Technical Information

These guidelines refer to online advertising.
For details on advertising offline, please click here.

Available Ad Formats (Standard Sizes)

Title / Ref Size (pixels) File Size (kb)
Standard Banner 468 x 60 15
Skyscraper 120 x 400 18
Vertical Banner 120 x 240 15
Sqaure Banner 120 x 120 15
Square Button 125 x 125 15
Button 120 x 90 12

Creative Guidelines

  • All click-through URLs must open in a new browser window
  • We reserve the right to reject any insertion, graphic, text description or URL
  • Ads may not employ rapid/strobing animation of any graphic, copy, or background elements(s)
  • Banners should be encased in a border and distinct from the content. If borderless, a banner must contain the advertiser's name to signify that it is an ad creative banner, not content
  • Ads may not have transparent backgrounds and may never blend into the screen content

Additional Considerations

Alternate Text

  • Maximum 70 characters

URLs

  • Neither the target URL nor the click-through URL may exceed 200 characters
  • The URL you provide must be viewable in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Mozilla Firefox 1.0+ and Netscape 4.0+
  • The URL may include the following: capital or lowercase letters ('A' through 'Z' or 'a' through 'z'), numbers 0 through 9, and special characters / ~ _ ? - # = | ; $ @ & + % ! * " ' ( )

Flash Coding Guidelines

Flash Version

Publish the swf file as Flash version 6, 7 or 8.
All flash files must be fully functioning in Flash Players 6 and higher.

Frame Rate

Adobe recommends when designing an ad banner to keep the frames per second as low as possible - 18 fps or lower (ideally, 12 fps).

Animation

Flash offers the ability to create additional animation on rollover. Our standard animation spec is 15 seconds, but flash ads can additionally animate upon rollover, as long as the animation stops as soon as the user rolls off of the ad.

External Calls

No external calls allowed. This includes, but is not limited to the following: child flash, rss feeds, xml, and video

Buttons/Links

You do not need to add any buttons in your flash file, as the swf will be loaded into a 'holding' file which performs the link action. You will only be permitted one link per flash banner.

Upon submission, please denote a click-through URL.