Getting started with OpenAds (installing)
Author: Tim NashWith Nicks great post on selling links I thought I would follow up with a quick how to setup OpenAds and how to integrate it into your WordPress or Drupal sites.
What’s OpenAds
Openads is a free open source advert management system, it allows us as site owners to provide advertisers with a means to run and monitor adverts on our site. Openads is the merger of phpAdsNew, phpPgAds and Max Media Manager into one package.
Setting up OpenAds
Go head to the downloads section for this tutorial we are using the latest stable build 2.0.11 a Beta version of the next version is available at the time of writing which offers several bug fixes and a combined install script. However for this tutorial we will be using the old version and mysql though postresql is available as well.
1)Unpack and move the files to the location on the server
2)Setup your MySQL database, each host has a different way of doing this so check your hosts documentation for how. While for performance reasons its best if Openads has its own database, it does allow user defined prefixes to its tables allowing it to be setup in a single database.
3)openads has a graphical wizard for installing visit in a browser the location of your new adserver for example www.example.com/adserver
Hopefully you are presented with a screen similar to this…
4)Proceed and Accept the license agreement.
5)Fill in the relevant details, notice the URL prefix this should be your server location in my case its running of the local intranet which is why their is no www.
6)Put in the location and information about the mysql db, notice you can change the prefix and table type (unless you have a reason to avoid this section and just leave it alone).
7)Your server is installed woot go get a coffee!
Integrating with WordPress
Thankfully their is an Openad plugin for wordpress that makes installing it a breeze so rather then taking you step by step through the process I will simply point you to the WP OpenAds plugin home page
Integrating with Drupal
Again integrating with Drupal is easy thanks to the OpenAd module which takes care of theme integration, download the module and setup as normal.
Other systems?
While I principally use Openads with Drupal their are plenty of other content management systems out there. The good news is if they allow you to place javascript in a page then you can use Openads as well!.
Arlen Coupland
2007-08-22 14:38:37
Hi,
thanks for the plug and the very clear instructions – great to see! I have read Nick’s post on selling ads and it is a good read.
Joomla is another popular CMS which we’ve been working to get an easy plugin working with it. We’ve made a call out to our community for any other systems that would be good to integrate with
http://blog.openads.org/08/making-openads-easy-to-use-part-i/
I think it would be good to talk here about different invocation codes and what you prefer to use, as basic users might be confused on this part. In general Javascript invocation is the easiest for basic users
Thanks,
Arlen Coupland
Openads.org
HR
2007-08-23 11:10:10
so what’s the difference between your “way” of installing openads and just reading the documentation and following these exact same steps?
Tim Nash
2007-08-23 11:21:02
nothing really but very few people read the manual
but a surprising number will look at a blog entry and look at the screen by screen shot to check theirs looks like the same shots.
The next part will be done the same way for setting up an ad campaign again, I suspect you will glean exactly the same info from the manual ours will just be condensed.
HR could you make sure in future that place a real email address in the comments otherwise the system will mistake you for a spammer.
PHPDeveloper.org
2007-08-23 14:58:31
PaymentBlogger.com: Getting started with OpenAds (installing)
developercast.com » PaymentBlogger.com: Getting started with OpenAds (installing)
2007-08-23 19:56:58
[...] the PaymentBlogger.com site today, there’s a quick tutorial on getting the OpenAds advertising management system installed and working. With Nicks great post [...]
Arthur
2007-08-28 03:28:02
Hi Tim,
Nice article for those who need help installing OpenAds. I have been using the beta build 2.3 with great success so far on various sites and types such as wordpress, vBulletin and straight html sites too.
I have been offering a free trial of OpenAds 2.3 for those who are interested in trying it outat http://www.branica.com/openads.htm
Thanks again for the nice install blog post!
Cheers,
Arthur
PaymentBlogger » Ad placement optimisation techniques
2007-09-04 18:57:42
[...] the advertisements you serve in your site. This can be done with channels in adsense or zones in openAds. The important thing is to note the changes you are making and then see what the results are for [...]
KP
from KPeBiz Wordpress SEO Tips2007-09-15 18:49:37
Thanks for this clear instruction. I will go ahead to download a the latest version of OpenAds for a trial. Hopefully it can help to make some money on ads…
OpenAds - $15.5M Funding Series B and Hosted Advertising Management | Andy Beard - Niche Marketing
2008-01-17 11:54:09
[...] OpenAds, formerly phpAdsNew is an Open Source advertising management script, or at least it was. For a good overview I recommend Tims excellent introduction to OpenAds. [...]
Oliver George
from Openads2008-01-17 13:37:03
Hi All
I thought you might be excited to hear that Openads have announced the development of a free hosted version of the Openads ad server.
This will make it easier to install Openads on your website and save publishers time and effort associated with maintaining their own ad server.
http://www.openads.org/hosted
cheers,
Oliver George
Openads Ltd
Roosh
2008-02-19 07:26:39
Tim’s open ads plugin for wordpress seems to have disappeared. Any idea where it went?
Oliver George
from OpenX2008-02-25 18:09:58
Hi Roosh
(Openads has renamed as OpenX)
I’m not sure of the state of that wordpress plugin but don’t forget that most people integrate OpenX on their websites directly. After installing it’s (relatively) simply a case of adding some html/javascript to your website templates.
You can find a guide to installing OpenX here:
http://www.openx.org/support/installing
cheers, Oliver
Mike
from Openx Payments2008-08-05 18:20:16
Thanks for the instructions, Openx is the best ad serving solution by far and great to see so many users involved.
When deciding on ad serving platforms, remember its easy to activate advertisers automatically and accept paypal payments for adviews, adclicks, or monthly subscriptions using, RevMax from openxpayments.com