Google Leaderboard in Header

[Rob 547]

Greetings everyone, Thank you, in advance for your responses to this issue. I am trying to replicate the Google ad placement of my current non-WP index page in another section of my site. Please feel free to check the header at www.epicurus.com. I'd like to place the ad in my WP installations at www.epicurus.com/blog/ and other places within the site. Before posting, I did check the other postings about Google leaderboard ads, particularly www.pagelines.com/forum/topic/8931 and www.pagelines.com/forum/topic/8252. I was successful in following the changes proposed in 8931 in that I did not have any errors, but I also did not have the ad show up either. The width of the header space is 1020, and the branding icon is only 270px wide, so there should be plenty of room for the 728px wide ad. We don't use the social media icons in the header. Presently, you will see 3 Google ads on the Blog page, which is the maximum Google permits. When I made the attempt, I removed one of the ads from a widget to ensure the Blog had only 2 ads, plus the header. Nothing I did worked. This is what I did in function.php:

// add_action('hook_name','function name'); // ---> uncomment to load add_action('pagelines_inside_bottom_branding', 'google_leaderboard_ad'); // function name function google_leaderboard_ad(){ // This hook adds a stumbleupon icon to the header of your theme. The class referenced in the link can be seen in the style.css // and is the image from the CSS is placed in the images folder ?> <div class="leaderboard"><script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-8686155461235202"; /* 728x90, created 5/19/11 */ google_ad_slot = "1166423252"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; //--> </script></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> <?php } // end function

and in Custom Code > Css Rules, I added

div.leaderboard {float: right;}

. Any ideas how I can get an ad in there? Something tells me the problem may be using a background that tiles in the header. I'm just not sure. By the way, I think Platform Pro is by far, the best theme ever designed for Wordpress. It really is fantastic for customization. Best, Bob

[timlinson 3]

Hook looks fine to me at first glance, and I do see the header ad in firefox/chrome. Are you using firefox with addons like adblockplus and/or noscript? I had to whitelist your site in both addons to see the ad.

[Rob 547]

Tim, Thank you for your reply. If you're looking at www.epicurus.com, you're actually seeing my older, non-WordPress site, and the demo of what I want to achieve. Unfortunately, where I want to place the ad, www.epicurus.com/blog, I cannot get that hook to work.

[Rob 547]

As an experiment, I tried replacing the Google code with Amazon ad code, and also simple text. Nothing showed up, so it seems it's not the Google code itself. Anyone with an idea why this isn't working?

[catrina 103]

Have you already tried deactivating your plugins and seeing if the code works after that?

[timlinson 3]

Also make sure that "Platform Base" is your active theme in Appearance > Themes.

[Rob 547]

Tim, that worked, sorta. The ad is below the branding logo. Catrina, no change with disabling all plugins. Can't be a plugin conflict. Also, I tried it on other directories where I have Platform Pro installed. If it works in Platform Base, but out of place, why not in Platform Pro?

[timlinson 3]

WP won't even load the base functions unless you tell it to do so by activating the base child theme. Regarding the location, if you go to the Template Setup page and click "Advanced Setup" on the PageLines Branding box, you'll see a list of other hook locations you can use. Try swapping `pagelines_inside_bottom_branding` with `pagelines_after_branding`.

[Rob 547]

I tried all four of the options. The ad goes over, under, below and to the left, but not to the right of the branding logo. The only one to get it in the space it should generally be is "pagelines_inside_top_branding", but that knocks the brand logo below it and makes the ad appear to the left, not right.

[timlinson 3]

Try `pagelines_branding_icons_end` You may need to end up using some position tweaks on the `div.leaderboard` selector in custom code > custom css.

[Rob 547]

Just tried that one. It placed the ad literally under the menu. Not below it, but as a layer underneath it, so the menu was laying on top of the ad. Candidly, I don't know how to tweak the position in the div.

[catrina 103]

To tweak the position in the DIV, you'll need to use CSS that's something like this:

{position: absolute; top: #px; left: #px; right: #px;}

For more on CSS positioning, please see here: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_positioning.asp

[Rob 547]

Catrina, I did the following:

div.leaderboard {position: absolute; top: 15px; left: 275px;}

but it did not work. Also, I tried

div.leaderboard {position: absolute; top: 15px; left: 275px; right: 0px;}

Nothing changed. The ad went above the branding, below it, to the left and below, but never just to the right of it. I tried each of the 4 hooks again, with each of the two variable CSS described above. Not going to change anything today, so you and others can see the dilemma. www.epicurus.com/blog. Thanks for the advice. I just wish we could get this fixed soon.

[Rob 547]

For some reason, now, each time I try something, Platformbase is resizing the Layout Width from 1020 to 1024px. I'm giving up as it seems no solution is available that reasonably achieves the desired result.

[Rob 547]

I just replaced the Google ad with an Amazon ad of the exact same size. This was done using

pagelines_inside_top_branding

and the

div.leaderboard {float: right;}

and it worked. In fact, it looked great. But as soon as I used the Google ad code again, the ad shifted left, within the proper header alignment, but pushed the branding icon below it. Something about the javascript perhaps, is causing the problem. Has anyone any ideas? PLEASE!

[Rob 547]

Ah... I got it. Almost perfect. I had to shift the </div> tag to the very end of the javascript, rather than before it.

	// add_action('hook_name','function name');
	
		// ---> uncomment to load
	     add_action('pagelines_inside_top_branding', 'google_leaderboard_ad');
	
		// function name
	function google_leaderboard_ad(){
		// This hook adds a stumbleupon icon to the header of your theme. The class referenced in the link can be seen in the style.css
		// and is the image from the CSS is placed in the images folder
	?>
	<div class="leaderboard"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
	google_ad_client = "pub-8686155461235202";
	/* 728x90, created 5/19/11 */
	google_ad_slot = "1166423252";
	google_ad_width = 728;
	google_ad_height = 90;
	//-->
	</script>
	<script type="text/javascript"
	src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
	</script></div>
	<?php }
		// end function

However, it shifted my menu down about 1/8".

[kastelic 6]

Try this in Custom Code -> Custom CSS:

#branding .content-pad {padding-bottom:24px;}

Not sure why this happened, it was just a 1 pixel difference.

[Rob 547]

Thanks Jimmy, Tim and Catrina. I'm closing this as the problem has finally worked out beautifully. Patience with code is always a necessity, and perseverance a blessing.

[kevin369 0]

I have inserted the leaderboard (the same type as 'rangealone's) on my site. My branding logo is 40px high. The leaderboard is to the right and is 60px high... but I cannot click on the top 40px of the leaderboard ad (only the bottom 20px I can click on) If I go to 'rangealone's' site http://www.epicurus.com/blog/ I cannot click on his leaderboard ad at all. I think his branding logo is 84px high. There is a Facebook icon in the bottom right corner of the ad which I can click on but I cant click on the ad. I am using Google Chrome.

[kevin369 0]

Rangelone... you need to change the z-index where you have placed your Google leaderboard at http://www.epicurus.com/blog/ because you cannot click on it :-c

[Rob 547]

Thanks. I'm looking into what caused that very recent change. Those were totally clickable only a few days ago. I'm suspecting there's a problem with the ad delivery and investigating it.

[kevin369 0]

It's not the ad delivery... it's a problem with PlatformPro. I had the [url="http://www.pagelines.com/forum/discussion/16610/platformpro-is-masking-links-making-them-unclickable#Item_8"]same problem here[/url].