How to Activate Hidden AdSense Ad Units?

As an AdSense publisher, you might have created lots of different ad units for testing and trying out on your sites. But when you look into your AdSense account there will be very less active ad units listed under “My ads” tab while all other inactive ad units are hidden. Sometimes you may be searching the old ad unit for reusing on your site and in this article we will discuss various statuses of AdSense ad units and how you can activate hidden AdSense ad units on your account.

AdSense Ad Unit Statuses

The status of an ad unit is displayed under “My ads” tab. There are four statuses for an AdSense ad unit though only active ad units are shown when you view it from your account.

• New – this is a status of an ad unit that has been created within past 7 days.
• Active – ad unit used on your site and got at least an impression within past 7 days.
• Idle – ad unit that has been created more than 7 days before and did not get any impressions.
• Hidden – ad units that did not get any impressions and are hidden from the default list.

The status of an ad unit is not related to earnings or display. For example, you can hide an active ad unit if you don’t want it to be displayed on the list.

Hiding an Ad Unit

Generally an ad unit’s status if changed to “Idle” after a week time and then removed from the default ad list. But you can also manually hide it at any point time from the list.

How to Activate Hidden AdSense Ad Units?

Ad units with “Hidden” and “Idle” statuses are by default hidden from the ad unit list. Since Google does not allow deleting an AdSense unit once created, it is a good practice to limit the number of ads on your account for housekeeping purposes by reusing those hidden units (instead of creating a new one with the same style).

Click on the “Advanced filters” option under “My ads” tab and choose “Idle” and “Hidden” checkboxes to view the corresponding ad units.

If you want to activate the hidden unit – select the ad unit and click on the “Show” option to make it visible on the default list.

For an idle ad unit – the “Show” option will not work. You need to get the ad code and place it on your site. Once there are impressions on the ad unit the status will be automatically changed to “Active” and the unit will be moved to the default list.