How To Add Adsense To Your BBpress

Adding Adsense Ads Without Plugins

Recently I’ve had to add a forum to integrate with my international resort employment website Beachfront Jobs. The reason being is that I offer people looking for work at a resort the opportunity to post a little blurb about their employment experiences to be viewed by potential employers.

The way I had it set up was to have a form on the website where the candidate would input their information and submit it. Shortly after I would receive the form and would turn around and post it on the website manually. There had to be another way where it was all automated. That’s when my friend Mark from Poland, which incidentally has several high ranked, very successful language websites suggested a forum.

Since WordPress is my immediate choice for a website platform, the logical choice for a forum would be BBpress. If your hosting company has Cpanel, you can install BBpress through Simple Scripts in less than 3 mouse clicks. No need to manually setup the database required to run BBpress, it’s all done within the 3 mouse clicks.

Once I had installed BBpress I found it quite simple to set up with a clean look and most importantly it’s all automatic! Now my subscribers don’t have to wait till I get around to posting their blurb on the website.

The reason I have websites on the Internet is for the sharing of knowledge and experience but most of all, it’s for the money generated through Google Adsense ads being displayed on those websites.

One of the things you’ll notice on BBpress is the lack of ways to add Adsense ads to the forum. I did go out and try several plug ins from BBpress but was never satisfied with the look or the placement possibilities offered. My thoughts on plug ins are as follows, if you can do the same without a plug in, then don’t use one.

Here is how to add your Adsense code to your BBpress forum.

1 – With your favorite ftp up loader find the 2 files needed to add your Adsense code. Theses files are header.php and footer.php which should be found within /forum/bb-templates/your template/header.php and forum/bb-templates/your template/footer.php.

2 – Open the header.php file with a text editor like notepad or word pad and find the following code:

< div>
<?php search_form(); ?>
</div>
</div>

< Add Adsense Code Here>

<div id=”main”>

<?php if ( bb_is_profile() ) profile_menu(); ? >

Note: You may want to add <div align=”center”> before the Adsense code, and </div> right after so your ad unit will be centered.

3 – Once you have added the code as above, save the file.

4 – Open the  footer.php file with your text editor and find the following code:

</div>
</div>
<div id=”footer” role=”contentinfo”>

< Add Your Adsense Code Here >

<p><?php printf(__(‘%1$s is powered by<a href=”yourdomain.com”> your blog name</a>’),
bb_option(‘name’), “http://bbpress.org”) ?></p>

<!– If you like showing off the fact that your server rocks –>

5 – Insert Adsense code as above, save file and your done!

Here is a Demo site with the Adsense code implemented within. As you can see I have a 728 x 90 unit ad between the header and the content as well as a 728 x 15  link ad unit within the header. You can add any size ad to fit with your site.

Daniel D. Roy