Something I learnt on my Chinese traffic project might help with the portal project.

[Head Boy]

I wanted to forward traffic for one domain on to a page on another domain. I've always done this with refreshes, or by using an URL forwarding service. I found that if I used a simple frame, and I included a small bar at the bottom of the page, then I could double the traffic that actually arrived on my target page. Here is an example -

Voyeur Outside

Don't forget to include a robots.txt and a 404 redirect on your site as well.

[apcwebmaster]

So is the the idea that the ever present ad bar will eventually interest the surfer enough to click on it while they scroll down the page? I've been programming an app for a project which includes a navigational bar like this on the top of every page generated, good to hear grabs their attention

Also on that site you linked you need to put a target="_blank" attribute to the a tag of the link on bottom.html because it's opening within it's own tiny frame for me

[seeandsee]

Look top bar at johnchow.com , that could be rearranged for bottom two!

[apcwebmaster]

I think it's a mistake putting the X there, the color must also contrast with the page imo

[seeandsee]

I just saw it,
probably you can tweak it your way. I agree [X] should be removed.

[apcwebmaster]

this got me thinking about using a full page border and maybe removing the address bar to gain back some screen space, could become very annoying though I could imagine it being used well in some designs