Monetizing a website with ads, like Google AdSense, PropellersAds or any other ad network determine adding an ads.txt to your website that can be accessed and seen by anyone by visiting https://yourwebsite.com/ads.txt
What does ads.txt stand for:
while txt is the file extension created by a text editor that holds information about the Authorized Digital Seller. ads or Authorized Digital Seller is an IAB initiative to improve transparency in programmatic advertising, used by companies or website owners to declare the digital sellers/companies they authorize to sell their digital products/services.
Does the use of ads.txt mandatory:
Google says:
“Use of ads. txt/app-ads. txt is not mandatory, but is highly recommended. It can help protect your brand from counterfeit inventory that’s intentionally mislabeled as originating from a specific domain, app, or video.”
How to get your Google AdSense ads.txt:
- Sign in to your Google AdSense account.
- If there’s an alert on your homepage, click Fix now. Otherwise, go to Sites.
- Click the Down arrow, to open the “Create an ads.txt file for…” message.
- Click Download. Your ads.txt file is automatically downloaded.
How to add any ad network to your ads.txt file:
- Contact your ad network for their ads.txt information.
- Create a text file (.txt) with notepad (or any other text editor) name it ads.
- Copy and past ads.txt information you’ve received from your ad network into the ads.txt file.
How to upload ads.txt to your WordPress website:
to upload your ads.txt file to a WordPress website you can use a plugin or upload the ads.txt file to the root directory of your site.
In the next video I will show how to add the ads.txt with and without a plugin:
What is the best way to add the ads.txt for WordPress:
While adding ads.txt is easy both ways it depends on how much control you have over the website if you are doing in freelancing work, and you don’t have access to the cPanel or to FTP, in this case you will need to use a plug-in like ads.txt manager used in the tutorial or provide the website owner with the ads.txt file and guide him to implement it. adding ads txt file without using a plugin still the best, that means less plugins on your WordPress dashboard, and more secure, plugins might have some vulnerability that may affect your website if you don’t keep an eye on your website files.
How to verify you correctly uploaded the ads.txt:
To verify that you published your file correctly, check that you successfully see your file’s content when you access the ads.txt URL (https://yourwebsite.com/ads.txt) in your web browser. If you can see the file in your web browser with the exact information you’ve added than you’ve successfully added the ads.txt to your website.