How to Actually Use Kontera Control
Yesterday, I announced Kontera Control, a handy plugin to let you keep Kontera Ads out of sponsored posts. Imitating other plugin authors, I gave scanty directions describing exactly how to use it. Today, I will do what my knitting blog is famous for: giving thorough directions. 
These directions assume you have an account with Kontera and have access to the appropriate javascript. The plugin will let you insert the script easily, and control the display at your blog.
Ok, here are the detailed instructions:
First, to use Kontera Control, download the Kontera Control Plugin . The file is zipped; unzip by clicking on the zip file.
Next, upload this to your /wp-content/plugin folder for your blog. (Sorry, I can’t explain how to do this in detail because that depends on your resources for using ftp. My web host, has a nice web based ftp service, though, in reality, I use Fetch.)
Visit your Plugin Screen by clicking “Plugin” on the dashboard; your screen will resemble the screen below. Find Kontera Control.
Click “activate”. This will install the plugin. However, you must customize to get this to work.
To customize Kontera Control, click “Options” on the dashboard menu; a block submenu will appear. It will show buttons for nearly all your plugins; see how many I use?
“Kontera Control” should appear in the submenu: click it. A screen will appear. The top of the screen is shown below.
Use the scroll bar on the right of the screen to view the entire Kontera Control customization screen. Today (it’s version 0.1, beta) it will look sort of like this — but without the blue letters:
Now, you can customize! If you already use categories for your posts, we can start with step 1. If you don’t know what categorie are or never used them, skip to step 2! (Then, read how to put posts in categories, which I just published this morning.)
Step 1: The first pull down screen lets you select a category that will never show any Kontera ads in any post in that category. (Note, this selection does not affect what happens in comments.) The pulldown menu will list the wordpress categories you have already created in a seemingly random order. (It’s actually the order in which they were created.) Generally, “Blogroll” will be at the top and selected. (This depends on your version of Wordpress. Wordpress changed how categories are stored at some point.)
Because of the way Wordpress stores categories, Blogroll is not a post category; all the others are real post categories. If you keep Blogroll selected, Kontera Control will treat that as “put ads in all categories”. So if that’s what you want, select “Blogroll”.
Otherwise, if there is a real post category that you’d like to keep Kontera ads out of forever and ever and ever, use the pull-down screen to select it. (I advise creating a category for sponsored posts with TOS that do not permit extra links and also insist you maintain the post for the life of the blog. If you don’t know how, read how to put posts in categories.)
Ok, step 1 took me 5 minutes to type and took you 3 seconds to do.
Let’s move on to step 2!
The row labeled 2 had a text box that lets you keep Kontera ads out of all posts for a number of days.
This addresses the concerns that your regular readers will find the contextual links distracting or “junky”, but lets you run the links in posts visited by people who wander onto your site by way of Search Engines.1, 2, 3 (Vistiors arriving from search engines are the most likely to click anyway.)
Enter some number of days in here. My advice: if you post once a week, enter 1 week. If you post 3 times a day, enter 1 day. Want to enter zero? Go ahead. It’s your blog.
I’ll give more advice though: If you have never set up categories, and you want to keep Kontera ads out of your Pay Per Post ads long enough to get paid, set this value to 31 days for now. In fact, I recommend keeping Kontera ads out of PPP posts for 60 days. This minimizes the likelihood that advertisers will visit your blog 45 days after you post and decide to ban you should they be grumpy about not getting exclusive links longer than you contracted for.
(After you set up categories, you an start customizing futher.)
Ok, we are done with step 2. Now to step 3! (If you haven’t created categories, skip to 4.)
In step 3, you get to choose a category that will exclude Kontera ads for a number of days.
I’d pick my PPP category (whatever you happen to call the category.) Then, I’d set this to at least 31 days to be certain to get paid by PPP. (Should their TOS change in the future, you may need to adjust the number of days.)
Step 4: Do you want Kontera ads in comments? Use the pull down screen to say yes or no. If you say yes, you need to specify a number of days to keep ads out. You may pick zero days, but I advise against it. I suggest thinking about how long “conversations” last at your blog. Pick an amount of time that prevents the ads from interfering with conversations. (This is especially important at political blogs.)
Step 5: Wouldn’t you just love to post a link to my blog in your footer? Of course you would. That will give me the link-juice to have a good Google Page Rank, and help me make money, but if you don’t want to, say no.
Actually…. say yes at least for now; then change your mind later. You’ll understand in a minute. Trust me.
Step 6: When you first load this plugin, the text box labeled 6 will be blank. This is where you cut and paste your Kontera Javascript. Visit
(Don’t forget: If you previously added the Kontera javascript to your footer, remove it. Or, if, for some reason, you want to leave your Kontera javascript in your footer.php file, don’t paste it in here! You don’t want or need two copies in the footer. You want one and only one. )
Now, click “submit”. The screen will refresh and tell you your changes have been saved. The current setting will display.
You are actually done. Except you should always check, right?
Part of the reason I suggested you select “yes” to displaying the link to my site is to give you an easy way to check whether or not things are working properly. Because some theme authors forget the final step to creating a theme, you do need to check whether your template is set up to insert stuff in the footers.
There are two ways to know if your template is set up correctly: If you start seeing kontera ads, the kontera javascript was inserted in the footer.
But what if you don’t see any Kontera ads? You’ll want to know if this is a problem with your Wordpress theme. View your blog site; scroll way down to the footer. It will look something like this:
Notice that the link to “Kontera Control” appears in the footer of my blog? That’s because I said: “yes, put a link in footer”.
If that link appears, you can be sure your blog theme calls “wp_footer();” in the footer.php file. This means my plugin will insert the Kontera javascript when required.
However, if that link does not appear, your theme is not calling the “wp_footer();” routine in your footer.php file (or you said “no, don’t stick that link in my footer”. See why I told you to check “yes?” )
If your theme is not calling “wp_footer()”, you’ll need to fix this by visiting the theme editor. (Click “Presentiation” in the dashboard. Then click “theme editor”. Then, look on the right and find “Footer” or “footer.php” — the exact name depends on your version of Wordpress.)
The footer.php file will open. Scroll way down to the bottom. Add the “wp_footer()” call by adding the first line shown in the code block below:
<?php wp_footer(); ?>
</body>
</html>
Notice the call comes right before the final
Job well done! I didn’t know to hit options and the nice easy usable interface would be there for me to add all the good stuff I needed to keep Kontera out of selected categories. See I told you I am a newbie to all the ends and outs of blogs, but I’m learning. I learned something new today. Let’s see what a good job this is going to do. After I fully understood where to go it was simple. Thanks for writing this post….Jude
Great plugin. I installed, activated it and it seems to be working great. Thanks!
Love it..but one problem. It seems to have made my FeedFlare from feedburner disappear. Any ideas? Otherwise, awesome job!
David,
I think you found a bug I hadn’t thought about. I did a little testing, and I have a theory about the problem. I’ll try to have it fixed by this afternoon. (At which point, you’ll also be able to apply this to adsense if you like. I was just finishing that up!)
David,
It’s not supposed to make anything disappear. But, since it is, I’ll have to ask you a few things so I can locate the problem.
I’ll email privately!
David and I got the feed issue sorted out. (It required me to add two “if” statements to keep the tags out of the feed.)
Thank you for creating this great plugin.
I am hopeful that you this plugin will help a lot of Kontera publisher out there with ease to paste their code. Thanks!
Help!!! Take a look at the webfiles … second page, and June archives. I used that wp-cats plugin to sort out a few categories quickly and easily. Then I turned on the hidecategory section and told it to hide one category. Then I turned on Kontera and set it up to not show up in one category for 30 days and the other - never. I’m pretty sure everything was working fine then but I didn’t fully check as I had to help my husband with something.
Now several hours later I went back to change a few things and check on the site and page twos posts are messed up as is the sidebar … same thing when viewing the June archives.
I’m not sure which plugin or combo mixed things up but one of them must have.
I turned off hide category first - still a problem. So I think turned off wp-cats … still a problem. turned off the kontera plugin and everything was fine. I’ve left the Kontera plugin turned on for now.
If you’d like to go to the site and see if you can figure out what happened please do. It’s not a busy site so I don’t mind if page two is a little messed up. Weird that page three onward is fine.
I have the Kontara plugin activated on Breath of Life and it seems to be working fine so I don’t think it’s the plugin alone.
What’s really strange is that I looked at the site on both computers and page two (didn’t test anything else) looks fine in internet explorer, and opera .. but messed up in Netscape and Firefox so there’s something going on in Mozilla browsers.
If you have any ideas I’d appreciate it! Good thing I didn’t try this on one of my busy sites! LOL
Tricia: on the busy site issue– notice I set up a testBlog just to do my early checking? Test Blog I decided I desparately needed that when I started writing these!
Now, on your issue, the problem is related to something that happens in this specific article:
Youtube available on web tv,
Something is confusing your template with div tags and span tags, and strangely enough, I think the problem maypre-date kontera control. (This sounds odd, but for some reason, browsers can often put up with a little bit of confusing html, and then suddenly break when you confuse it just a little more.)
I’m going to do two things:
1) Take a screen shot to show you where the weird stuff is. I’ll send that to you so you can see it.
2) Send you a version of kontera control where I added some html comments so I can be sure I know which span tags are mine. (There are tags added by notable and by whatever is controling that video. I’ll be better able to track down which are which with my comments in there!)
I only got time installing it now.. and when i did…
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_dropdown_categories() in /home/everyth/public_html/inmylife/wp-content/plugins/KonteraControlJuly3.php on line 231
sorry to bother you..
Elizar,
Thanks for letting me know!
wp_dropdown_categories() is a wordpress function and should pre-exist in Wordpress versions newer than V 2.1.1.
That error is telling you that it’s missing. What version of WP do you have? If you are using an older version of WordPress, KC should work after you upgrade. I could try to code versions that don’t have that function, but it would take some time and it’s better all around if people update wordpress.
(If you are using a newer version of WP , then I do need to look into this further.)
yep, that could be it.. im still using the old 2.0.5 version…
i tried upgrading few weeks ago, got myself into problems..
will try it again..
Hello Ms. Lucia!
It’s working now.. and working perfectly!
I upgraded to the latest wordpress version and the error did go away!
Maraming marmaing salamat!
Love the idea of this plugin, but looks like I’ve got a wee glitch of some sort… Using the Mandigo template, which does include the wp_footer() call, and your link shows up in the footer when activated, but no ads appear on any posts, regardless of how I’ve fiddled with the settings. Forgive my stupidity but I must be missing some tiny little thing… suggestions?
Jen: the Javascript appears in the footer. These means there are two possible issues:
1)If this is the first time you have posted the javascript, Kontera will be sampling your page. They say it takes 1-2 days before they deliver the ads.
2) You could have made an error cutting and pasting the Kontera script. (Each persons is different, and you must get a different script for each domain.)
So, proof-read the script, and then wait.
(Or if you’ve been running this a long time, let me know and I’ll try to figure out more.)
Thanks for answering, Lucia. I’ve been running them since May, and know the script is right because it works as usual if the plugin is disabled… Here’s something interesting to ponder: when I took your credit link off the footer and put the Kontera script in the footer instead of in the plugin block, I started to get ads again — but only 0-1 per page instead of the usual 5. Odd, isn’t it?
Hmm… I looked. I’m seeing the filter span tags but not the content ones.
Did you set a number of days to block the ads? One of the settings is to keep the ads off posts that are “fresh” but make them appear when they are old.
The filter span tags you’re seeing are to keep the ads out of my header. Should there be content tags showing in source code as well as the script? (I looked at your source and didn’t see them there - where do they normally show up?)
Yes, I’ve tried several variations on the block settings, from 0 days to 10, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Don’t let me waste your time on this, Lucia: it must be some kind of script conflict in there, an aberration that’s particular to my theme/setup… but then, some would tell you I always was a bit odd!
It’s a brilliant plugin, anyway, and good of you to come up with it to make life easier for others.
Jen,
Why You Need Kontera Control to Control Kontera! Explains where the “konabody” tags go.
For some reason, these aren’t appearing in your theme but the filter tags are appearing. These keeps everything out.
So… either a) Kontera Control thinks your settings set to exclude the ads from these posts.
or
b) There is something about your theme I hadn’t anticipated.
So we can sort this out (and make the plugin work for everyone) could you email me? Then we can exchange things like screen shots and the actual template code that creates your blog pages.
(I’ll send you an email!)
Ah, sorry, yes, I was thinking of the kontera class ‘KonaBody’ tags… Yes, let’s try to sort this out by email in case it’s useful to someone else.
I guess I’ve been having the same problem as Jen.
I’ve been trying to work it out with Kontera for months but I’m starting to think it’s the plugin.
I have Kontera on several sites and it works great on the ones that I don’t use the plugin in - giving several times more impressions on one website that has less traffic than all of my feverishthoughts.com blogs combined. All the feverishthoughts blogs are counted together on Kontera so this discrepancy is very obvious. I use different themes on all 9 affected blogs so I don’t think it has anything to do with one particular theme.
I think I did mention this to you about three months ago as well.
7 day results (numbers shown are impressions):
triciaswaterdragon.com 14,952
feverishthoughts.com 4,847
The triciaswaterdragon account has one large website and one low traffic blog. So the blog uses the plugin.
The feverishthoughts account has 7 blogs in it.
(I’ve got two other listings in my Kontera account for another blog and another website as well)
Just to give you an idea of the traffic on those sites using my c-panel Awstats for “traffic viewed”
The website triciaswaterdragon.com has had 39553 page views so far this month, the blog on triciaswaterdragon.com had 9430 page views and the 7 blogs on feverishthoughts have had 86022 page views. Yet in total the blogs on feverishthoughts.com have just under 1/3 of the kontera impressions as the website on triciaswaterdragon.com.
Somethings wrong.
My latest problem? I just widgetized my gardening blog and kontera ads are showing up in the posts who’s categories the plugin is supposed to be keeping Kontera out of permanently or for 40 days. See 2nd and 5th post on the main page of my blog to verify that they have kontera showing.
This occurred as soon as I widgetized. I had installed a couple of new plugins exec-php, Google translate and the widgetized version of top commentator.
Once I noticed the problems I turned all the new plugins off with no improvement then turned them all on one at a time again without making any difference. I even took turns turning off at least another five plugins that I’ve been using longer than I’ve used KonteraControl and I still have Kontera ads in posts that shouldn’t show them.
So I think it has something to do with widetizing the site. I’m using wordpress 2.21 on that site if that helps in anyway.
So I’ve got two problems with the plugin at this time - it seems to be over filtering the ads on all the sites I’m using it on and now it’s not working properly with my one widgetized site.
I really want to widgetize all the blogs and I’m working on changing themes for a few of them, but I really need this plugin to work with widgets and of course not interfere with the amount of impressions being delivered (if it is).
Help?
Hi Tricia– I’ve got this slated to be looked at this week. I’m afraid I’ve gotten buried with “real” work though. But, I have been noticing general issue with the way WP inserts span tags while working on other plugins. (There are problems that arise because WP inserts formatting symbols, and I can’t control that.)
[…] first found out her Kontera Control plugin in PayPerPost forum. She mentioned about revising her plugin to accommodate with the changes of PPP […]
Hi Lucia, thanks for creating this plug-in. Read about it in 5xmom Make$Money$ site. Just wondering if this plug-in works on blogs hosted on Blogspot? I don’t seem to be able to find the Plugin screen on my Blogspot dashboard…or is it that Blogspot does not allow plug-ins? Sorry for these very basic questions but i’m generally a techie idiot. Thanks in advance for your assistance.