Karl Kasca

It's one thing to sign-up for a Google Adsense account, but quite another to get the Adsense code on your web page and have it work.  This article/video shows you how to create the Adsense code, copy it to your web page, and test it.

Note: This is Part 2 of 2 of our articles on Adsense.  You'll probably need to check out the Part 1 first before doing the Action Steps below: Google Adsense (Part 1): How To Set-Up a Google Adsense Account. But if you already have your Google Adsense account then keep reading...

This is more of an Action Steps article, so you can just skip to the Action Steps below and/or watch the video.

Skip to Video
- Note: Since there may be more info of interest/use on the page below, you should at least skim it quickly in addition to viewing the Video below.

Action Steps

• Find and open welcome email from Google Adsense



• Click on link and Sign into your account, or copy and paste link into your browser, e.g., 



• https://www.google.com/adsense?hl=en_US



• - Note: Use a browser that allows pop-ups such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, NOT Google Chrome (unless you can enable pop-ups for it), and note that you may need to adjust your browser's settings to allow pop-ups later).



• Click on AdSense Setup tab (at top)



• Click on Adsense for Content



• Choose Ad Unit you wish: Text and image ads, Text ads only, Image ads only (video shows example of Text ads only) & Continue...



• - Note: You could have selected Link Unit (for ads showing links to topics relevant to your page).



• On AdSense for Content page:



• - Right-click Ad Formats , open it in another tab/window and view the different sizes and types of ads.



• - Choose Format (234x60 Half Banner was chosen in video example)



• - Colors: Modify as you wish, or accept default



• - Fonts: Modify as you wish, or accept default



• - Corner Styles: Modify as you wish, or accept default



• - More options: Alternate ads or colors: Modify as you wish, or accept default



• - Continue...



• Channels: You will be given an option to track channels for the ads on your site, e.g., on different pages or locations. You can add these channels if you wish, or Continue...



• Adsense Unit Name: Choose a name or accept the default and Submit and Get Code...



• Adsense Unit Code: You'll see a box containing your Adsense code. Click in the box and hit  <Ctrl> + C (to copy the code).



• - See Related Article below on copying & pasting if necessary.

• Open your website in a browser and determine which page(s) of your site you'd like to have others' Adsense ads displayed on...and where on the page you'd like to insert the Adsense code (where people will see the ad appear on your web page).

• Paste the Adsense code to the webpage you wish to have Adsense ads displayed on using the program you usually use for editing web pages:



• - If you use FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or another software program which links to your website so you can make changes directly on your web page, then this should be easy.  As always, make sure you SAVE A COPY OF THE FILE YOU'RE CHANGING FIRST, SO YOU HAVE A BACKUP FILE, JUST IN CASE (see below on how to do this, if necessary).

• Open your FTP program, such as Core FTP LE (Lite).



• - See Related Article below if necessary



• - Note: you may need to enter the FTP settings for your website into your FTP program.



• - If you don't already have these settings, you may have to contact your web hosting service for your website for the information.



• - If you need to set-up a new site, enter: Site Name, Host/IP/URL (usually IP address) and your Username and Password



• - Note: If you've already set this info up, then just select your website you wish to place the Adsense code on.



• - Hit "Connect" or the connection button for your FTP program.



• - Once you Connect you should see your website's files and folders displayed on the right side of your screen (and your computer hard drive's files and folders on the left).



• - Locate the file for the your content page you wish to place the Adsense code on.



• - If you wish to place the Adsense code on your home page (as in the video/example), then you're looking for "index.htm" or "default.htm".



• - However, you could place the Adsense code on any page of your website.  So just choose the page you wish to place the code/ads on.



• - FIRST, SAVE A COPY OF THIS FILE!!!



• - E.g., Choose where you want to download the file to on your hard drive (you may need to use the "Up Directory" button to navigate to the folder you're saving the file in.



• - Then download a copy of the web page file (e.g., Index.htm) to your hard drive (by clicking the blue left-pointing arrow in Core FTP LE).



• - Then make a copy of the file by right-clicking the file you downloaded to your hard-drive and select "Copy", and then right-click on folder you wish to paste the file into and select Paste.



• - Rename the file by right-clicking on the newly copied file and select "Rename", e.g., "Index_OLD_2009-09-09.htm" (this way you'll know this is your old Index, or other web page, file and what date you changed it on.



• --> This is your BACKUP file in case anything you change in the following steps causes a problem on your website/page.  If your web page or website doesn't work/look right after you make these changes, just upload this backup file to your website (using your FTP program) and rename it back to it's original name (after deleting the misbehaving file on your website first).  E.g., delete "index.htm" on your website, upload "Index_OLD_2009-09-09.htm" to your site, and then right-click and rename this file back to: "index.htm".  This restores the original file with the original code to your website and your website should function just the way it did before (whew!).



• - After saving a backup copy of the file, go to the file you downloaded onto your hard-drive, e.g., "index.htm" and right-click the file and rename it to a text file, e.g., "index.txt" (note that you're changing the "htm at the end of the file to "txt", so you can edit it.



• - Double-click the "index.txt" (or file you're editing) and select Edit or open.



• - Once the file is open in Notepad or your file-editing program, then go to the Adsense Unit Code page (see above) and copy the code and then paste it ( <Ctrl> + V ) into your webpage code in the location you'd like ads to appear at. (see the Video, if this sounds confusing).



• - After pasting the code, then rename the file back to an "htm" extension: Right-click the file, select Rename and change the file name back to what it was originally, e.g., from "index.txt" back to "index.htm".



• - Now simply upload the file back to your website (by clicking the blue right-pointing arrow in Core FTP LE).

• - If not, then on the Menu Bar, click on View > Source, and then see if the Adsense code shows in the code for the page.  If it does, but you didn't see an ad displayed, then Google may need to index your site/page again so ads can be attracted to it and be displayed.  In any case, the code is there and it should work, but just in case, you can try to B)...



• - If the Adsense code doesn't appear, then the file may not have uploaded correctly, and you may need to re-check or re-do the steps above to assure that the file for the page you edited was correctly named/renamed and uploaded to your website's server.

• - Click this preview link, enter the URL (web address) for the web page, and you should see your web page with a sample ad displaying where you placed the Adsense code.



• - Note: Your web browser must be set to allow pop-ups to see the new webpage with the ad displaying!

Video of Getting Google Adsense on your Web Page