How to disable ads from the sidebar widgets

Hi Pavel,

thanks for reaching out.

> After adding ads to the sidebar they started to show inside the sidebar widgets

I am not sure I understand the problem. You added ads to the sidebar and they appear in the sidebar.

What I could imagine is that you saw additional ads and not only the ones you placed. I checked your site and can say that you are using AdSense and also have the Auto ads code set up.

This allows AdSense to place ads anywhere. They can even do that through manually placed AdSense ads and the only way to disable this behavior is through your AdSense account.

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Best regards,
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Sorry, for being unclear. Here’s the screenshot: https://prnt.sc/r2w5u6

The ads appear insight the actual widget, not in between the widgets. It just makes it looks kind of clunky.

So am I right in assuming that the AdSense Auto ads and Advanced Ads substitute each other? In which case there’s no point to use both at the same time?

Cheers,
Pavel

Hi Pavel,

thanks for your feedback.

You could use the “Highlight ads” option under “Ad Health” in the admin toolbar that you should see when you are logged in. When you then hover over the ad, a small toolbar should tell you whether this is an automatically placed ad or one placed by Advanced Ads.

> So am I right in assuming that the AdSense Auto ads and Advanced Ads substitute each other? In which case there’s no point to use both at the same time?

If by “substitute”, you mean replace then it is not how I would express it. You could use them at the same time. Auto ads would try to not place ads too close to the ones you placed manually with Advanced Ads. This way you could be sure that there are certain ad positions filled while still allow AdSense to add more ads.

Some users prefer Auto ads only, others prefer to have full control over all positions, and then some like to mix it.

Best regards,
Thomas

Thank you Thomas,

Unfortunately, “Ad health” is not displayed in my toolbar.

https://prnt.sc/r3zds2

The toolbar is enabled in my WP dashboard.

Is there any other way to check whether it is placed by Ad Sense or Advanced Ads?

Kind Regards,
Pavel

Hi Pavel,

you should be able to enable Ad Health through Advanced Ads > Settings > General. It is the first option there.

An alternative would be to check the code in your browser manually through the dev tools.

Best regards,
Thomas

Got you, it’s showing now.

How do I know which ads are placed by Adsense Ads and which by Advanced Ads? They’re all highlighted the same way in blue like that:

https://prnt.sc/r45n6s

Are URLs like https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?……. AdSense?

Thanks a lot for your help!
Pavel

Hi Pavel,

please hover over the elements with your mouse and wait a second. There should be a title showing up then with the appropriate information.

You could also look into the browser’s dev tools. Just right-click somewhere in the content of your site and click on “inspect”. In the code-view that opens you should see also the ads. Ads placed by Auto ads are wrapped in a container with the class google-auto-placed.

Best regards,
Thomas