.
3. Robust codebase for extending to more ad providers.
4. Control over the positioning and display of ad blocks in each post or page.
5. Simple configuration interface -- nothing more than entering your provider id for AdSense or Chitika, and with sensible defaults for the few options present, all with clear instructions.
6. Specialized widgets for AdSense and Chitika, and common widget interface for the rest.
7. Available in your own language using machine translation curtsey of Google and Microsoft.

If you want to use only AdSense, you would want to consider my full-fledged, feature-rich plugin Easy AdSense.

Pro Version

Easy Ads is the freely distributed version of a premium plugin. The Pro version gives you even more features.

1. In the Pro version you have an Admin (Control Panel) tab with:
   • Option to selectively activate or deactivate various ad providers in the Admin Tab, so that you can have only AdSense, or only Chitika, if you so choose.
   • More information about ad positions and slots (as an image in the Admin Tab).
   • Option to set number of ad slots per position.
   • New commands (in the Admin Tab) to Reset All Options, Drop All Options or Migrate Options to a new plugin version.
2. A filter to ensure that your ads show only on those pages that seem to comply with Google AdSense (and other common provider) policies, which can be important since some comments may render your pages inconsistent with those policies.
3. It also lets you specify a list of computers where your ads will not be shown, in order to prevent accidental clicks on your own ads -- one of the main reasons AdSense bans you.
4. Also in the works for the Pro version is a compatibility mode, which solves the issue of the ad insertion messing up your page appearances when using some themes.

The Pro version costs $8.95 and can be purchased online with instant download link.

Future Plans

I would like to hear from you if you have any feature requests or comments.

1. Ad Rotation: I will provide means to rotate ads among various providers with user-defined frequency.
2. More Providers: This plugin is designed with extensibility in mind. I will keep adding more ad providers, or even let the end-users add them.
3. Expertise Level: I plan to introduce expertise levels (Easy, Advanced and Expert tabs) within the tab for each ad provider.
4. Max Number of Ad blocks: Since some providers require you to limit the number of ad blocks to some policy-driven ceiling, I will expose that option to you. Also to be customized is the number of ads per slot. In this initial release, there are three slots (top, middle and bottom), each of which can take two ad blocks. In a future release, you will have much more customization options.
5. Internationalization: Future versions will provide MO/PO files for internationalization.
6. Documentation: As this plugin may have an overwhelming set of options and features, I will try to write a comprehensive help system for it.

Installation

Searching

The easiest way to install this plugin is to use the WordPress Admin interface. Go to your admin dashboard, find the "Plugins" menu, and click on "Add New". Search for this plugin and click on "Install Now" and follow the WordPress instructions.

Uploading

If you want to download it and manually install, you can again use the WordPress dashboard interface. First download the plugin zip file to your local computer. Then go to your admin dashboard, find the "Plugins" menu, and click on "Add New". After clicking on the "Add New" menu item as above, click on "Upload" (below the title "Install Plugins" near the top). Browse for your downloaded zip file, upload it and activate the plugin.

FTP

1. Upload the Easy Ads plugin (the whole easy-ads-lite folder) to the '/wp-content/plugins/' directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
3. Go to the Settings -> Easy Ads and enter your ad codes and options.

To install the professional version of the plugin, please deactivage the Lite version (if any) first. Then upload the zip file that you download after your purchase using the WordPress admin interface shown below.

The plugin is updated also by following the same process, preferably from the plugin Admin page where you will see a file-upload form when an update is ready. The first update for your purchased plugin is always free.

Screenshots

Change Log

• V4.20: Compatibility with WP4.8. Sunset edition. [Aug 1, 2017]
• V4.10: Compatibility with WordPress 4.5. [May 12, 2015]
• V4.00: Deprecating translation interface in favor of Google translation. [Feb 23, 2016]
• V3.90: Compatibility with WordPress 4.4. [Dec 5, 2015]
• V3.83: Refactoring changes. [Nov 7, 2015]
• V3.82: Enhancements in the admin interface. [Oct 17, 2015]
• V3.81: Documentation changes. [Sep 13, 2015]
• V3.80: Major changes to fix HTML5 validation errors. [Sep 10, 2015]
• V3.70: Compatibility with WordPress 4.3. [Aug 10, 2015]
• V3.60: Compatibility with WordPress 4.2. [April 25, 2015]
• V3.50: Refactoring and documentation changes. [Apr 2, 2015]
• V3.40: Compatibility with WP4.1. [Jan 8, 2015]
• V3.30: Automatic options migration upon plugin activation. [Sep 26, 2014]
• V3.21: Minor change to the admin interface. [Sep 9, 2011]
• V3.20: Compatibility with WP4.0. [Sep 6, 2014]
• V3.12: Updating translations, minor bug fixes. [Jul 17, 2014]
• V3.11: Minor bug fix. [May 8, 2014]
• V3.10: Internationalization and compatibility with WP3.9. [May 7, 2014]
• V3.00: Major changes to the design -- adding a translation interface, getting ready to change options handling. [Mar 22, 2014]
• V2.71: Adding options to suppress ads on sticky front page or search pages. [Jan 5, 2014]
• V2.70: Compatibility checks for WordPress V3.8. Bug fixes in options migration. [Dec 18, 2013]
• V2.60: Compatibility checks for WordPress V3.7. [Nov 11, 2013]
• V2.50: Compatibility with WP3.6. [Aug 12, 2013]
• V2.40: Adding an admin page translator. [May 17, 2013]
• V2.32: Bug fixes (Fatal error: Call-time pass-by-reference has been removed). [Jan 24, 2013]
• V2.31: Bug fix. [Dec 22, 2012]
• V2.30: Enforcing the Google policy on the number of ads, and making the pub-id entry flexible. [Nov 4, 2012]
• V2.20: Admin interface modifications. [Sep 27, 2012]
• V2.10: More minor bug fixes in widget handling and to take care of some debug notices from WordPress debug mode. [Aug 31, 2012]
• V2.09: Taking care of some debug notices from WordPress debug mode. [Aug 27, 2012]
• V2.08: Adding more ad sizes. [Aug 12, 2012]
• V2.07: Minor changes to the admin page. [July 18, 2012]
• V2.06: Testing compatibility with WP 3.4. [July 11, 2012]
• V2.05: Bug fixes. [May 25, 2012]
• V2.04: Bug fixes. [May 18. 2012]
• V2.03: Renaming the plugin to drop the word Lite. [May 11, 2012]
• V2.02: Relaxing the PHP version required to 5.0 [Apr 20, 2012]
• V2.01: Fixing the PHP version checker. [Apr 19, 2012]
• V2.00: Initial release as Easy Ads Lite. [Apr 16, 2012]
• V1.31: Documentation and admin-page display changes. Non-critical. [Aug 30, 2011]
• V1.30: Chitika tab mirrors the ad customization as in Chitika.
• V1.20: Mini-tabs and widgets. Going back to simple CSS tabs. Options are versioned in the DB now. [Nov 12 2010]
• V1.10: Specialized screen for Chitika. Different implementation of JS tabs (using YETII). [Oct 25 2010]
• V1.05: More technical and user interface enhancements (preparing to reuse ezAPI.php for other plugins) . Switching to Chitika for default and shared ads. [Oct 3, 2010]
• V1.04: Graceful handling of PHP4, improvements in the admin interface. [Sep 20, 2010]
• V1.03: Technical enhancements; no functional changes. (Refactoring static utility functions into a new class in ezExtras.php.) [Sep 11, 2010]
• V1.02: Technical enhancements; no functional changes. (Simulating namespace to avoid potential name collisions, minor bug fixes etc.) [Sep 4, 2010]
• V1.01: Google policy enforcement (no more than three ad blocks). [Sep 2, 2010]
• V1.00: Initial release. [Aug 31, 2010]

Plan

• Improvements in Widgets handling. Beautification of mini tabs. Body top/mid/end ad blocks.
• "Linked options" -- if a widget is disabled, the corresponding options (its text, alignment etc) should be disabled using JS.
• Specialization for Clicksor.
• Enter Ads Easy.
• Technical enhancements; PHP5.0 (__construct functions).

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the different versions of the plugin?

Easy Ads is the freely distributed version of a premium plugin. The Pro version gives you more benefits -- lets you activate a filter to ensure that your ads show only on those pages that seem to comply with Google AdSense policies. It also lets you specify a list of computers where your ads will not be shown, in order to prevent accidental clicks on your own ads -- one of the main reasons AdSense bans you. These features will minimize your chance of getting banned. The Pro version costs $8.95, and is appropriate if you expect to make more than $150 of ad revenue from your site.

How can I contact the plugin author if I need help?

This plugin uses a paid support model in order to manage the support load. Each support ticket will be charged at $0.95 for the Lite version (and for the Pro version after a short free support period). The support ticket is valid for 72 hours, and further follow-up questions will call for a new support ticket.

I still don't get it. Porn and site block - that you already have during Asdense ad setup?

What you have in AdSense is an ability to block ads from certain sites. For instance, if you don't like ads from my site "thulasidas.com", you can block them. What the pro version gives you is the ability to block ads to certain clients. That is, if you don't want visitors from certain IP addresses see your ads (because they may click on too many of them, getting your AdSense account banned, for instance), you can with my plugin.

Porn block also is similar -- Google lets you choose non-porn ads (I think). What my plugin does is to look at the content of your page, and block ads if it looks like a porn page. (This can happen if a spammer posts a porn kind of comment on your blog, which again may get your AdSense account banned.)

I enabled the widgets for various ad providers. But I don't see any on my blog pages. How come?

The widgets are enabled and available on your Appearance -> Widgets area. Please drag and drop them to the appropriate side-bar.

I get the error "Error locating or loading the defaults! Ensure 'defaults.php' exists, or reinstall the plugin." What to do?

Please copy all the files in the zip archive to your plugin directory. You need all the files in the easy-ads-lite directory. One of these files is the missing defaults.php.

I activate the plugin, but nothing happens. I see some red error message stating something about PHP version. What gives?

This plugin requires PHP version 5.x or later. If it doesn't find the right version, it posts an error message in the plugins page, and does nothing. You will need to contact the system admin or support folks of your hosting service and request them to install PHP5.x for you. Usually, all it takes is just an email to get it sorted out.

How can I control the appearance of the ad blocks using CSS?

All <div>s that Easy Ads creates have the class attribute easy-ads. Furthermore, they have class attributes like easy-ads-adsense-top, easy-ads-clicksor-bottom etc., (i.e., easy-ads-provider-position). You can set the style for these classes in your theme style.css to control their appearance.

Why does my code disappear when I switch to a new theme?

Easy Ads stores the ad code and options in your database indexed by the theme name, so that if you set up the options for a particular theme, they persist even when you switch to another theme. If you ever switch back to an old theme, all your options will be reused without your worrying about it.

But this unfortunately means that you do have to set the code once whenever you switch to a new theme.

Can I control how the ad blocks are formatted in each page?

Yes! In Easy Ads, you have more options [through custom fields] to control ad blocks in individual posts/pages. Add custom fields with keys like easy-ads-adsense-top, easy-ads-adsense-middle, easy-ads-adsense-bottom and with values like left, right, center or no to have control how the ad blocks show up in each post or page. The value "no" suppresses all the ad blocks in the post or page for that provider.

Digital Goods

Please visit our e-shop selling all sorts of digital goods -- Premium WordPress plugins, PHP packages, Mac Apps, eBooks etc. It runs on my own ezPayPal package, which you can purchase if you would like to start a similar e-commerce gateway. Do check it out!

---

See Also:  Other plugins

---

If you like my plugin efforts, please leave a comment using your Facebook login below.
If you need help, please use our support portal instead.  

---

[Proudly brought to you by EZ PayPal.]

---

Comments