How to Add Ads.txt File in WordPress

The ads.txt file will allow publishers to declare who can sell ads on the website they own. The file initiative was created by a non-profit organization that was trying to improve advertising standards on the website. The initiative is supported by Google and their advertising platform as well as others.

One of the main reasons why you might want to add the ads.txt on your website is that it can help you reduce ad fraud on your website. Ad fraud is responsible for millions of dollars of damages every year. There are numerous ways that this is done through domain spoofing, fake clicks, fake impressions and more.

The file is designed to improve transparency within the advertising to allow publishers to declare who can sell ad inventory.

Ads.txt is a simple file that tells people who can display the ad on the website. It is a public file that allows anyone to see if the publisher has permission or not to sell that advertising space on the website or not. The data can be crawled, stored and searched by all advertisers, publishers and resellers with ease.

If a website is going to be displaying ads through Google Adsense, DoubleClick or Ad Exchange, then it is highly recommended that an Ads.txt file be added to the website.

The first thing that you need to do is to install and activate the ads.txt manager plugin. This is a simple process that requires you to click on the ‘Plugins’ option within the WordPress dashboard. You can then click on ‘Add New’ and search for the plugin.

Once activated on your website, visit the ‘Settings’ and then ‘Ads.txt’ page to configure the plugin settings.

Within the settings, you can then declare the individual platforms or resellers that you’re allowing to use your website.

It is really that simple. It doesn’t take much time at all. Be sure that when you’re adding the Google or other advertising details that you include your own publisher information and not some default publisher information, which is often a major error caused by brands when they’re first starting out.