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Randomize Banners with Got Banners Wordpress Plugin

written by John Chow on September 4th, 2007

When I created those 125×125 ad buttons, they were at fixed locations – the first buyer bought the first spot and the second bought the second and so on. The main problem with this setup was higher up buttons had better click rate than the lower ones. With all advertisers paying the same monthly price, that wasn’t fair. I wanted some way to rotate the buttons so every advertiser would get even exposure. This was when Shrihari Sankaran of Got Chance emailed me.

The Got Banner Randomizer

Shrihari asked me if he can code up a “randomizer” for my ad buttons. What it would do is rearrange the banners into a random order on every page refresh. It was exactly what I was looking for and Shrihari coded the randomizer in a day. Then he made one that would work with any number of banners. I told Shrihari that if he made this into a Wordpress plug it would be a big hit.

I Asked, Shrihari Delivered

Got Banners is a simple banner rotating plugin for Wordpress. Unlike other banner rotators, Got Banners displays all the banners provided simultaneously. But, in a different random order each time. This ensure all advertisers get even exposure at every banner locations throughout the day. You can see it operate on this blog by hitting the refresh button.

This plugin comes with a normal version as well as a widgetized version, both are built in. The plugin works with an unlimited number of banners so as long as they’re the same size. Got Banner is ideally suited for application like what I’m using it for. However, even if you don’t sell private advertising, Got Banner can be used for randomizing affiliate buttons from Text Link Ads, Google AdSense or any other affiliate program.

Download Got Banners

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  1. Sweet plug-in for all those who want to see how other options besides adsense compare.

  2. Oh, I misread! Honestly I kind of like having my sidebar items in a certain order, but I do see when it could be useful (Your case Mr. Chow). I’m wondering how many page views you’re going to get just from the refreshes? :lol:

  3. That is a pretty useful plugin for large blogs, not so much for smaller ones.

  4. Thanks!
    I was wondering how you did that. I sell 468×60 advertisements and use WP-Ads to rotate them.

    • The WPAds plugin will work for one banner (or if you float them eventually two per slot). This seems something totally different, imagine this plugin as “Getting the banners dance” they get replaced, going up, down, left, right pretty neat i have to admit.

  5. mike

    yeah, but becouse you put them in the /banners/ directory, any adblock with *banner* filter will catch all of them.

    I just don’t get it why on earth anyone call any banner like this in 2007. why not /goodpayingfolks/ or something…

    • Andrew

      It’s easy enough to change which directory to call the banners from in the source code, though, if you know anything about PHP.

      Here’s an idea for the next release though – make it an easy option to change which directory to call banners from in a text area form.

      Good plug-in though

  6. Ah, nice. I should probably learn how to upload plugins. :P

  7. What a great wordpress plugin!

  8. You’re the man! lol
    I was looking for something like this just today. :mrgreen:

  9. This will come in handy one day when my newly created blog MikeMikey.com is successful. Another great pickup by John!

  10. Something wrong when I active this plugin.
    “Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argumented is expected to be a valid callback, ‘gb_add_pages’ was given in” :???:

  11. I just noticed that it is rotating… I was just thinking that it is to make it like all the time looking differerent so people think there are always new banners.

  12. YC

    While I don’t think I’ll use it now since I don’t sell banner ad spaces, it’s a good one to keep. Great job Shrihari!

  13. Interesting, I want try this wonderful plugin.

  14. Rob

    uhmm, this is a very nice plug-in. I may try it

  15. Fantastic plug in guys. I’m sure it will get lots of use by the bloggers direct selling ad space as well as using other revenue programs.

  16. Hey,
    Thanks for nice comments there. I’d also like to thank John for this post and also for suggesting me to develop a WP Plugin based on the script that i wrote.

    So far, i have been notified of one error.
    Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argumented is expected to be a valid callback, ‘gb_add_pages’ was given in

    Could you tell me when this happens ? This error is displayed when you click the “Activate” link ? I’ll see into this.

    Thanks,
    Hari (Shrihari)

  17. Thanks for the link! Now if I can get one of my 2200 stumbleupon visitors to click the darn links!

  18. Sounds like a great plugin. I just hard-coded the randomization into the theme template using php, but this would be another way to go about it.

  19. Or you could use PHPAdsNews.

    Cool new plugin though.

  20. This looks like a great plugin. There goes another hour as I go through the testing, upload and install process!

  21. Cool Plugin, though I think a plugin for something so simple kinda superfluous.

  22. Excellent plugin. Now i need some banner adds and some plugins. Well need to clean up my theme for this plugin. :mrgreen:

  23. I tried adding this to my blog and it ignored my margin attributes and rendered 2 banners!

  24. A very useful plugin for those people who want to sell their ad space directly for some extra income :) But I guess this is not meant to be utilized for blogs with low traffic. Yet a good plugin for big blogs!

    Fantastic piece of work Shrihari

  25. Cool!

    Along the same lines, I wrote some script for showing random banners on the likes of hosted Blogger (which have no built in support and no way to add plugins):

    http://blogsformoney.com/post/Random-Banner-Ads-on-Blogger-Hosted-Blogs.aspx

  26. This is neat! Will definitely try this on my blog. :mrgreen:

  27. I imagine the plugin will work with text links as well? Aren’t banners kind of on their way out?

  28. I really don’t care about those banner ads flip or not, coz I’m using adblock plus :twisted:

    Btw, congrats for passing 8000 rss readership.

  29. nice plugin Shrihari , I will try with my blog :smile:

  30. Thanks for the info! I’m gonna try it on my blog. :wink:

  31. I think i will try this very soon on my blog. Thanks for the information though :)

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  1. Click Input Banner Positioning and Ad Serving | Click Input - September 4, 2007 at 10:41 pm