ad banner un hide vanishing hidden fix

The Vanishing MySpace Ad Banner

I am merging a couple of my articles which relate to the mySpace ad banner.
I am ashamed to admit this, but the first article I wrote on the subject, started out as an article on how to hide the ad banner. Later, when myspace changed their code, and the "Vanishing Ad Banner" became a side effect of other code, I wrote an article on the causes and fixes.

While one of my personalities has a high respect for rules my other personality often struggles with the concept unless it can clearly identify a victim.
The first article I wrote, related to myspace; showed how to hide everything except the ad banner. I was getting several hits a day, via google, by people who seemed interested in reading about hiding, obscuring, moving, and covering the ad banner.
So in the interest of appealing to my readers I covered the subject.

In the process I became quite knowledgeable about the ad banner, how it is generated, how to hide it, move it, change it, tweak it, and how to recover it if one has installed code which has accidentally removed it.
A few months ago, this knowledge became very useful, as myspace saw fit to change the depth of the ad banner multiple times. They not only changed the depth, they added multiple code paths, resulting in multiple ad banner depths.
As a result, code which was never intended to hide the ad banner, was causing it to vanish.

There are several fallacies around the ad banner.
Fallacy One:
If my ad banner shows some of the time, It can not be my CSS which is hiding it.
FALSE
If your ad banner is gone, about 30% or more of the time, it is very highly likely the css code you have installed.

Fallacy Two:
MySpace won't really remove my page if I hide the ad banner.
FALSE
They need no reason to remove your page, and pages are often removed when this is the only violation.

Fallacy Three:
It is o.k. to Hide the ads at the bottom of the blog and photo pages
FALSE
Read the Terms of Service.

Fallacy Four:
There is no way to hide the bottom links and copyright without hiding the ad banner.
FALSE

For code to hide the bottom links, and/or copyright, which does NOT obscure the ad banner
MySpace Bottom Links and Copyright Hiding, Formatting

I highly suspect we will soon see advertisements at the bottom of our standard pages as well. I observed an attempt by myspace to implement this a few months ago. Basically they broke a few things, and after moving the code block several times that day, they eventually moved it back to the way it was the day before.

Understanding the Ad Banner
For a diagram please refer to the page I have linked to below. The page is set up so that it shows the div, table and cell boundaries along with most of the classes.
Because it is a real page, with style applied, it automatically updates when myspace makes code changes.
MySpace page showing div table cell class layout
The above page is best viewed in FF, due to IE not understanding the border-spacing property. But it is still ok in IE and other Browsers. I used margins.]

You want to look at the top of the page (assuming the myspace page actually came up, which is seeming less and less likely these days).
The key is to the left (The Key is not part of the standard page, I added it).

Notice that the ad banner is this deep:
div table td div
OR is it this deep?
div table td div div
Refresh the page a few times, does the ad banner change depth?

I noticed the first div in Early to Mid May. I noticed the 2nd one in early June (4 June 2007 to be exact).
At the time, I was calling the symptom the "Vanishing Ad Banner".

IF your ad banner is gone (sometimes or always) and you want to restore it, you need to either remove or override any and all of the following:

The most common forms of the guilty code lines:
table div {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}
div div {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}
table div div {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}
div table td {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}
div table div {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}
table td {display:none} or {visibility:hidden}

Any of the above with a tbody inserted after the table, are equivalent. (Since myspace doesn't use thead or tbody).
Any of the above that have the word "body" added to the front are equivalent. (All of these are in the body).
Any of the above with a tr inserted after the table (or after the tbody if that is also used) are also equivalent.
i.e.
body div table tbody tr td div
or
body div table tbody tr td div div

If you have any of the above, with either {display:none} or {visibility:hidden} you are potentially hiding all or some of the myspace advertisements. This does put you at risk of having your myspace page deleted.

Any subset of the above will also hide the ad banner, if there is nothing else to override it.

body
div
table
table td
div table
table div
td
tr
The list can get quite long I won't list them all.

To fix the problem you must either remove the guilty code or add an override line.

The following code block will override most of the lines which hide the ad banner.
Put this at the END of the "Who I'd Like to Meet" or "Bio" section.

<style>
div table div, 
div table div div, 
div table td div, 
div table td div div, 
div table tbody tr td div,
div table tbody tr td div div,
body div table div, 
body div table div div, 
body div table div {visibility:visible !important; display:block !important}
</style>

I am sort of suprised that myspace has not added this to the style block they now have at the end of the code. They did get body, and html, but seem to have missed a huge chunk of what they could do here.

MySpace could so easily fix the problem themselves.
Since they are in control, maybe they can put the ad div in a class, not very deep at all, so that the ONLY way to address it is:
div.adClass
ok, there is always
body div.adClass
But they can minimize significantly the ways of addressing the thing.
Then, at the end of the code, they can have an override style block.
Most Anything we can do with style, they can override with style. They have the power of being able to go first and last.

Since the information I have provided, for people to use in the recovery of an ad banner which has been accidentally hidden; can be used to actually hide the ad banner; I feel obligated to warn you of the potential consequences, and to make a last ditch effort to persuade you that you really want to “embrace” rather than “obscure” the ad banner. Remember, Advertising is what drives internet innovation.

WARNING: Obscuring the myspace ad banner can result in having your page profile deleted by the myspace police (it is their space, they have this right).
If you do not believe me Please read the myspace terms of agreement (that long list of rules, that we all read before checking the “I Agree” box).

My I instead Suggest one of the following approaches:
1) The Ad Banner Collage camouflage technique:
myspace page using ad camouflage background

2) Attention grabber placed elsewhere on the page to draw the eye away from the Ad Banner. With all the flashing ads, you need to insure that this is even flashier.

3) Instruct your viewers to scroll down immediately upon entering your page. This is what I use on my personal page. (OK sometimes I admit to replacing the ad with a spoof ad, but only when I get assaulted by noise making advertisements. In one case I did replace the ad banner with a smiley with duct tape over his mouth).

4) Block the ads on your own computer. This will not have any effect on how others see your page (unless they are using your computer). The myspace ad banner police will see the ad banner, so your page will not be deleted (at least not for using this technique to "hide" your ad banner).
See the following:
my space discussion forum on hiding the ad banner

Thank you for Visiting; Have a Nice Day :-)

Queries hitting other pages of mine, which should be hitting this page:
-myspace ad banner codes.
-customize myspace ad banner.
-recover hidden ad banner.
-div help to not hide ad banner