The Unspoken Struggle: Ads.txt File Issue And The Solution

If you’re a blogger like me, you know monetizing your blog is a complete game changer when it comes to increasing your income and overall revenue through passive income. I decided to pursue monetization for my website since I do upload a lot of content via my blog The Sweet Spot. My website has gained a lot of traffic over time because I continue to post information other people search for and are interested in.

Experiencing tech issues when you have absolutely no coding or website experience can be very frustrating especially when you’re not finding help online. No need to worry, I’ve had to fix this issue many times for my website and this solution still works. I’m still not sure why this happens, however it’s happened to me so many times I know how to fix it and after reading this, so will you.

This post would be most helpful for those like myself using Google AdSense on a Squarespace website. If you try this solution on another platform and it happens to work, let me know!

What is the ads.txt file?

Before we get into it, let’s educate ourselves on this term. Ads.txt file stands for “Authorized Digital Sellers” and is a simple text file that lives in the root directory of your website. This file lists the companies that are authorized to sell your ad inventory. It’s crucial for maintaining transparency and preventing unauthorized reselling of your ad space. It’s also necessary for your website to be visible to Google AdSense so that the connection between both platforms remains stable and updated for accurate monetization.

The Problem: Ads.txt file not found

You’ve probably logged onto your Google Ad sense and seen this red message notifying you to take action. This issue is very important and ignoring it can have serious consequences. When Google AdSense can’t find the ads.txt file, it may restrict ad serving on your site. This can lead to empty ad spaces, which don’t look cute impacting your user experience and website aesthetics. I tried to ignore it once and all my ads were completely gone from my website and all the spaces made it look weird. Big mistake.

The even bigger issue is revenue interruption. The most pressing concern for many bloggers is the potential stop in revenue generation. Even if you haven’t quite hit the threshold for your monetization to pay out just yet, this is still a complication that will prevent you from reaching such milestone. Ads not displaying means no clicks or impressions, translating into a lack of income. Lack is not apart of our plans and we do not need that.

The solution: Creating a Hidden Page

Now to start to create your secret page, what you’re going to need to do first is copy the ads.txt file on Google AdSense which should include your Google publisher ID. Then you’re going to head to whichever platform you make changes or edits to your website on and follow these steps:

1. Access Your Website’s Directory: Log into your website platform’s administrative panel. For Squarespace, you would click “Website” to get to “Pages” then scroll down until you see “Unlinked Pages”. These are the pages not shown in the navigation so they require direct links to access. For even more protection, I recommend also password protecting the page so only admins with the code have access.

2. Create Your Hidden Page: Remember this page doesn’t have to look nice and can be left blank since it will be hidden. Inside your website’s root directory create a new HTML or text file under “Unlinked Pages”.

3. Edit Your Hidden Page: Add a text bubble and paste your ads.txt file which you copied directly from your Google AdSense. Each one is unique and so it is very important you’ve got your own publisher ID on your website so you can rightfully get paid. Now you can name your page anything. I chose the straightforward “google adsense”.

4. Save and Refresh: Always remember to save your work so the changes may take effect! Save the file and navigate to “yourwebsite.com/google-ads-page.html” or whichever name you chose. You can now refresh the page.

5. Verify: Last step is to go back to GoogleAdsense and click “Check for Updates” to ensure your file and publisher ID was detected. If all is well, the alert should go away and it should say “Authorized” in green under Ads.txt status.

By doing this, you’ve provided a path for Google AdSense to locate the ads.txt file, even if it isn’t in the root directory. This clever trick will keep your ads running and revenue flowing while also maintaining a smooth user experience on your website. This difficulty, when unresolved, can lead to many disruptions in website functionality and revenue generation. However, the solution I’ve uncovered here offers a simple and effective way to bypass this problem. It’s an unconventional approach, but hey it works and sometimes thinking outside the box will get you the results you need. Happy blogging xoxo!