Ads not fully randomizing

Hi!
Sorry, but output of an ads is not a random process. Each Place Object is a queue of ads and the place of ad in this queue is defined by its weight and ID. You can only randomize the locations of items of Block Object, but this feature is awailable only in Lite version.
It seems to me that you use one Place Object for outputting three items of Block. It is bad idea by several reasons:

1. Your problem at first…
2. If, by some reasons, you have 2 ads in set, you will see duplicated ads in three-item block…
3. The Place Object was named place bacause it is the virtual representation of a phisical place on the page. The place is one place, not more…

The alternative method of randomization of set of ads in the Block is the using different number of ads in sets of Place objects outputting in Block. For example: 2, 3, 4. This will increase the number of possible combinations of ads in the block.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by minimus.

I’m not sure what you mean.

We’re running a single Sam Pro Block in a widget, which has 12 items.

You can see it on the right here:

https://kingstonhappenings.org/

Under “Executive sponsors”

In your case, I can recommend purchase a Lite version and randomize the placement of ads in the block.

OK! Thanks very much.

Update: Bought the Lite version:

Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

PHP version 5.4

Thanks,
M

Update: Fixed.

Deactivated the free version first, then manually activated the Lite version. BAM! Works, and ads appear to be random!

Thanks!

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The ads are still not random – they’re still showing up in groups, even though we’ve told the block to randomize. We’re running WP-supercache, and are using the .js option to work with it. Any other thoughts?

Previously I said you that it is bad idea to use one Place Object for all items of Block Object but you use (Place ID:2)… You may divide the set of ads in Place(2) to 12 sets for 12 Places and use these Places as a sources of ads for items of Block (one Place for one Item of Block).

We are not using a place object – we’re using a block. Look:

Any Block Object consists of Items. Each Block Item has its own source of ads. This source may be: Single Ad (not recommended), Place, Zone. You should select source for each Item when create Block Object using Block Editor. The Block Object is just container of Block Items grid. Because I see ads on your page, you are selected one Place Object (ID:2) as source of ads for each Item of Block Object.

I’m sorry – I’m really not trying to be difficult. But I don’t understand.

We have an ad block – Size: 12 x 1. Are you saying that we manually assign an ad to each of those items in the block? And if so, what happens to the other ads besides the 12 we selected?

The way we have it now, we have an ad place with all the ads in it, and that’s what we’re placing in each item in the block.

Yes. Each item of Block rotates its own set of ads (if Single Ad – the set consists of one ad without ad restrictions), but in your case items use one set of ads. It is not good, because each next item receives ad from one queue and it means that all items in Block are dependent from each other.

Why you don’t want to decrease the number of items in Block? You use Lite version and so you can use ad rotation by timer…

Maybe we can try this a different way, because I’m still not understanding.

I have 12 ad spaces I want to fill on the sidebar, randomly, without repeating. And we have more than 12 ads total.

So how would you go about this? I mean like step A, B, C?

Thanks!

A. You already have one Place, create 11 another Places.
B. Divide the total number of ads on approximately equal shares.
C. On the Places page expand now existing Place (ID:2) and remove the extra ad links.
D. Add ad links by approximately equal shares to the newly created Places.
E. On the Block Editor page select different Places for each Block Item (at the bottom of editor). Turn on “Randomize positions of items”.

Maybe this documentation helps you to understand my plugin better…