Google AdSense is one of the popular options for bloggers to monetize their online content. After getting approval, publishers can create ads by logging into their AdSense account using Gmail. In addition, publishers use the account for checking payments, monitoring performance and generating reports. Though the AdSense website’s interface is simple, many publishers overlook the available features and miss out some basic settings. In this article, we will explain top 10 Google AdSense settings that all publishers need to know when using AdSense account.
Disable Ad Blocker Extension
Nowadays, almost everyone uses ad blocker extensions in browser to block unwanted advertisements. These extensions will block certain features in your AdSense account. For example, when you have enabled ad blocker in Chrome, you will see the below error message when viewing policy information under “Account > Policy center” page.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.
The message looks like below and on your account.
This is a complete misleading message with no clue about the ad blocker. You need to wait forever if you are waiting for Google engineers to respond. What you need is to disable ad blocker in your browser or whitelist Google to get the details on the pages that show error. This will allow you to access all AdSense pages without any problem.
With that tip, let us move on to Google AdSense settings.
1. Use Dashboard Widgets
After logging in to your AdSense account, Google will show some automatically suggested widgets on your dashboard section. These are called report cards and show super useful information. Many publishers simply see the estimated earnings and balance cards on the top. However, we recommend you scroll down on the page and view all available cards.
Here are some of the information you can get with the cards:
- Latest announcements that Google sometimes will not send over emails.
- Analytics data if you have integrated AdSense account with Google Analytics.
- Earnings details for ad units, countries and sites. Depending upon the report, you can either view the data for any previous periods or compare with same previous period. For example, you can quickly check the performance of individual ad units for last 30 days without going to your reporting section.
The best part is that you can drag and move the most useful widgets on top for quick access.
2. Optimize Ad Size in Mobile
Generally, mobile layout of your website will have padding and margin to restrict the container width. This will also restrict the width of your advertisement to fit within the container. However, you can place optimized ads (generally fullwidth ad that stretches to the viewports of the screen instead of your site’s layout) regardless of your site’s layout.
- Go to “Ads > Overview” section.
- Navigate to “Global settings” tab.
- Enable “Let Google optimize the size of your mobile ads” option under “Ad size” section.
With this setting, Google will optimize your ad display for mobile based on the best performing ads. This works well on responsive websites. however, it will not work when you use iframe or limit the design by CSS like overflow: hidden attribute. You can use the URL like https://yoursite.com/#google_responsive_slot_preview to test how the optimized ads look on mobile. On desktop, you have to use developer tools and toggle mobile device view to test the setup. Remember, this optimization is only for mobile, hence Google will not optimize ads for your desktop traffic.
3. Blocking Specific Advertiser
Earning more revenue is the primary objective of any AdSense publisher. However, you have to make sure the quality and user experience with the advertisements shown on your site. For example, showing dating advertisement on a children care website does not make sense. You can go to “Blocking control” section to view the advertisements frequently showing on your site. if you see any unrelated ads, you can either block the advertiser or block that category of ad to protect your site.
Google will show you optimization suggestions if the blocked ads affect your revenue. You can ignore those suggestions as you know what you are blocking.
4. Enable Auto Ads
Google ramped up Auto Ads setup in recent years. You can enable auto ads per site by going to “Ads > Overview” section and enable the settings per site. Auto Ads can help you in generating more revenue with the following methods:
- In-page ads – placed between the content of your articles.
- Matched content ads – content recommendations like related posts.
- Anchor ads – sticky ad that appears on top on mobile and desktop.
- Vignette ads – transitional ad that appear when user navigates from one page to another on your site.
You can adjust the ad loading and page exclusions to optimize the setup.
Remember, AdSense Auto Ads can increase your earnings to high level. However, it will impact the speed drastically. For example, your site’s Google PageSpeed Insights score may impact almost 50% on mobile with vignette and anchor ads enabled on your site. Therefore, it’s a tradeoff between earnings and speed. We recommend you testing the speed and earnings to choose the best option that matches your need.
5. Add Seller Information
You may be knowing ads.txt that you should place under the root of your site for using AdSense ads. Similarly, you can opt to show your business name and domain details to advertisers using Google’s sellers.json file. This will help advertisers to find your identity and trust your site.
- Go to “Account > Account Information” section in your AdSense account.
- Select “Transparent” option under “Seller information visibility” section.
- Enter your business domain name (this could be different than your AdSense site name).
- After few weeks, check Google’s sellers.json file to verify your information is visible correctly.
6. Get Policy Violations in Email
This is a useful Google AdSense account settings to receive automated email from Google for policy violations. Google sends page-level policy violation notifications in email to AdSense account owner. You can enable this option under “Account > Personal settings” section by enabling “Daily AdSense Policy Report” in “Email preference” section.
However, you will not get any notifications when the violations are fixed. In addition, there could be restrictions due to crawler error that you may miss in the email. We recommend you looking at the violations frequently to understand and take necessary actions under “Account > Policy center”.
7. Grant Account Access to Other Users
As you are aware, each AdSense publisher can hold only one AdSense account as it is linked with their Google account. However, you can grant access to others in order to manage your AdSense account. For example, you have a developer who can create ads in your AdSense account and insert the ad code in your site. this is useful when you have multiple websites and have different teams to manage different sites.
- Go to “Accounts” section of your AdSense account.
- Navigate to “Access and authorization > User management” section.
- Enter the email address of the person and send the invite to manage your account.
The invited user will be added on your account with “Standard” user permissions. He or she can edit or view all part of your account except the “User management” page.
Note that Google needs the invited users also to comply with AdSense policies. Hence, avoid inviting users banned by Google in another account.
8. Change Display Language
Do you know that you can easily change the display language of your AdSense interface? Let’s say, you are using the account in English and wanted to change the language to German for better understanding. You can easily do this from your Google AdSense account settings. Go to “Account > Personal settings” and select the language from “Display language” dropdown.
Note that this is to only change the display language of your AdSense account interface. This has no impact on your site’s language, and you should make sure your site is available in one of the AdSense supported languages.
9. View All Previous Messages
Whenever you login to your account, Google will show notifications as an alert banner on top. You can also click on the bell icon on the top right corner and get the latest notifications. However, if you want to read all previous notifications, go to “Status > Messages” section. Here you can find all the emails and notifications sent to you. You can find any old email that you want to refer and delete messages that you no longer need.
10. Close AdSense Account
This one is the final Google AdSense settings you probably need. If you decide not using AdSense anymore on your site and want to close the account, you can request the deletion through your account. Go to “Settings > Account information” and check the “Account status” section. It should show “Open” for an active account. Click on the option showing “Close account” and request deletion of your account. We recommend you removing all ad codes before request for cancelling your active account. Otherwise, ads will stop showing and the codes will be available redundant on your site.
Google will send your balance payment if it is above the cancellation threshold. Remember, you will be able to access the AdSense account after cancellation and can request for reactivating the site in the closed account. However, Google will again verify your site for complying with policies before you can start showing ads.
Final Words
We hope the above tips are useful for using Google AdSense settings effectively and make the most out of it. These are some of the features publishers easily miss out during routine account usage. However, we recommend going through AdSense documentation for getting complete details. Google also offers account specific suggestions and help. You can contact the support team and resolve your issues right from your account.
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