Easy AdSense manages all aspects of AdSense: insert ads into posts and sidebar, and add a Google Search box. Easiest and most complete AdSense Plugin!
AJAX Plugin for AdSense provides a very easy way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. With its full set of features, AJAX Plugin for AdSense is perhaps the first plugin to give you a complete solution for everything AdSense-related. The admin interface of this plugin uses a highly functional and modern interface based on the twitter bootstrap framework with generous, context-sensitive help on every single option.
If you have multiple blogs or websites where you would like your ads to appear, you may want to try Ads EZ – a personal ad server fully compatible with this plugin. It is also available in the WordPress plugin directory.
AJAX Plugin for AdSense is the freely distributed version of a premium plugin. The Pro version gives you more features. Here is a list of the Pro features:
A big “Thank You” to all my translators. Easy AdSense V2.6+ sports an Easy Translator interface that will make the maintenance of translations a breeze. Please take a look (by following the link on the plugin admin page inviting you to improve the existing translation) and update your translations, when you get a chance. This translation interface works only on WP2.8+; please report any issues you encounter so that I can improve it. Thanks!
Installation Instructions
Searching
The easiest way to install this plugin is to use the WordPress Admin interface. Go to your admin dashboard, find the “Plugins” menu, and click on “Add New”. Search for this plugin and click on “Install Now” and follow the WordPress instructions.
Uploading
If you want to download it and manually install, you can again use the WordPress dashboard interface. First download the plugin zip file to your local computer. Then go to your admin dashboard, find the “Plugins” menu, and click on “Add New”. After clicking on the “Add New” menu item as above, click on “Upload” (below the title “Install Plugins” near the top). Browse for your downloaded zip file, upload it and activate the plugin.
Using Plugin Interface
Further updates (and Pro upgrades and module installations) to the plugin can be done easily from the plugin admin page itself, by clicking on the Updates button on the top right corner.
Tips
Although the AJAX Plugin for AdSense plugin is designed to handle Google AdSense efficiently, there is nothing preventing you from using the text boxes to place any other kind of text in your blog posts and pages. In particular, you can use ad text from other providers, especially in the header and footer.
Why does my home/front page show no ads?
Ads are inserted by attaching a filter to the contents. If your home/front page is made up of full posts, the content filter will apply and you will see ads. On the other hand, if your home/front page is made up of excerpts (snippets of post contents), the content filter doesn’t apply.
It is possible to apply the filter on excerpts as well. But then, we have to make sure that it applies only to the first three excerpts (to comply with Google policy). This feature is implemented in the Pro version of the plugin.
I just activated the plugin. How come I don’t see any ads in my blog?
Note that you have to generate your adsense code from Google, and paste the entire code in the text boxes, replacing the existing text. There are three main text boxes corresponding to three ad locations – Lead-in, Mid-text and Lead-out. If you don’t want to use a particular location, please suppress it by selecting the appropriate option. Otherwise, the plugin will show a red box (if you are logged in as admin) indicating where your ad would be shown.
If you just created the new Google AdSense code, it may not be active yet. Google takes about ten minutes or so before serving ads. Please try again later.
I activated the plugin, and I see a lot of red boxes on my blog posts your ads will be inserted here. How do I get rid of them?
AJAX Plugin for AdSense draws a red box on your blog posts to show where the ads would be shown if you entered the ad code on its admin page. (These boxes are shown only if you are logged in as admin.) This is meant to serve as a reminder for you to go to the admin page and enter the ad code. If you would like to suppress them, check the option “Suppress Placement Boxes” in the Pro section. The right thing to do, however, would be to enter your ad codes in the text boxes for each ad slot, or suppress the ad slot in the Ad Alignment panel.
I cannot figure out how to suppress a particular ad slot. Do I have to display all three ad slots all the time?
Of course not. The option to suppress the ad slots is in the Ad Alignment panel.
What are the different versions of the plugin?
AJAX Plugin for AdSense is the freely distributed version of a premium plugin. The Pro version gives you more features — it lets you activate a filter to ensure that your ads show only on those pages that seem to comply with Google AdSense policies. It also lets you specify a list of computers where your ads will not be shown, in order to prevent accidental clicks on your own ads — one of the main reasons AdSense bans you. These features will minimize your chance of getting banned. It also has full support of mobile devices, and supports per category and per post ad suppression. The Pro version costs $7.95.
How can I contact the plugin author if I need help?
This plugin uses a paid support model in order to manage the support load. Each support ticket will be charged at $0.95 for the Lite version (and for the Pro version after a short free support period). The support ticket is valid for 72 hours, and further follow-up questions will call for a new support ticket.
I don’t understand the Pro features. Porn and site block – can’t you set those during Asdense ad setup?
What you have in AdSense is an ability to block ads from certain sites. For instance, if you don’t like ads from my site “thulasidas.com”, you can block them. What the pro version gives you is the ability to block ads to certain clients. That is, if you don’t want visitors from certain IP addresses see your ads (because they may click on too many of them, getting your AdSense account banned, for instance), you can with my plugin.
Porn block also is similar — Google lets you choose non-porn ads (I think). What my plugin does is to look at the content of your page, and block ads if it looks like a porn page. (This can happen if a spammer posts a porn kind of comment on your blog, which again may get your AdSense account banned.)
The placement option for lead-in adsense block in the header doesn’t work the way I like. Can you fix it?
Short answer: No, I couldn’t figure out how to do it better.
Long answer: This option works by adding an action to a hook in WordPress. I could not find a hook that would get activated right after the <body>
tag in the generated HTML, and right after the header image is placed (and before the sidebars are inserted). If you know the hook names, please let me know. Also, if your theme has “side” bars near the header and footer (north and south sidebars), there may be conflicts between add_action
hooks resulting in unexpected behavior.
Note that the Below Header
and End of Page
options are hacks that may not be compatible with the WordPress default widget for Recent Posts
or anything else that may use DB queries or loops. If you have problems with your sidebars and/or font sizes, please choose some other Position
option.
How can I control the appearance of the adsense using CSS?
All <div>
s that AJAX Plugin for AdSense creates have the class attribute adsense
. Furthermore, they have class attributes like adsense-leadin
, adsense-midtext
, adsense-leadout
, adsense-widget
and adsense-lu
depending on the type. You can set the style for these classes in your theme style.css
to control their appearance.
Can I control how the adsense blocks are formatted in each page?
Yes! Now, in V2.1+, you have more options (using Custom Fields) to control adsense blocks in individual posts/pages. Add custom fields with keys like adsense-top
, adsense-middle
, adsense-bottom
, adsense-widget
, adsense-search
and with values like left
, right
, center
or no
to have control how the Google adsense blocks show up in each post or page. A Custom Field adsense
with value no
suppresses all AdSense ad blocks in the post or page.
How do I use shortcodes?
In the Pro version of this plugin, you can control the ad placements using the shortcode [adsense]
in your blog posts and pages. If you would like to place your ads using shortcodes, please enable it on the Pro page. You can also specify a second argument like [adsense leadin]
to insert the lead-in ad, for example. The second argument can be leadin
, midpost
, or leadout
.
By default, only those ads specified by the shortcode will be displayed (when shortcodes are enabled). You can specify how the plugin handles shortcode priority using a drop-down menu. You have these choices:
- Do auto placements if shortcode is missing
- Do not place any ads if shortcode is missing
- Always ignore shortcodes and do only auto placement
- Do not place any ads in posts/pages
The last option effectively disables the plugin for the body of posts and pages, leaving the widgets unaffected.
I find this *easy* plugin too complex with too many options. Any alternatives?
If you feel that the features of AJAX Plugin for AdSense are a bit too much, consider my lean and mean AdSense plugin AdSense Now!
I am having a difficult time getting the middle of post ads to show. They show in some posts, but not all of them. Any possible recommendations?
The middle ads are designed to show up only on long posts (of more than 20 paragraphs). Use the option to force the mid-text ads (in v1.82+) to override this length check.
Can I go back to the previous version of the plugin? I don’t like the modern bootstrap/AJAX interface.
You can download the previous version and install it. First deactivate and delete the latest version of the plugin, and then follow the Uploading method under the Installation section of this document. The new version uses an completely different options model, and your old options are left intact in your database, so that you can go back anytime.
Why do I get error message saying something about direct access to plugin files?
This plugin admin interface is designed with a loosely coupled architecture, which means it interacts with the WordPress core only for certain essential services (login check, plugin activation status, database access etc). Loosely coupled systems tend to be more robust and flexible than tightly integrated ones because they make fewer assumptions about each other. My plugin admin pages are fairly independent, and do not pollute the global scope or leak the style directives or JavaScript functions. In order to achieve this, they are loaded in iFrames within the WordPress admin interface.
Your web server needs direct access to the plugin files to load anything in an iFrame. Some aggressive security settings block this kind of access, usually through an .htaccess
file in your wp-content
or plugins
folders, which is why this plugin gives a corresponding error message if it detects inability to access the files (checked through a file_get_contents
call on a plugin file URL). But some systems implement further blocks specifically on file_get_contents
or on iFrames with specific styles (using mod_securty
rules, for instance), which is why the plugin provides a means to override this auto-detection and force the admin page.
Is the direct access to plugin files a security hole?
Note that it is only your own webserver that needs direct access to the PHP files. The reason for preventing such access is that a hacker might be able to upload a malicious PHP (or other executable script) to your web host, which your webserver will run if asked to. Such a concern is valid only on systems where you explicitly permit unchecked file uploads. For instance, if anyone can upload any file to your media folder, and your media folder is not protected against direct access and script execution, you have given the potential hacker an attack vector. This plugin has no upload facility, so allowing your webserver to serve the plugin admin files in an iFrame is completely safe, in my judgement.