Adding AdSense for Google Search on a Wordpress blog running on Lighttpd

So you might be running Wordpress on a Lighttpd server, which can be a bit problematic since it does not support slugs per default, and if you are using default permalink setup in Wordpress the search page that we are going to create in a minute will not work.

So first we need to do something about the permalinks. For this example I will use the permalink style: http://domainname.test/postname/ for this to work we need to add following lines in the lighttpd.com:

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url.rewrite-final = (
 
    # Exclude some directories from rewriting
    "^/(wp-admin|wp-includes|wp-content|gallery2|stats|awstats|awstatsicons|awstatscss|kloxo|kloxononssl|cgi-bin)/(.*)" => "$0",
 
    # Exclude .php files at root from rewriting
    "^/(.*.php)" => "$0",
 
    # Handle permalinks and feeds
    "^/(.*)$" => "/index.php/$1"
)

Remember to reload lighttpd to append these changes.

In the Wordpress permalink settings you use the custom setting where you write: /%postname%/ this will result in links like we wanted.

Now we have to make a page where the AdSense for Google results will show. I’ve made a template called gsearch.php, which looks like this:

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<?php
/*
Template Name: gsearch
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
        <div id="content" class="widecolumn">
                <!-- Google Search Result Snippet Begins -->
 
<div id="cse-search-results"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
  var googleSearchIframeName = "cse-search-results";
  var googleSearchFormName = "cse-search-box";
  var googleSearchFrameWidth = 500;
  var googleSearchDomain = "www.google.dk";
  var googleSearchPath = "/cse";
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/afsonline/show_afs_search.js"></script>
 
 
                <!-- Google Search Result Snippet Ends -->
        </div>
 
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
 
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Put this template in your Wordpress theme folder, and go to your Dashboard and make a new Page. Call this whatever you want, but remember to choose the template gsearch, and do not write anything else on the page, only fill out the page name.

Now go to your AdSense account, and create a new AdSense for Google Search. In the Wizard where it says which sites you want to search across write your own, also remember to add some keywords, it helps showing ads directed at the content you want to have it showing. But the most important thing is to fill in the Opening for search results page, here you have to check Open results within my own site and then specify the URL for the page you just made with the gsearch template. Now finish up the wizard and have the code created. We will only need the search box code, since we already implemented the search result code.

Since I do not know how to make a new widget, we will just paste the code into the sidebar code for your theme directly. Which you can find under appearance and then press editor. Find the code for your sidebar, probably named sidebar.php.
Paste the generated code from google right after the <div id=”sidebar”> code, save and enjoy. You should now have a functioning AdSense for Google Search implemented on your blog.

You might want to remove the search widget, so it only show the Google Search one and also exclude the page from the pages widget.

Now with google search

I find the built in search function a bit lacking, so I decided to shift it out with Google AdSense Custom Search, which searches the webpage while showing some ads, which enables me to earn a bit money, since this page does not pay itself. Though you are not forced to click on the adds, though I’d like you to from time to time as a token of appreciation.

If you need help implementing this on your own wordpress weblog I will write up a blog post on how to do this very soon.

2012, what a great movie!

SPOILER WARNING!
Do not read this unless you are not going to watch the movie, have watched it or do not intend watching it ever.

This is the best movie I have watched the last couple of hours! I cannot describe how good it was compared to the other, maybe because this was the only movie I watched! I am happy that I didn’t get to watch it in the cinema, last weekend because of all seat were taken. More… »

New Katatonia album!

If you haven’t heard Katatonia released a new album, this time called Night Is The New Day. I’ve only heard one song so far and I am impressed. Katatonia is improving with every album they are making and this one I think will be a great contender on best album of the year! I ordered the album and I am waiting eagerly to get it now. In the mean time I can watch the music video for the single Day & Then The Shade.

Install batches of apps through adb

I made a small script just to test the syntax highlighting plug-in I installed for Wordpress. So here it goes:

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#!/bin/bash
# Scipt that installs a batch of apk files on an Android device,
# through the adb tool from Android SDK.
adbPath="/home/tomasz/android/android-sdk/tools/adb"
 
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
        echo "usage: `basename $0` foldername"
        exit 1
fi
 
for f in $( ls "$1" );
do
        $adbPath install "$f"
done


The script is very simple and installs apk files in a folder through adb (Android Debug Bridge). This of course requires the Android SDK and a some kind of a Linux distribution.