When you make theme changes to your site, be sure to post in this thread so the script can recrawl your site.
Journey by Mediavine uses specific elements in your site’s HTML to tell our script where to place ads.
When you change themes, the underlying HTML of your site often changes as well, which can result in ads disappearing. This is why we recommend launching your new theme during business hours, which are Monday-Friday from 9am-4pm EST.
In general, we can work with almost any standard WordPress theme, but there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a theme or making adjustments to your theme.
- Sidebar width: If your layout has a sidebar, make sure the sidebar is at least 300 pixels wide until it moves below the content area.
- Responsive design: You'll want a responsive design that includes a mobile view. This is standard for most themes, but worth double-checking.
- Journey does not support pagebuilders or pagebuilder themes: Due to how the HTML is structured on pagebuilders and pagebuilder themes, we can’t guarantee the script will be able to target ads. Read more about why Journey doesn’t work well with page builders here.
Check your ad placements after changing themes
Once you change themes, check your site in an incognito window and append ?test=placeholders to a post URL. This will force placeholder ads to load wherever ads are targeted on your site and allow you to see all the available ad placements your readers would see.
Example: yourdomain.com?test=placeholders
As long as you see content ads and the sticky sidebar ad on your new theme, you can assume your ad targeting is good to go and you don’t need to post in the forum or take any additional action.
However, if you don’t see ads on your new theme with ?test=placeholders added to the end of a URL, please reach out to us during our business hours (Monday-Friday from 9 am - 4 pm EST) and post in the above thread so we can have the script retarget your ads.
Important reminders
- Disable any sticky sidebar functionality: If your new theme has a sticky sidebar, our script will not be able to place a sticky sidebar ad. You'll need to ‘un-stick’ your sidebar to make sure we can properly target an ad there. If you unstick your sidebar outside of a theme change, you can post in this official thread to request a script recrawl.
- Increase your font size and line height: We recommend a font size between 18- 22px and a line height of 1.6-1.8.
- Write long-form post content: Journey ad placement works best with long-form post content. Because of this, we only place content ads in post templates with long-form post content.
- Content ads will only display on posts: Right now, Journey only places content ads throughout actual post content since otherwise these ads could break the layout of pages. We also don't currently have an option for manual ad placement, but you'll still have the adhesion banner ad and Universal Video Player able to load on pages.
Related:
- Why aren't ads displaying on my site?
- Why most Page Builders won't work on Journey by Mediavine
- Ads are missing in the content or sidebar only