Review: WebAdverts 2.02 Banner Serving Program

WebAdverts is robust banner serving program that will suit many smaller sites quite well, and contains all the common functions found in ad management software. While it is designed as the basis for a banner exchange program, it can be used for serving commercial banners for advertisers; a password-protected interface also allows advertisers to view real-time daily statistics.

The program runs under either Perl 4 or Perl 5. While this allows customization of the program by programmers, it is inherently slower than compiled programs such as Central Ad 4.0, limiting its scalability for very high traffic sites. WebAdverts is relatively easy to set up on a server if you've had some experience with CGI programs.

It allows both SSI and non-SSI banners. The SSI mode also accommodates (but does not count) HTML banners and will insert any other HTML text you wish. In addition you can create areas of a site that act, and are reported, independently of each other. Reports are fairly rudimentary, but include area, banner, views, click-throughs, and click-through rate.

This is a good choice for smaller sites just getting started serving banners. If you use it, please register with the software developer. The program is well worth the $50 registration fee, and will bring you many times its cost as you develop advertising on your site. You may download a copy from the developer's site. http://awsd.com/scripts/webadverts/?wmt