Have you ever recieved a message like this from Google Adsense on your site(s)? “Profits at risk. Advertisement will be cut” Even if this is not the exact wording, the context is as above. ‘Existing ads.txt file found’ ‘unathorized error’ started always like this.
When the ads.txt status is unauthorized, reaction.
You will quickly go to AdSense, click sites, and then check the two types of status.
The box on the left will find that there is no abnormality with the light drawn with ‘get ready’.
However, the ads.txt status on the right will show ‘unauthorized’.
And ‘the advertisement will be cut off soon’.
You’re going to go into WordPress and find ads.txt on the left bar to solve this problem. The ads.txt can be found at the setting on the left bar. You will find that there, the pub code given by Google will be stuck there without any problems.
But at the top of the screen, you’ll see this horrible message.
“Existing Ads.txt file found.
An ads.txt file on the server will take precedence over any content entered here. You will need to rename or remove the Existing ads.txt file before you will be able to see any changes you make on this screen.
Removed the existing file but are still seeing this warning? Re-run the check now”
The solution: Existing ads.txt file found error
The solution is as follows.
- Go to your WordPress’ WP file manager.
- Make sure the ads.txt file is at the bottom of the public folder.
- If it’s not underneath, look for ads.txt in the most recently modified or inserted file by date.
- If you find it, get rid of it.
- And go back to ads.txt and double check if the ‘Existing ads.txt file found’ warning message is gone and if my ads.txt is exactly mine.
- Go back to Google AdSense and check ads.txt status.
- If ‘unauthorized’ disappeared and was corrected to ‘Not Found’ or ‘authorized’, it was solved.
- Your advertisement will be back in two to three hours at the latest. This is a very conservative estimate.
- ‘Not found’ will return to normal ‘Authorized’ in a couple of days. Authorized means everything is already normalized.
The reason for this unauthorized error
In my case, I got this problem while installing AMP PLUGIN to speed up the mobile speed of the site.
I was at a loss with this Existing ads.txt file found. I tried to look into Google community to search for the solution. It failed. but one of my acquaintances could solve this unauthorized problem very easily.
and frankly, at the moment I didn’t realize what caused this problem, at the night of fixing, I did the same mistakes again. and I solved the problem as mentioned above on my own. So I assure you this method has been proved.
The ads.txt we removed was a file containing someone else’s pub code. That’s why Google AdSense was confused and sent such a warning.
Good luck to all of you.