How do I customize Kontera contentlink text adverts?

You're right that I've been running a test with the Kontera advertising network as a possible replacement for IntelliTXT. So far, it's going well, but since the two networks have different ad inventory and use different algorithms to target your content and add links, it's a bit tricky to compare "apples and apples", as they say. When I do have conclusive comparative data, however, I'll write about it on my business blog, so if you haven't yet checked it out, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed.

In terms of the Kontera ContentLink system, it's pretty configurable, which is nice. For example, if you want to change the color of the linked text, just specify a new color using the standard colorname or hex color notation, assigning the value to the variable var dc_AdLinkColor that's probably already in your Kontera ad block that you pasted to the bottom of your pages.

For this page, the links you see (they're double-underlined) are actually specified with the following line:

You can see a full list of colors at a variety of places on the Web, including my own Internet safe color palette page.

There are two more customizations you'll want to know about with Kontera: how to turn on ContentLinks for a block of text, and how to exclude a passage from the ContentLink network.

The first is done by surrounding the material you want scanned for potential links with <div class="KonaBody"> and its ending partner </div>. By using that, you accomplish two things: you indicate where links can be placed, but by using it at all, you also appear to communicate with their engine that the regions outside of the block are off limits for ad links.

Once you have indicated the block within which you're happy to see ads show up, you can then exclude sub-sections with <span name="KonaFilter"> and its partner tag </span>.

Let me show you an example of both at work in a passage of text:

That should get you going with the Kontera customization. Note that if you haven't yet signed up for Kontera, I'd appreciate you letting them know I referred you, and if you don't meet their minimum traffic requirements, I can sometimes help you slip in under the wire. In fact, a good place to start is here: Get Started Making Money with Kontera Ads.