Widgetbox requires widgets that are registered in our gallery be Ad Compliant. The Ad Compliant program allows Widgetbox to display ads on widgets in circumstances where ads are allowed or should be displayed. Unfortunately, defining what is or isn’t an ad is not black and white. Below you will find the Widgetbox guidelines that that will help determine what is considered an ad and what is not.

The best practice would be to ask the Widgetbox support team for their opinion while you are building you widget, before you submit it to the gallery for items that you are not sure of. Our goal is to have a program that benefits all users of Widgetbox and we are happy to answer any questions you may have and we are also open to any input that you have which might make our program more successful for all.

Guidelines

Widgetbox buckets the Ad Compliant issues into three categories which are defined below:

Attribution

Widgetbox defines attribution as attributing credit to the author of the work. Attributions are not dynamic and do not change. Although the presentation and style may change, the attributed creator should not. Attributions can be the individual or company that is promoting the widget or a third party that created the widget for an individual or company. Attributions that meet the Widgetbox guidelines will be considered Ad Compliant.

Promotion

Widgetbox defines promotion as a general sponsorship of the widget by the widget creator or the individual or company that the widget account is registered to. Promotions are not considered advertisements and are considered Ad Compliant by Widgetbox.

Ad

Widgetbox defines ads as any promotion within the widget designed to increase consumption of products or services that are not produced by the makers of the content in the widget. Basically any third party ad such as Google Ad Sense, Mochi Media ad, or any overlay, pre roll, post roll, .jpeg, .gif, video or other format that is advertising third party products or services.

• Introduction
• JavaScript/HTML Widget
• Flash Widget
• Remote Widget
• Preview & Testing

Introduction

If you are going to run your own ads in your widget and distribute it with Widgetbox you must make your widget ad compliant. We have agreements with different sites and users around advertising and we require widgets with ads to follow the same rules. Making your widget ad compliant is simple and will help us keep the Widgetbox experience more consistent.

JavaScript/HTML Widget

If you are making or made a hosted JavaScript/HTML widget, you only need to wrap your ad content between two new Widgetbox code snippets in the editor. The two new snippets are located in the “Insert Widget Setting” dropdown menu.

You place the ad content between the “start ad code” and “end ad code” snippets. The resulting code will look like this:

    ${wbx.startAdSnippet}
    //Your Ad Here
    ${wbx.endAdSnippet}

<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />

Here is a sample JavaScript/HTML widget…

With Ads:

Without Ads:

This is the same widget running in two different environments, one with ads enabled and the other with ads disabled.

Flash Widget

If you are making or made a Flash widget, the widget needs to check for the widget_isAdFriendly flash variable (FlashVar) parameter and only show ads when widget_isAdFriendly is set to “true”.

Here is some sample code…

ActionScript 2:

    var showAds = _root.widget_isAdFriendly;
    if (showAds == "true")
    {
        //load and show an ad
    }
    else
    {
        //don't load and show an ad
    }

ActionScript 3:

    *be sure to import LoaderInfo (import flash.display.LoaderInfo;)

    try
    {
        var paramObj:Object = LoaderInfo(this.root.loaderInfo).parameters;
        var widgetAdFriendly = String(paramObj["widget_isAdFriendly"]);

        if (widgetAdFriendly == "true")
        {
            //load and show an ad
        }
        else
        {
            //don't load and show an ad
        }
    }
    catch (err:Error)
    {
        //Something went wrong getting LoaderInfo
        trace (err);
    }

Here is a sample Flash widget…

With Ads:

Without Ads:

This is the same widget running in two different environments, one with ads enabled and the other with ads disabled.

Remote Widget

If are you making or made a remote widget, the widget needs to check for widget.isAdFriendly on the query string and make sure widget.isAdFriendly is set to “true”. This will be different depending on what server-side scripting language you are using. You can also use JavaScript to parse the URL parameters if the widget is HTML.

Here is some sample code for a Remote HTML Widget using JavaScript

*if you copy this example, be sure to place the javascript after the ad div and before the closing body tag

<html>
<body>
<div id="myWidgetAds" style="display:none;">
<!-- AD GOES BETWEEN THIS -->
This is my ad
<!-- AND THIS -->
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
function getQueryVar(variable) {
  var query = window.location.search.substring(1);
  var vars = query.split("&");

  for (var i = 0; i < vars.length; i++) {
     var pair = vars[i].split("=");
     if (pair[0] == variable) {
        return pair[1];
     }
  }

  return null;
}

function controlAds(adElementId) {
  if (getQueryVar("widget.isAdFriendly") != "true") {
     var adElement = document.getElementById(adElementId);
     adElement.style.display = "none";
  } else {
     var adElement = document.getElementById(adElementId);
     adElement.style.display = "";
  }
}

controlAds("myWidgetAds");
</script>
</body>
</html>

Here is a sample remote widget…

With Ads:

Without Ads:

This is the same widget running in two different environments, one with ads enabled and the other with ads disabled.

Preview & Testing

As you create and edit your widget you can test your ad compliance there is a toggle underneath the configuration setting in the widget studio editor.