Chitika on MovableType

If you're interested in adding Chitika code to your MovableType blog, here is how I did it. First, some hat tips to Problogger.net for promoting the Chitika code and bringing it to my attention. Props to LiewCF.com as well, a WordPress-based blog that has several tips on using Chitika. I also came across a few Wordpress plugins for Chitika, which at first inspired me to write my very first MovableType plugin to handle the Chitika ad code. But then I realized it was just as easy to leverage several other Movabletype plugins along with MovableType's existing Keyword field for adding in keywords pertinent to each blog entry.

I should mention that due to Google Adsense's TOS (Terms of Service) you cannot place contextual ads on the same pages as Google Adsense. Fortunately, you can disable the contactual ad search in Chitika by adding this line of code to the Chitika javascript.

ch_non_contextual = 1;

So in order to Chitika in combination with Google Adsense you have to turn off the contextual search. But with contextual search turned off, you are forced to either "statically" define keywords to search on OR you can leverage your CMS or blogger software to automatically insert the title of the blog posts or keywords that you enter in a special field within the blogging software.

I added the Chitika code to the both the Main Template and the Individual Template and then used the <MTIfNotEmpty> plugin to determine if I added any keywords to each blog entry. If I didn't it doesn't place them in the Chitika javascript array. Another plugin I leveraged was <MTGlue> which automatically appends a delimiter(such as a comma) at the end of each item - except for the last item. This allows me to create the list of keywords separated by commas to put into the Chitika Javascript array. I also add into the Chitika array the title of the blog post <$MTEntryTitle$> as well as the Primary Category of the blog post.

If you have the MTGlue and MtIfNotEmpty plugins installed, you are good to go to use my code. Just insert the Chitika code into the appropriate MovableType templates, i.e. Individual Template, Main template, as well as the Category and Date templates if you want.

Note: I had to insert a carriage return (line feed) after </MTGlue> because otherwise the code won't wordwrap and will bleed into my skyscraper ads, since there are no spaces or line feeds to permit it to autowrap. So make sure to remove the carriage return for this to work.

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
ch_client = "tkeating";
ch_width = 468;
ch_height = 180;
ch_non_contextual = 1;
ch_nosearch = 1;
var ch_queries = new Array(
<MTIfNotEmpty var="EntryKeywords"><MTGlueContainer><MTKeyWordList>"<$MTKeyWord$>"<MTGlue>,</MTGlue>

</MTKeyWordList></MTGlueContainer></MTIfNotEmpty><MTIfNotEmpty var="EntryKeywords">,"<$MTEntryTitle$>"</MTIfNotEmpty><MTIfEmpty var="EntryKeywords">"<$MTEntryTitle$>"</MTIfEmpty>);
var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length));
ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];
//--></script>
<script src="http://scripts.chitika.net/eminimalls/mm.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>