Tip #33: Avoiding duplicate ads
If you have more than one banner on a website page, it’s easy to ensure that you never show the same banner twice with the OpenX ad server.
Provided you are using Single Page Call, or the Javascript zone tag, the Local Mode zone tag or the XML-RPC zone tag, then under Tag Settings on the Invocation Code tab, you can set the “Don’t show the banner again on the same page” option, and OpenX will ensure that the same banner is not shown more than once on a page.
The "Don't show the banner again on the same page" option.
There is also the “Don’t show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page” option for Single Page Call and these three zone tags, which can be used to ensure that every banner on a page will be from a different campaign.
Of course, you can use both options if you want to ensure that not only is every banner on a page from a different campaign, but also that there are no duplicate banners.
Using local mode invocation since OpenAds 2.0.11, i noticed this feature not to work 100% after upgrading from OpenX 2.8.1 to 2.8.2.
Eventhough the array $phpAds_context does contain various “!=” => ‘bannerid:x’, the bannerid x does show more than once on the same page.
Hi M.M.,
Thanks for the tip! Don’t forget, you should report bugs to OpenX, so they can fix them!
Done already two days ago: http://forum.openx.org/index.php?showtopic=503445721
I had been using the Only show one ad from this advertiser, but it seems that only works with JS and Single Page call. I guess this does similar but down to a campaign level/
Great site by the way. Bit worried about using JS code now after reading the problem with hanging the site!
Hi Rob,
Don’t let my post on hanging sites worry you — most OpenX users run OpenX on the same server as their website, so it’s simply not an issue (if the server goes down, it’s all down anyway — there’s no way OpenX can bring down a functional site in this case!)
If you do run OpenX on a different server from your site, though, the post does show you how to set up your JS code to ensure that you will never have this problem, even if your OpenX server is completely dead!
Its never worked for me properly all the way from v2.4.x to now at 2.8.3 and is quite frustrating when you have 4 zones on a page.
Can I suggest to change the language please? “Dont show …” YES/NO is a double negative and implied statement and makes it very confusing. The option should be a explicit statement which says “Show ….” YES/NO. Makes it obvious what the desired outcome is.
Hi Paz,
Presumably, you are using one of the supported zone tag types?
You may suggest any language change you like here, but unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about it! I would suggest you send you suggestion for changes to OpenX directly