Fix the AdSense Ads.txt Not Found Error in WordPress (5 Min)

Getting accepted into Google AdSense feels like a win, until you immediately see a red banner telling you your earnings are at risk. "Earnings at risk, you need to fix some ads.txt file issues to avoid severe impact to your revenue." The fix takes under five minutes and requires zero coding. Here's exactly what to do.

What's actually wrong#

When AdSense crawls your site and can't find an ads.txt file, it flags your domain as non-compliant. In your AdSense dashboard, if you click the Sites icon on the left, you'll see your site listed with an approval status of "Ready" but an ads.txt status of "Not found." That mismatch is what's blocking monetization.

The good news: AdSense has already generated the exact text you need to put in that file. You don't write it yourself.

Step 1: Copy your ads.txt content from AdSense#

In your AdSense account, click the Sites icon, then click the question mark next to the ads.txt "Not found" status. Follow the link it shows you. You'll see a short snippet of text, this is your ads.txt file content, pre-generated for your account. Click "Copy" to put it on your clipboard.

Step 2: Install WP File Manager#

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and search for "WP File Manager." Install and activate it. Once active, you'll see a "WP File Manager" option in your left sidebar.

Open it. You'll see all the files on your hosting server. This is your root directory, the top-level folder where your site lives.

Step 3: Create the ads.txt file#

With WP File Manager open and the root directory selected, click the "New File" button in the toolbar. Name the file ads.txt exactly, lowercase, no spaces.

A popup will appear offering to open the file for editing. If it doesn't, find ads.txt in the directory, right-click it, and select "Code Editor."

The file is empty. Paste the content you copied from AdSense (Ctrl+V on Windows, Cmd+V on Mac). Save.

To confirm it worked, go to yourdomain.com/ads.txt in your browser. You should see the same text that was in your AdSense account.

Step 4: Delete the plugin immediately#

This is the step most guides skip. WP File Manager gives you direct access to your server's root directory, which is exactly the kind of persistent access you don't want sitting open on your site after you're done with it.

The file you created will stay on your server after you remove the plugin. So there's no reason to keep it installed. Go to Plugins, deactivate WP File Manager, then delete it. Reload the page and confirm your ads.txt file is still accessible at your domain. It will be.

Keeping root directory access open for a task you'll never repeat is a security liability, not a convenience.

Step 5: Optional, request a recrawl in Google Search Console#

Google will find your ads.txt file on its own during its regular crawl cycle. But if you want to speed things up, open Google Search Console, paste your ads.txt URL into the inspection bar (e.g., yourdomain.com/ads.txt), and click "Request Indexing."

Not required. Just faster.

What happens next#

Leave it alone. The "earnings at risk" banner will still show for a day or two while Google processes the change. That's normal. I earned my first cent the day after fixing the error, and two days later the ads.txt status in AdSense had changed to "Authorized." The banner was gone, and the site was actively earning.

Once AdSense is running cleanly, the next constraint is traffic. That's a different problem, and one where AI tools can do a lot of the heavy lifting. If you want a head start on using AI to grow the traffic that makes AdSense worth having, the Marketing Prompt Collection is a free pack of AI-powered prompts built for exactly that, content, ads, and campaigns that drive clicks without a full marketing team behind you.

Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MOwDuj1P8zg

This post contains affiliate links. I only recommend tools I actually use.