Google announced that it is deprecating its WordPress AdSense Plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
The WordPress AdSense Plugin has been around since the past three years. It allowed WordPress users to easily add AdSense ads to their websites, enable mobile-specific ad layouts, and manage ads with a point-and-click interface.
As a result of their own product review, Google said, ” After reviewing the AdSense Plugin for WordPress, we’ve decided that in the future we can support WordPress publishers better with new innovative features like our automatic ad formats and other upcoming initiatives. As a result, we will be deprecating the AdSense Plugin for WordPress in May 2017.”
As a way to shut the plugin down, Google has laid out the following timeline:
- Early March 2017: New publishers will not be able to sign up for AdSense by using the plugin.
- Early April 2017: Existing publishers will not be able to change their ad settings or ad units through the plugin.
- Early May 2017: Google will no longer provide support for the plugin.
Although WordPress AdSense Plugin has 200,000+ active installs, the rating for the plugin is only 2.7/5 Stars. It can be mostly attributed to the fact that Google has not provided support for the plugin since the last two years.
The affected websites will receive an email that suggests using QuickStart. QuickStart is a new page-level ad format that Google is rolling out. With the plugin gone, Google recommends users to deactivate and remove the plugin. Google also recommends users to switch to using QuickStart or ad units, so that they can make changes to the ads on their website.
If you are among those who are manually placing ads using widgets, you will need to make sure they comply with Google’s detailed ad placement policies.
There are dozens of other Google Adsense plugins in WordPress. This change affects them as well. Google is changing its ad display recommendations and does not endorse or support using any other WordPress plugins for this purpose.