Add Google AdSense Ads to Your WordPress Blog
88If you want to use Google AdSense with your WordPress blog, there are two things you need to add - Google AdSense advertisement code, and a privacy policy link.
You can easily add both into your WordPress blog by using the text widgets that come with WordPress 2.2 or later. If you have an older WordPress release, you can enable widgets by installing the widgets plugin.
To use these widgets, you must install a WordPress theme that is widget-ready, i.e. a WordPress theme that has predefined widget areas. It is best to choose a WordPress theme that is easily customizable, and has several widget-ready areas where you can insert your Google AdSense advertisements, or other useful widget functions.
Visit Shiba WordPress to see an example of a widget-ready free WordPress theme with Google AdSense advertisements, and a privacy policy.
Note - WordPress.com does not allow advertisements on the blogs that are hosted on their site. To monetize your WordPress blog, you must host it elsewhere.
How to Add Google AdSense Advertisements
- Log into your Google AdSense account. If you do not have a Google AdSense account, here are some tips on how to get started with Google AdSense.
- Once you are logged in, click on the AdSense Setup tab on top of your screen. Then select Get Ads to create new advertisements, or Manage Ads to access previous advertisements you have created.
- After you finish creating an advertisement, Google AdSense will provide you with the code for displaying that advertisement on your blog or web-page. You can also access that code at a later date by going into AdSense Setup >> Manage Ads, and clicking on the Code link to the right of your advertisement unit.
- Open another browser window and log into your WordPress blog.
- Click on the Appearance menu on the left of your WordPress dashboard, and then select the Widgets option.
The middle column of the screen shows all the available widgets, and the right column of the screen shows all the available widget areas for your current WordPress theme. If your current theme does not support widgets, then WordPress will show the following message when you access the Widgets menu option.
The theme you are currently using isn’t widget-aware, meaning that it has no sidebars that you are able to change. For information on making your theme widget-aware, please follow these instructions. ~~ [From WordPress Dashboard]
If there is no Widget option in your WordPress dashboard then the WordPress release you are using does not come with widget plugin support, and you will need to install the WordPress widgets plugin manually.
Add Google AdSense Code into a WordPress Text Widget
Now you are ready to add your Google AdSense code into your WordPress blog.
6. Click on the widget area in the right column where you want to insert your Google AdSense advertisement to open it up.
7. Drag a Text Widget box from the middle column and drop it in the widget area on the right column.
8. Click on the right corner of the Text widget to open it.
9. Copy your Google AdSense code and paste it into the Text widget area.
10. Click on the Save button at the bottom right of the Text widget to save your Google AdSense code.
11. Refresh your WordPress blog and your Google AdSense advertisement should now be displayed in the widget area that you just edited.
12. You can add as many Text widgets as you want to your WordPress blog but remember that Google AdSense only allows 3 advertisement units per web-page.
Do you have Google AdSense in your WordPress blog?
See results without votingHow to Add a Privacy Policy to Your WordPress Blog
Google AdSense now requires that you add a privacy policy to all your pages that display Google AdSense advertisements. This privacy policy must include a cookie disclosure notice.
AdSense publishers must have and abide by a privacy policy that discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users' browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website. ~~ [Excerpt from Google AdSense Program Policies]
- Create a privacy policy page in your WordPress blog. For more information on what needs to be included in your privacy policy, refer to the Google's Advertising and Privacy page.
- Drag and drop a new Text widget into the area where you want your privacy policy link to appear.
- Add your privacy policy link to your Text widget. Your privacy policy link code may look something like this -
<a href="[Your Privacy Policy HTML link]">Privacy Policy</a>
Failure to add a privacy policy may lead to rejection of your Google AdSense account application or to the disruption of your current Google AdSense account.
If you have any questions about how to add Google AdSense advertisements into your WordPress blog, feel free to ask them in the comments section below.
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Excellent article! Google Adsense continues to confuse me! I will bookmark this page and look forward to one explaining what code to use for content, etc... :-(
Around the middle of the hub, you said:
"If there is no Widget option in your WordPress dashboard then the WordPress release you are using does come with widget plugin support, and you will need to install the WordPress widgets plugin manually."
I think you meant to say "does not". And thanks for this, I always modify the php files to put in Adsense and this should make my life simpler. :)
Hi dohn, I am really having some good fun with WordPress and web design. When I first put up my website, I really had no clue about any of this stuff, but once I started getting into it, it was difficult to stop :) Have fun!
Hi Nancy. Thanks for dropping by. I am not sure I totally understand your question. Do you mean how to create Google AdSense ads? Will try to help if I can :)
Thanks wandererh. Yeah, you get more flexibility with PHP editing because you can really place the ads wherever you want. But as you say, doing PHP makes things a lot more complex.
Are you using child themes? It is a great way to preserve your CSS and PHP modifications when you do theme updates. Good stuff.
BTW - Thanks for pointing out the error.
Sad to say, I didn't even know that there are such things as child themes. :( But I do the idea behind it. Do you have a hub about those?
Heh- I am writing one. Creating a child theme is pretty straight-forward, and there are many blog posts about how to do that.
There is a lot less documentation on how to use child themes to achieve common tasks, so that will be what I will focus on.
Nope. I didn't think I'd left a comment. I don't know why I didn't. I sat and read through this after you first published it. I remember thinking 'clever she is. very clever'.
I'm sorry Shiba. Here now and commenting away.
This is a fab article Shiba (as always ) and I get it but I still want you to do it for me. Because you're better at it and I just can't absorb things my brain can't handle :)
lol - Kevin can do it. I hear he is a whiz with WordPress. Btw how is Kevin? I haven't heard much about him lately - shame on you! We dragonspawns want him back!
Shiba - I wrote another, just published away from my normal profile. I'll go get you the link :)
I have been using the wordpress plugin called WhyDoWork Adsense for a couple years now and it's worked great for me. It allows you to put Adsense code (or any other ad code from other networks) into your posts.
This is so timely - exactly what I need.
I just started a wordpress blog, I like the appearance - and didn't know how to use AdSense. I will work my way through your hub when I add it.
I'll test what hubber Chris Crow (here) is suggesting!
Thanks for the step by step information.
Thanks Chris for pointing us to that WordPress plugin.
Hello BkCreative,
Yeah drop by and let us know what works out well for you. I really like the widgets because of their flexibility (you can do AdSense and much more), but a focused plugin like the one Chris suggested may be easier to use. In any case, WordPress is a great blog platform.
Nice hub. Clear information for wordpress bloggers. thanks.
Good Job!!!
hey bud... those are all preliminary things.... can u suggest how can i add google adsense to wordpress.com blogs?
WordPress.com does not allow you to show ads. It is their site, and to use their site, we must follow their policies.
You will need to host your own WordPress blog if you want to add ads.
That virtual theme looks nice from the pics. Gonna have to check it out.
A lot of themes out there offer adsense built in. Some of my favorites are put out by doshdosh. They're ugly but good for adsense revenue.
Hi drking,
Yeah good point with the AdSense-ready themes. I never used them because I wanted more control over my ad-placements.
But you are definitely right - they do offer a fast and easy way to get AdSense into your blogs.
If you have any comments on the theme let me know. It will help me to improve it. Thanks!
Although adding Adsense using widgets is easy according to my experience highest performing Adsense blocks are the ad blocks added inside the posts which needs a bit of PHP and HTML knowledge.
Once again, great information. Another one to bookmark and pass on!
Good work.
Good info, but that's why I use blogger, just seems easier :)
You are definitely right, Blogger is easier, but there is only so much you can do with Blogger. With WordPress, you can pretty much do anything you want. I really enjoy the freedom you get with WordPress.
Always a trade-off in computer software - functionality vs. ease of use.
I haven't been able to get the html to work in the text box. It keeps disappearing after I hit the save button on the text box. What's happening? Also, how do you get the wordpress plugin WhyDoWork AdSense? Is it from AdSense or Wordpress and how do you attain it? Thanks!
"It keeps disappearing after I hit the save button on the text box."
That is strange. Try unselecting it first before clicking on the Save button. If that doesn't work, Just try putting plain text in, e.g. "Test" and see if that works.
Re WhyDoWork AdSense - The download site comes up as the first entry on Google Search.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=WhyDoWork+AdS
As far as I can tell the plugin is not from AdSense or WordPress but from a third party. Since WordPress is open source, there are many people who write plugins for it.
In addition, if you are on WordPress.com, they do not allow you to show ads on your blogs.
You can only do ads on self-hosted WordPress blogs.
Interesting article for a newbie like me.
Thanks for the info. This stuff kind of confuses me, but now it is more clear.
Thanks Tamarind. Let me know if you have any questions. WordPress is a very fun system :)
Shiba, you're a lifesaver. I just created my first hosted Wordpress blog and I couldn't find any instructions on how to put in my Google Adsense. Good thing I saw this hub of yours. Bookmarked it and thumbs up for the big help! Thanks.
Hi Emie,
Congrats on your new blog! Let me know when you have the link up coz I definitely want to visit.
WordPress is a lot of fun. I spent most of the holidays programming a plugin :)
Happy New Year!
Hey shiba. I have the blog up and running. It needs a lot of work and I only have one post up but I'm targeting on writing about 3 or 4 posts a week (keeping my fingers crossed here). Got a problem with one thing though (actually several but this is the most important and the only one my brain can process at the moment) - how do I put ads at the beginning of each post, and a "skyscraper ad block" on the left side? Any advice will be good, thanks :).
ooopppps forgot, here's the site - http://www.emievill.com/. Thanks again.
Wow 3-4 posts a week! I only do about 1 per week - I am a lazy bum :)
In terms of the ads it would depend on the theme you are using. It is easiest to find a theme that supports widgets - then you can just add ads into the predefined widget areas.
Go into Appearance >> Widgets in your WordPress Dashboard to see what widgets are available in your current theme. Thesis, Thematic, and Hybrid are the three WordPress themes I hear about most in terms of offering a fair amount of flexibility. But the more flexibility you have, the more setup time.
Often times it is difficult to find a theme that does exactly what you want and has exactly the look that you want. In those cases, you can alter or add to the theme by creating a child-theme - although that does require some php knowledge.
http://www.shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/customiz
Apart from the ads, what else are you looking for in your theme?
If you want, I can help you with creating a child-theme after you have decided on a main theme. Let me know.
LOL that's just my target. I don't know how I can meet that but I'd really like to reach that number of post.
Actually, uhm, I'm okay with what I have right now. I just want to know how to put the ads in the blog posts themselves rather than on the side of the blog, which is what I usually see. The themes are really quite good, it's just that I'm still groping a lot. Thanks for the tip and the offer to help. I'll keep that in mind and holler HELP when I can't handle it already :).
"I just want to know how to put the ads in the blog posts themselves rather than on the side of the blog"
Some themes may already support this with widgets. If so, you can get to it by going to Appearance >> Widgets. If not, you will need to go into the theme index.php file and put the ads in manually.
Or you can also do that in a child theme :)
Congrats on your new blog!
I am bummed that the holidays are over - it just went by so quickly!
Great use of adsense thnxz for tips
adsense is amazing for word press and blogs
Thank you very much. I knew if I searched for this topic I'd find it here in hub pages and I did. Here I was thinking I'd have to add adsense manually in the code - you are a life saver! Thankyouverymuch :)
Hi Jane, glad you found it useful.
Let me know if you have more questions about WordPress. I have been having a lot of fun with it lately :)
I keep pasting the Google Adsense Code into my Text widget as explained above and when I save, it disappears. The ads are not showing on my blog and I can not figure out why. I have tried several different size ads and none of them save. Can you explain?
Hello Cody,
Are you trying to add to a WordPress.com hosted site? They do not allow ads on their blogs.
This may also be the case for some other free hosted sites which may place limitations on what you can do on your blog.
Hi shibashake.. Well explained .. Well done. Thank you for sharing.
You should avoid adding plugins for adsense in wordpress. Few knows but most of them they take a share from your ads. Actually, you can test it looking at your page source. That easy adsense plugin is pretty nasty.
Hi there I am having the same issue as cody. Everytime I paste the code in to the text box and click save it disappears. I am using godaddy wordpress hosting so I think that I should be able to do have ads on my blog. Any tips???
I have not used GoDaddy hosting before so I do not know the interface used there.
It seems though that they have their own AdSense interface. Here is an article from godaddy on how to add AdSense -
Great post! thank you for sharing the information.
nice sharing
nice sharing
Wow, this is my kind of hub. This is good information for me. I am always at a lose on how to paste links into my sites. Thankyou for your hubpages.
very nice
I am very interested in all this. I want to start blogging but I am trying to figure it out. Thanks for the enlightening hub.
I started focusing on my blog about 1 year ago and it has been a lot of fun. I use WordPress as my blogging platform because it is open source and very flexible. However, Blogger may be easier to learn and use initially.
Welcome to HubPages! I see that you are already doing very well with a HubNuggets nomination under your belt. Let me know if you have any WordPress questions.
Thank you very much for yet another first-rate article. I am always searching for original WordPress tips to suggest to my readers. Thanks for creating this article. It's exactly what I was searching for. Truly great post.
Thanks so much! This helped me a LOT!!!
Awesome hub, I am think about getting my wordpress blog hosted and this info comes in handy since I do not know where to begin. I also don't know if I should host my blogger blog or wp. Any tips?
"I also don't know if I should host my blogger blog or wp. Any tips? "
It would depend.
Hosting your own blogs gives you much greater flexibility, both in content and presentation of the site.
However, hosting would incur a monthly cost, and it will also require some initial startup costs in choosing a blog theme and plugins to do all the things that you want.
I am currently running all my self-hosted blogs on WP.
Really helpful guide, just implemented it on my blog. Many thanks!
Thank you very much for this very useful article. Specially for novice like me.
Amazing detail in this Hub.
Loved reading it.
I'm going to implement Google Adsense on my Blog after reading this. Implementing Google Adsense seems pretty straightforward after I understood what I have to do.
Lucky for me my WordPress template is Widget ready.
Great information I am bookmarking for future reference!
Just installed wordpress and inserted google ads in my new site..its great
Masters in USA
Just starting out on my first WordPress blog, so have found your info invaluable shibashake.
Thanks CMHypno. WordPress is a lot of fun. There are a lot of free tools out there to do just about anything you would want to do. Good luck with your site!
Excellent article with useful information, I am bookmarking this as I am about to use Google AdSense on my blog.
Hello,
I have done all the steps you've listed, and yet, all I am getting is a yellow box and no ads. I have tried numerous codes for different size ads and none of them work :-(
Hello Carmen,
I see Google ads when I visit your link. After you first create an ad-box in Google, there is usually a slight delay before the ads appear.
Hi Friend
I'm trying for display Google ads on my wordpress blog but i can't be succeed. I paste adsence code into sidebar but there are not shown any ads on my blog yet. What is the reason and how can i put ads on wordpress blog. Please tell me in details.
As stated in the article above -
Note - WordPress.com does not allow advertisements on the blogs that are hosted on their site. To monetize your WordPress blog, you must host it elsewhere.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!
I've just started trying to set up a site using Wordpress and thought I needed a plugin for Adsense. I got so confused with the plugins that came up in the search and didn't know which to choose. This hub has made is easy to do it myself with the text widget as you describe. I can't believe it, want to dance in delight :))
Glad it helped :D
I am a big fan of WordPress so if you have further questions, let me know.
Thanks for all the great information. I just started a WP blog and am trying to figure it all out. Maybe I'll get to the point where I can do this.
Thanks for this post very handy and I did not know about the privacy Policy so I best get that done ASAP.
On my blog I have a skyscraper ad 160x600 which I created as per the instructions above however it only shows on the main page and never on any posts just a blank place holder
Are you able to offer any advise on this?
Great job shiba. You have won my heart. Thanks
Very useful and easy to do. Thanks
Thanks for the great information. I am sure you have helped out many people, especially by informing them they need a privacy policy with Adsense. =]
Shibashake,
Nice article. I'm newbie with blogging. I used WordPress before but since I want to monetize my blogs I use ad sense and move to blogger for free-hosting. I placed three ads with blogger using my own domain name. Now, I want to go back for WordPress with own domain name and self-hosted it. But how many ads can I place with my webpage? Can I use also chitika? and other means to monetize my site. I want to blog religiously and maximize my earnings. But I am newbie and only learning doing webpage thru- reading and self study. Please advise. Thanks.
Regards,
Darwin
As I understand it we can place a maximum of 3 AdSense ads.
I don't think there are restrictions on Chitika per se, but there are conditions on ad-placement and ad-tampering when it comes to AdSense. I would read through all of the TOS very carefully.
I am really liking ur article, was searching for such an article clear and to the point with excellent resources.
but am disappointed :(
am hosting my blog with wordpress and was trying to make some earnings through google adsene
is there any way to do so!!!
thanks again for the explination
Everytime I enter my ad code into the text box, when I click "save" it is erased. I just paid the $17 to host my own domain so I should be allowed to use adsense code. Can you offer any help or tips. I am newer to this.
That is strange. Which hosting company are you using? Which WP theme are you using?
So if I currently have a wordpress.com blog, to use AdSense I need to do what? Would paying to change the domain name to .me be enough or do i need to do more?
Hello Barbara,
There are several different alternatives to ad-placement. If you want to continue using WordPress, then it is best to host your own WordPress blog.
1. Get web hosting, for example from Bluehost, etc. Find a place that supports one-click WP installation.
2. Export your current WP blog and then reimport it into your new hosting site.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/
3. As far as I know, there is no way to redirect all your current wordpress.com links.
Hi Shibashake, this article is a great help. I didn't understand where to put my adsense code, so I'd just put it into one of my posts. But its not possible to put it in each n every post. Stupid me....didn't think of this widget idea.
Also can u help me figure out how to make my theme's code writable?
Thanx a bunch.
Hello Anu,
You can edit your theme by going into Appearance >> Editor in your WordPress Dashboard.
In general though, I would suggest creating a child theme rather than editing your theme directly. A child theme will enable you to keep your changes across base theme updates.
This is the best article I have come across. It is so helpful. I just signed up for google adsense But I was trying to figure out how to actually get the ads on the page. Instead of the posts? When you add it to the text widget do you get to choose what page it goes on?? Im confused.
Hello Brtnee21,
"When you add it to the text widget do you get to choose what page it goes on??"
Usually, widgets are the same for every page. I.e. the ads will be the same for each and every page.
However, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to choose which widgets you want to assign to which pages.
One of them is Widget Context -
Thanks,
(I.e. the ads will be the same for each and every page.)
Sorry Im still confused I thought the ads were suppose to be relevant to what the page was about? Like if you had a page about shoes then there would be shoe ads and if you had a page about cars then there would be car ads?
I don't have pages just posts. To use adsense should I have pages?
"Sorry Im still confused I thought the ads were suppose to be relevant to what the page was about?"
Sorry for the confusion. I meant that the ad layout/position will be the same for each post or page.
"To use adsense should I have pages?"
Posts should be fine. However, which widgets appear on posts vs. pages is theme dependent to some extent.
Thank you for being patient. I know that your only allowed to have 3 ads per page. But if you post a lot then your post will begin to move down and then to another page. so I guess I would just have to be careful and make sure there is always only 3 ads within 3 posts on a page? Does that make sense? If not thanks for your help anyways
Only the first 3 ad spaces will be populated. If there are more than 3 ad blocks in a page, the others will be empty.
If you put the ad-blocks in using widgets rather than into the posts themselves then you will likely not run into the problem you describe above.
Widget layout is usually fixed on a page by page basis so if you only place three ad-blocks in the widget areas, only three ad-blocks will appear.
As always though, widget layout is very theme dependent so this may not be the case with 100% of all WordPress themes, but it is certainly the case in most themes I have seen.
Hi Shiba,
Thanks for the great informative article. Unfortunately, I seem to have a problem none of the your other commenters has had: when I place the code into the text widget nothing is displayed in the sidebar. Just an empty space. I checked and the code is not being deleted from the widget or anything. I waited a full day to be sure it wasn't just a delay between the code being pasted and the ads displaying. I also tried a different ad size and nothing seems to be working.
I'm using the Arras theme for wordpress and am self-hosted with Bluehost. My domain is www.arsgratialibertatis.com
Any thoughts?
Hello JM,
The several times I have seen empty ads on my pages were because of the following reasons -
1. HTML compression. When the html on my pages gets compressed, the ads no longer worked. This was the case when I was using the new version of Atahualpa.
2. Bad text. Google does not show ads on articles that have certain keywords that it deems to be against its TOS.
3. New ads. As you point out, it takes a short while for new ad units to show properly. However, after waiting 1 day, this should not be the issue in your case.
I would try checking the source of your pages and make sure that the ad-unit code appears exactly (with spaces etc.) as what is shown in your AdSense account.
Then I would save a HTML page and edit the source HTML file. Replace one of the ad units with an exact copy and paste version of the code from your AdSense account. Upload that file onto your server and see how it shows up.
One of the best ways to debug a page is to play with the HTML source. In this way, you are in control of everything and don't have to deal with WordPress considerations.
Just want to drop out a thank you note, I'm just getting started on building websites and this information is of high value for me. Thank you very much
Thanks dude, helped me alot. Just started my first web blog and I was lost! Cheers ears Chris Outten @ thaitravelplanner.com
Hi shibashake,
Thanks for the response to my question! I figured out it was because there was not enough text on my homepage for Google to figure out what ads to display. So i changed the deault blog post view and made the exerpts on the homepage longer and hopefully this will fix it. Thanks again!
it didn't work for me and i have the newest wp version. It displayed the code instead of the actual adsense
The code has to be copied exactly as is. If we miss any characters or even spaces, it will likely not appear properly.
Some themes may automatically compress the html page. Compressing the ad code will also cause it not to display properly.
dohn121 Level 2 Commenter 2 years ago
You know I'm saving/bookmarking this! Once I get started on Wordpress (which I will) I would like you evaluate it! Thanks, Shibashake!