Category: General

AdRotate Banner Manager available through hub2wp

Starting today AdRotate Banner Manager (and my other plugins) is officially available through hub2wp. An alternative source for WordPress plugins. Hub2wp is not so much an repository, but a way of finding plugins on Github. Github is a website where you can host and store your software projects. A LOT of WordPress developers and plugin makers use it as their defacto platform. Most of my free to use plugins are on Github as well. They probably were already visible through Hub2wp, but from today on I’ll make sure of that by adding the correct tags and data to stay available through it.

If you’re not familiar with Hub2wp and what it can do for you or your plugins, check it out here: hub2wp on Github
And a direct link to my plugins on it: hub2wp search: adegans

Other repositories and ways to get AdRotate Banner Manager

I’ve also recently set up an account on therepo.org and added AdRotate Banner Manager to it.
The system seems a bit barebones and clunky, but it too looks on Github for new versions and downloads work fine.

Along the way I also found that AspirePress has a repository mirror as well that already lists AdRotate Banner Manager, so that’s cool too. From my understanding they get their data from wordpress.org and have a way to redirect requests from that to their own database.

And, of-course, you can download my plugins directly from my Github account, here https://github.com/adegans/.
Each plugin has a ‘Release’ section where you can download the relevant latest version, which you then upload through your dashboard. I have an installation guide here. But, hub2wp is easier!

Why use alternative repositories and sources?

My main reason is to simply increase exposure for my work. The more people see my plugins, the more people can improve their websites using my software. Part of that is financially motivated of-course – I still need to pay rent and eat. But really, user numbers go up and that pleases me.

Another reason, and this is a bit more personal, is with how wp.org and me become more and more out-of-sync in terms of how things should work. In that regard I believe, Automattic lost their way years ago and I’ve never been remotely happy with where they’re going. Overbearing forum moderation policies and increasing restrictions for everything else. Plus the occasional argument with core-devs, most of it resulting in them “winning” the argument by threatening account actions or outright blocks on social media leaves a sour taste every time. It’s not fun being a WordPress developer who is not thinking or doing things the way that they demand.

And, finally, with how they’re hell-bent on turning WordPress from the best CMS in the history of the internet into the worst. In part with the Block Editor and how themes work, but mostly with how reliant we’re forced to be on their cloud services. Taking back a tiny bit of freedom and choice by getting plugins elsewhere is a small stap towards fixing that.

So if you haven’t already, check out hub2wp. Even if you’re a casual WordPress user. You might find plugins not available elsewhere and installing them suddenly becomes very easy!

What is an ad plugin for WordPress?

A question I see on various sites like Reddit, Quora or even the WordPress website from time to time. Sometimes it’s even a search trend on Google.

What is a plugin

First, what are plugins for. For WordPress, a plugin is a piece of software that extends the basic function of the CMS. And what is a CMS? CMS stands for Content Management Software. Which, as a category, includes WordPress. You could consider a CMS the operating system of your website, and Plugins are apps in it – Sort of. This of-course means that WordPress is the base of your website. There are other systems to create a website such as Classicpress, which I use for this website, or completely different systems like Drupal or Joomla and many more.

WordPress is the most popular one for now. Holding a more than 40% market share of all websites on the internet.

As I mentioned, I use ClassicPress. This is an off-shoot of WordPress. Regardless of what CMS you choose, plugins work a little like programs or apps in it. A CMS has a control panel, or dashboard, from which you manage the website, comments, posts and pages, and your plugins. Many websites will have a webshop or forum. All of that is usually managed and controlled through the dashboard.

Most CMS systems, including WordPress, also let you style or customize the website. This is often called a theme.

How an ad plugin works

So plugins. There are millions of plugins, but an ad plugin commonly refers to a plugin that helps you place ads (otherwise called; banners, adverts or promotions) on a website in order to advertise or promote products or services. This can be anything really, your own ads, or someone elses. Review websites may use an ad plugin to handle their affiliate links for example.

Editing the website itself, or the theme you choose, is often quite the hassle. Certainly time consuming. Maybe not so much when first setting up the ads, but it will be in the long run. Surely you’re not looking forward to editing dozens of pages or locations to replace your ads every time one expires, right?

I know I’m not…

This is where an ad plugin shines since it lets you set up advertisment spots on your site once, and then manage all of your ads from an easy to use interface from within WordPress, the CMS. Create the adverts in the dashboard and assign them to the ad locations you have set up.

That sounds much easier. No messing with code, or much less, and you’ll handle new adverts with a few clicks and much less time spent than editing many ad locations.

Ads make the world go round

Why is this important? Pretty much everywhere you look you’ll see ads. Even if you’re unaware of it, someone, somewhere, is trying to sell you something. The internet is no different.

If you’re starting a website and want to generate extra income. Or even more important, your entire website relies on ad revenue, you should make the ad management process as easy as possible. This lets you focus on your content, and spent less time on figuring out ads.

An ad plugin is designed to make that easy for you. This will save you time and effort.

Meet AdRotate

One of the more popular plugins for WordPress is AdRotate Banner Manager. AdRotate is my solution for making ad management easy on. That’s right, AdRotate Banner Manager is a FREE ad plugin that helps you increase your revenue.

If you need more features, I also have a more feature rich version called AdRotate pro. Chances are you saw either already mentioned on this website. In many ways AdRotate Pro works the same way as AdRotate Banner Manager, but it provides even more features and functions to manage your ads.

Do you need unlimited ads and place them on strategic locations on your site but you do not know any code? AdRotate can help you.
Or do you want to target a specific area in the world, say a city or country? AdRotate Pro can help you with that. This is called Geo Targeting.

AdRotate handles scheduling of your ads. This lets you plan ahead and set up that holiday season ad far in advance. If this a repeating campaign, or a seasonal advert? Add more than one schedule with AdRotate Pro.

AdRotate works with any kind of ad, you can make them yourself with a few basic HTML functions. You can place more advanced Javascript ads that advertisers send to you. Or you can simply use Google Adsense or some similar ad network such as Media.net. Affiliate links and referral links are ads too. So all of those work as well, in much the same way as regular ads.

AdRotate Banner Manager, and AdRotate Pro even more so, provides a complete set of features and functions to place ads all over your website and work efficiently with them. If you’re considering advertising products on your website, be sure to consider AdRotate Banner Manager or AdRotate pro!

Site reorganization – Forums closed

Over the course of many weeks I’ve been unhappy with how my website works. Many attempts to remedy this have failed but last night I finally realized that the forums were a real bother, along with the clumsy setup for Manuals and guides.

I hate how complex things have been over the past few years.

So much so that I couldn’t even attempt to modernize the theme as nothing would suit the site, or the layout would fail or whatever was going wrong.

Having finally something to do to simplify the overall website I’ve decided to just close the support forums outright. I have also re-organized the Support pages into the support system I’ve been running for the past 2 years. This makes the main website much smaller and easier to deal with. And it better utilizes the support system.

New support routine

For the support forum, which was bbPress and duct-taped on with a heap of custom templates, plugins and other nonsense, I‘ve decided to just not have a Forum anymore.

The plugins that are hosted on wordpress.org have a support option there. You can post your questions there for a timely answer.

Every plugin that does not have a presence on wordpress.org will be updated to link to the support ticket system for ’lower priority’ ticket support.

Paying customers always come first of-course!

If you’re curious what this all looks like you can click the “Support” link in the top right of the website and check it out.
Clicking the Knowledge base button you’ll find all support pages that were previously parked under /support/.

All excisting urls and links have been redirected there as well. So no ugly 404 errors for anyone I expect.

And finally I have updated and rewritten every knowledgebase page to be more up-to-date with current features and I fixed a million and one spelling mistakes.

Plugin updates

Over the coming weeks, or when I find the time and energy, I‘ll update all plugins to link to the appropriate support options directly so that nobody has to rely on redirects.

That, along with a few other updates that are in the pipeline, among other things, for AdRotate Banner Manager and Goosle. Maybe sometimes soon(tm) I can finally overhaul the site as I envision it after using this theme for 11 years.

Goosle 1.7.1 is available now on Github!

Goosle version 1.7.1 adds a new magnet search engine and includes a lot of small improvements. Notable new features include a timeout function for if the response of a search engine is anything but good. Goosle will set a timeout of 15 minutes to 12 hours to give the search source time to unban you or recover from whatever is going wrong on their end.

How long this timeout is depends on the response code, say you’re banned, or the site simply returns no useful response. Or there is a server error, you’re over some kind of quota. That sort of thing.

Search queries have been improved to better filter your overrides and they’re no longer doubly encoded too. And the search recommendation now actually works too. Google, Mojeek and Duckduckgo can provide a search recommendation.

Changes in version 1.7.1 released on August 26, 2024

[new] Engine timeouts for specific response codes when a search engine returns some kind of error or quota limitation
[new] Engine timeouts status page at /functions/timeout-status.php
[new] GloTorrents (Glodls) Magnet results
[new] Use multiple search overrides (eg: \’size:large safe:off goose gone wild\’)
[fix] Search suggestions re-added and they now work (Scraped from Mojeek, Google, DuckduckGo and Yahoo Images)
[fix] Limetorrents search query is now properly formatted
[fix] Search overrides (Safe search, image size, etc.) trigger no longer included in search query
[fix] Search query no longer sent out double encoded
[fix] Strings (Search queries, seo texts, etc.) are now properly limited to max length where required
[fix] Multiple currency conversions now also works when caching is enabled
[fix] Multiple ip lookups (from different user IPs) now also works when caching is enabled
[update] Oauth page no longer center aligned
[update] Updated Language explanation in config.default.php
[change] Moved footer code to footer.php
[change] Redid error.php to only include the error html
[change] Openverse adds image category tags to image alt text
[change] Pixabay uses image tags as image alt text
[change] Image alt text now has a 1.5x multiplier for result ranking (was 1x)
[change] Added imdb.com link to Box office popup
[change] Added movie poster to Box office popup
[change] Simplified verified uploader popup text

Try Goosle for yourself

You can try Goosle for yourself and set up your own search engine in only a few minutes. I’ve made the source code available on Github: https://github.com/adegans/Goosle.

Goosle works on most modern servers that have PHP7.4 or newer and should take less than 10 minutes to install and set up. All you need is basic webhosting, a SSL certificate and a domain name. Check the included readme.md or the Github page for setup details.

Getting help

You can post your questions on Github as a discussion.

Goosle 1.7 is available now on Github!

Goosle version 1.7 adds new search engines and includes a lot of tweaks and little improvements. Mojeek and Pixabay are now available as search engines. Pixabay is especially interesting because they provide high quality photos and have a large database. You’ll need an access token, check out the readme file for setup instructions.

More and better meta information for Magnet results to give you better insights in what you’re downloading. As well as an improved NSFW filter for Magnet search.

Recently pagination got added to results, this allows for more results to be gathered. All limits and result amounts have been tweaked to better reflect this. This is most visible in Image results.

Search object

To centralize the processing of search queries a Search Object was added in a recent update. This has been expanded to also include the safe search override as well as the image search size override. This standardizes the information going around inside Goosle a lot making things more predictable and efficient.

Theme tweaks

Various layout and formatting tweaks are included, a few more pixels to space things out here. A few icons there. Some margins adjusted, etc. Overall these are minor changes but it should be more pleasing on the eyes to use Goosle. If you notice missing icons, or misaligned elements like paragraphs being too close together, clear your browser cache.

Changes in version 1.7 released on August 7, 2024

NOTICE: config.default.php has changed, update your config.php!!
[new] Mojeek search results
[new] Pixabay Image results (Requires free API key, see installation instructions)
[new] Keyword multiplier for result ranking
[new] Web search can be turned off
[new] Cache News results for an hour only, regardless of the cache setting
[new] Dynamic SEO description for results page (Should be visible when sharing the page)
[new] ‘Verified’ label for magnet results where supported
[update] Added x.com for social media detection
[update] Added more keywords for nsfw detection in magnet results
[change] Raised Qwant Images limit from 50 to 150
[change] Raised Hackernews and Qwant News limit from 30 to 50
[change] Lowered Wikipedia results from 10 to maximum 5
[change] Replaced ‘porn’ with ‘nsfw’ for safe search switch
[change] Removed ‘xxx’ as an keyword to disable safe search
[change] Don’t search on nyaa.si and YTS if you search with safemode off
[change] Moved image size override into search object
[change] Added a little space between rows for image results on mobile
[change] Stats font is now ‘Courier’
[fix] Google search query not providing good results
[fix] Search query not always properly urlencoded
[removed] Removed search suggestions as they didn’t work

Try Goosle for yourself

You can try Goosle for yourself and set up your own search engine in only a few minutes. I’ve made the source code available on Github. https://github.com/adegans/Goosle

Goosle works on most modern servers that have PHP7.4 or newer and should take less than 10 minutes to install and set up. All you need is basic webhosting and a domain name. Check the included readme.md or the Github page for setup details.

Getting help

You can post your questions on Github as a discussion.