Do you want to show targeted ads to only visitors from search engines?
From our experience and the research of many industry experts, it seems that search engine visitors are more likely than your regular readers to click on targeted advertisements. By showing ads only to these visitors, you can boost the click-through rate (CTR) and increase sales.
In this article, we will show you how to display ads only to search engine visitors in WordPress.
Why Show Display Ads to Only Search Engine Visitors?
There are different ways to make money online, and showing display ads is one of them.
You can use Google AdSense to show ads on your WordPress blog and earn a set fee when a user clicks on the advertisements. This strategy is called cost-per-click (CPC).
However, getting more clicks can be a challenge if the ads aren’t targeted to the right audience. This is where limiting display ads to search engine visitors can help boost ad revenue.
Different studies, industry experts, and our own experience shows that visitors from search engines are more likely to click on ads on your site compared to other visitors. You can show the right ads to the right users and improve CPC.
This strategy also helps show ads only when they are needed. Having too many advertisements can be distracting and bad for the user experience. By displaying them to only search engine visitors, your WordPress website won’t be cluttered with ads.
That said, let’s see how you can display ads to only search engine visitors.
Showing Display Ads to Only Search Engine Visitors
To display ads to only visitors from search engines, you will need to add a custom code snippet to your WordPress website.
This might sound technical and difficult, but we will show you an easy way to add code snippets without editing code or hiring a developer.
WPCode is the best code snippet plugin for WordPress, and it helps you insert custom code anywhere on your site. It also helps you manage and organize all your code snippets.
Note: For this tutorial, we will use the WPCode Lite version, which is available for free. However, there are premium plans that offer more features like conditional logic, safe error handling, a code snippets library, and more.
Upon activation, you need to head to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet from your WordPress dashboard. Next, click the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.
From here, you will need to copy this code snippet:
$ref = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$SE = array('/search?', 'images.google.', 'web.info.com', 'search.', 'del.icio.us/search', 'soso.com', '/search/', '.yahoo.');
foreach ($SE as $source) {
if (strpos($ref,$source)!==false) {
setcookie("sevisitor", 1, time()+3600, "/", ".wpbeginner.com");
$sevisitor=true;
}
}
function wpbeginner_from_searchengine(){
global $sevisitor;
if ($sevisitor==true || $_COOKIE["sevisitor"]==1) {
return true;
}
return false;
}
Note: In the setcookie line, be sure to change .wpbeginner.com to your own site domain.
Next, you must paste the code into the WPCode ‘Code Preview’ area. You will also need to enter a name for your snippet and then click the ‘Code Type’ dropdown menu and select the ‘PHP Snippet’ option.
After that, you will need to scroll down and select the Insertion method for the code snippet.
WPCode will use the ‘Auto Insert’ option by default and run the code everywhere. However, you can change this and insert the custom code on specific pages, before or after content, show it on eCommerce pages, and more.
As an alternative, you can also switch to the ‘Shortcode’ insertion method and manually enter a shortcode to run the code snippet.
For this code snippet, we recommend using the Auto Insert method.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the toggle at the top to activate the code snippet, and then click the ‘Save Snippet’ button.
Choose Where to Display Ads on Your Site
Next, you will need to add another code snippet and choose where you’d like to display the ads to only search engine users.
Simply copy the following code:
<?php if (function_exists('wpbeginner_from_searchengine')) {
if (wpbeginner_from_searchengine()) { ?>
INSERT YOUR CODE HERE
<?php } } ?>
Note: Don’t forget to replace ‘INSERT YOUR CODE HERE’ in the above snippet with your Google AdSense code.
The snippet above uses the first code as a reference and analyzes whether the referrer agent is from any type of search URL, which includes Google, Yahoo, Delicious, and more.
If a visitor’s browser says that the referrer agent is from any search site that you have specified, then it will store a cookie on their browser called ‘visitor’ for 1 hour from the time they visited your site.
To add the code, simply go to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet from your WordPress dashboard and select the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.
Next, you can enter a name for your code snippet at the top and paste the code into the ‘Code Preview’ area.
You will also need to change the ‘Code Type’ by clicking the dropdown menu and selecting the ‘PHP Snippet’ option.
After that, you can click the ‘Save Snippet’ button and scroll down to the Insertion section.
Here, you will need to select the ‘Shortcode’ method. This way, you can easily add the shortcode to show display ads anywhere on your site.
You can copy the shortcode or write it down in a notepad file.
When you are done, don’t forget to click the toggle at the top to activate the code and then click the ‘Update’ button.
To add the shortcode, you can head to any section of your website. For example, if you want to show banner ads to search engine users in the sidebar, then just go to Appearance » Widgets from the WordPress dashboard.
From here, you can click the ‘+’ button to add a Shortcode widget block to the sidebar area.
Go ahead and enter the shortcode you just copied. Once you are done, simply click the ‘Update’ button.
WordPress will now display the search engine-specific ads that you have chosen to these users for a total of one hour from the time they first visited your site.
If this user bookmarks your site and comes back to it one day later because they like your content, then they will be considered your regular reader and will not see the search engine-specific ads.
Are you looking for a way to manage ads in WordPress with AdSanity?
Selling advertising space is one of the best ways to make money online. However, creating, adding, and tracking your ads can become time-consuming and complicated.
In this article, we will show you how you can easily manage ads in WordPress using the AdSanity plugin.
Why Manage Ads in WordPress Using the AdSanity Plugin?
Like billboard owners, many website and blog owners make money online by selling advertising space. However, WordPress doesn’t come with an easy way to manage your ads.
Most WordPress themes don’t even have space where you can show advertisements. By default, you will need to edit your theme files to insert ad code into WordPress.
This advanced WordPress ad management plugin allows you to show ads anywhere on your website using ready-made blocks, widgets, and shortcodes. You can even tell AdSanity to show a random ad to visitors without writing a single line of code.
AdSanity comes with built-in reporting and scheduling. It also supports self-hosted ads, HTML5 ads, and external ad networks like Google Adsense.
With that being said, let’s see how you can make money online by managing ads with the AdSanity WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to AdSanity » Settings in your WordPress admin dashboard. Here, select the ‘Licenses’ tab.
You can now go ahead and add your key to the ‘License’ field. You can find this information under your account on the AdSanity website.
With that done, click on ‘Save Changes’.
Now, you are ready to create ads for your WordPress website. To get started, go to AdSanity » Create Ad.
To start, you will need to add a title by typing it into the field that shows ‘Give this ad a title’. Visitors won’t see this information, so it’s for your reference only.
Next, it’s time to choose an ad type. Your options are Ad Hosted On-Site, External Ad Network, and HTML5.
If you are just getting started, then it’s a good idea to try different types of ads. You can then look at the results and prioritize the types that make the most money.
With that in mind, let’s look at each option in detail.
Ad Hosted On-Site
To start, you may want to build and host your own ad on your website. By selling ads on your WordPress blog, you get to keep all the profits.
You can also use self-hosted ads to promote your own content. This includes products you sell in your online store or your upcoming webinars, conferences, and other events.
To create a self-hosted ad, select the ‘Ad Hosted On-Site’ tab. After that, you can open the ‘Ad Size’ dropdown and choose a size from the list.
Larger advertisements are more likely to catch the visitor’s attention but can also distract from your site’s content.
After making a decision, you will need to type a URL into the ‘Tracking URL’ field. This is where visitors will go when they click the ad.
By default, the URL will open in the same browser tab. However, you may want to open it in a new tab, particularly if the advertisement is linking to someone else’s website.
For example, if you are linking to an affiliate marketing partner, then you will typically want to check the ‘Open in a new window’ box.
Once you have done that, it’s time to upload the image that AdSanity will show to visitors.
Simply select ‘Set an image’ and then upload a banner or other ad graphic.
Finally, you may want to type some information into the ‘Notes’ field.
These notes will only be visible to people who have access to the WordPress dashboard, so it’s perfect for writing quick reminders.
If you run a multi-author WordPress blog, then you can even use the ‘Notes’ field to communicate with other users.
External Ad Network
While you can sell advertising space directly to other businesses, many website owners use an advertising network instead. These networks are often hassle-free because you don’t have to deal with advertisers or worry about collecting money.
Instead, the network decides which ads to place on your site, collects the payment, takes their management fee, and then sends you the rest.
If you are using an advertising network, then click on the ‘External Ad Network’ tab.
Once you have done that, it’s time to copy the advertisement code provided by your network. The steps will vary depending on the network you are using, but you will often find the ad code by logging into the account you have created with that network.
When you have the code, simply paste it into the ‘Ad Code’ box.
Finally, you can type any extra information into the ‘Notes’ field.
HTML5 Advertisements
If you want to create multimedia ads featuring a mix of animations, audio, video, and other content, then AdSanity has full support for HTML5. This means you can create engaging, interactive ads using HTML5 and then upload those files to AdSanity.
To add an HTML5 ad to your WordPress blog or website, simply select the ‘HTML5’ tab.
You can now type in a title for the ad.
After that, click on ‘Choose File’ and then select the HTML5 file you want to use.
With that done, you need to open the ‘Ad Size’ dropdown and choose how big or small the HTML5 ad should be.
When creating an HTML5 advertisement, we recommend using one of the ‘Responsive’ size options, as these tend to look the best.
Finally, you may want to add some notes by typing them into the ‘Notes’ box.
Step 2: Organize Your Advertisements Into Ad Groups
As you create self-hosted, external network, or HTML5 ads, it’s a good idea to organize those advertisements into groups.
For example, you might create a ‘holiday advertisements’ group for all the campaigns you run during the holiday season. This can make it easier to find a specific ad, even if you have created lots of advertisements for WordPress.
To create an ad group, click on the ‘Add New Group’ link. You can now type in the title for it.
By default, all of AdSanity’s groups are parent groups. If you want to create a child group instead, then simply open the dropdown that shows ‘Parent Group’ by default.
You can then select the group you want to use as the parent.
When you are happy with how your advertisement group is set up, click on the ‘Add new Group’ button to save your changes.
To add a self-hosted, external, or HTML5 ad to a group, simply check that group’s box.
Step 3: Publish or Schedule a WordPress Ad With AdSanity
When you are happy with your ad, it’s time to make it live. If you want to show the ad right away, then simply click ‘Publish’.
Another option is to schedule the ad so that it will appear on your site automatically later. This allows you to schedule all your campaigns in advance, which is a great option if you run lots of campaigns or you are a busy business owner with limited time.
To schedule an ad, click on the ‘Edit’ link next to ‘Publish forever.’
You can now set the date and time when the ad will go live.
You can also choose when the ad gets removed from your website.
If you want to keep the ad on your site indefinitely, then click on the ‘Publish Forever’ button.
When you are happy with your schedule, simply click ‘Publish.’
Step 4: Placing the Ad on Your WordPress Website
The next step is placing the ad on your online marketplace, store, or website. You can use shortcode, but using the ready-made AdSanity blocks is typically easier.
To add an advertisement to a page or post, simply open that post or page for editing. Then, click on the ‘+’ button.
To start, type in ‘AdSanity.’
You will now see all the different AdSanity blocks that you can use.
To add a specific ad, select AdSanity Single Ad.
You can now open the ‘Select an ad’ dropdown and choose the advertisement that you want to show. You can also change the ad’s alignment using the ‘Align’ settings.
Another option is to show advertisements from the same ad group. This allows you to display multiple related ads on the same page or post.
To do this, click on ‘AdSanity Ad Group’, which adds the block to your layout.
You can then open the ‘Select an ad group’ dropdown and choose the group you want to use.
You can also pick how many ads to show in the block and how many columns to use in the advertising area.
Finally, you can show a random advertisement from a particular group using the AdSanity Random Ad block. This is useful if you have created many different ads but have limited advertising space on your website.
In the popup, simply click the ‘AdSanity Random Ad’ block.
You can now open the ‘Select an ad group’ dropdown menu and choose the group that you want to use.
Once again, you can change the advertisement’s alignment using the small icons in the ‘Alignment’ section.
When you are happy with how the page or post looks, either click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make the advertisement live.
You can also add the AdSanity blocks to any widget-ready area in your WordPress theme. For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Are you using a block-based theme? You can also use the full-site editor to add an AdSanity block anywhere on your website.
Finally, you can embed a single ad on any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode. Simply head over to AdSanity » Manage Ads and find the ad that you want to show.
You can then go ahead and click on ‘[shortcode]’. This will copy the ad’s shortcode to your computer’s clipboard.
Now, you just need to add the shortcode to your website. For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
Step 5: Monitor Your WordPress Ads Using AdSanity and MonsterInsights
After publishing one or more ads, it’s important to do conversion tracking. This allows you to see what’s working and what isn’t. By continuously monitoring and fine-tuning your ads, you should get more clicks and conversions.
If you are showing HTML5 ads or ads from an external advertising network, then you will need to set up AdSanity’s Google Analytics Tracking Addon. This allows you to track views and clicks on these advertisements.
Simply install and activate the plugin, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up the add-on. If you are using MonsterInsights, then the AdSanity Addon will recognize the connection as soon as you authenticate your Google account, which makes the setup process much easier.
For self-hosted ads, you can simply go to AdSanity » Reports in your WordPress dashboard.
Here, you will find the following information:
All-Time Summary: The total views and clicks across all your ads, plus the total click-through rate.
All-Time Top 10 Clicks: The 10 ads that have got the most clicks.
All-Time Top 10 Click Through Rate: The 10 ads that have the highest interaction rate based on their display rate. Here you will also find the total views, clicks, and the click-through rate.
All-Time By Ad Group: The 10 best-performing ads in each ad group, based on views, clicks, and click-through rate.
Do you want to create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress?
If your website gets caught up in fraudulent advertisements, then it can damage your reputation and cost you money. By adding a simple ads.txt file to your website, you can protect your site, partners, and publishers from advertising fraud, and possibly increase your ad revenue.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress.
Why Create and Manage Ads.txt files in WordPress?
Selling advertising space is a great way to make money online blogging with WordPress. However, online advertising fraud is also a huge problem for both brands and website owners.
Let’s look at an example. Imagine a brand wants to place an ad on your WordPress website. They find a seller who claims they have a relationship with you, and can place advertisements on your website.
This third party might be one of your approved partners, or they might be committing online advertising fraud by selling unauthorized ads.
If your site gets caught up in advertising fraud, a third party may buy advertising space on your website and then resell it without your approval. This can lead to spammy or malicious advertisements on your WordPress blog.
Here, an ads.txt file can help keep your site safe.
Ads.txt file stands for ‘Authorized Digital Seller.’ It was developed by IAB Tech Lab to help stop fraud in online advertising. In this file, you can list all the companies that have permission to sell advertising space on your website.
An ads.txt file is publicly available, so advertisers, publishers, and resellers can use it to check that they’re dealing with an approved company.
With that being said, let’s see how you can create and manage an ads.txt file in WordPress.
How to Create and Manage Ads.txt Files in WordPress
The easiest way to create an ads.text file is by using Ads.txt Manager. This free plugin adds a simple code editor where you can type in all your authorized platforms and networks.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Ads.txt Manager plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to the Settings » Ads.txt page.
This opens a simple code editor where you can add each platform or reseller on its own line. For example, here we’re adding Google AdSense as an approved advertising platform:
The first field is the domain of the company that is allowed to sell or resell your ad inventory. In the above example, that’s google.com.
After that, you’ll add the publisher ID, which is unique to your account. If you’re not sure where to find this ID, then you can check the network or platform’s online documentation for more information.
The third section declares the relationship type, which is either DIRECT or RESELLER. Direct means the publisher works directly with the AdTech vendor. Meanwhile, reseller means the publisher has authorized a third party to resell on their behalf, such as an ad network or ad management solution.
The last field is the ID of the advertising platform, which is optional.
You can now add as many platforms and resellers as you want. Simply add each organization on its own line.
When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now, anyone can read your site’s ads.txt file.
To see the file in action, simply add ads.txt to the end of your domain name, such as www.example.com/adds.txt
Fixing the ‘Earnings at risk Error’ in Adsense
If you use Google AdSense, then you may see the following error in your AdSense account:
Earnings at risk – One or more of your ads.txt files doesn’t contain your AdSense publisher ID. Fix this now to avoid severe impact to your revenue.
This just means your ads.text file doesn’t have the right publisher ID.
To fix this issue, log into your AdSense page using your Google email address and password. You’ll find the ID next to the following field: ‘This email is associated with the AdSense account.’
Now, simply go to Settings » Ads.txt in your WordPress dashboard and find the line that adds Google AdSense as an authorized provider.
You can now change the text so that it uses the right ID.
After that, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings. Now if you visit your Google AdSense account again, the error message should have disappeared.
Do you want to know about the history of blogging?
If you are thinking about starting a WordPress blog today, then you might like to know that there are 1.9 billion websites in the world, and the blogging industry makes up one-third of it. But it didn’t start out that way.
In this article, we’ll share the small beginnings of blogging, the powerful blogging platforms that evolved, and how WordPress came to power over 43% of all websites.
1993-1994: The First Blogs Were Published
Blogging was born sometime around 1993 or 1994. No one was expecting the impact it would have on the world, and the word ‘blog’ didn’t even exist. As a result, there were no historians watching out for it, and no one kept careful records.
We know that Rob Palmer started a plain text journal online in late 1993. In an article on how he became the first blogger, Rob explains how costly it was to run a website in those days. The domain name cost him $100, and basic hosting cost over $100 a month (for comparison, it costs $2.69 per month now).
However, it’s more widely recognized that the first blog was created by 19-year-old student Justin Hall. His home page contained hyperlinks to interesting content he found online, and articles he wrote himself. The content included basic HTML text formatting and small images.
Ten years later, the New York Times Magazine named him the “founding father of personal bloggers”. You can still find an early version of Justin’s page preserved on links.net.
Three or four years later, the tech blog SlashDot was launched in September 1997.
December 1997: The Term ‘Weblog’ Was Coined
Originally, blogs didn’t have a name. They were thought of as online journals or diaries, or personal home pages.
In December 1997, Jorn Barger came up with the term ‘weblog’. He maintained an internet culture website called Robot Wisdom, and the term reflected his process of ‘logging the web’ as he browsed.
August 1998 was the first time a traditional news site tried blogging. Journalist Jonathan Duke ‘blogged’ about Hurricane Bonnie for the Charlotte Observer, but didn’t use the term itself.
October 1998: The Open Diary Platform Was Launched
Creating websites was technical, so eventually blogging platforms were created that made it easy for users to record their thoughts and experiences online.
One of the earlier ones was The Open Diary, which developed an online community by allowing users to comment on one another’s posts.
Here’s an early screenshot preserved on the Internet Archive. Notice that blogs were designed for much lower-resolution screens back then.
March 1999: RSS Made Blog Subscription a Reality
RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It was initially released in March 1999 and is a format used for delivering frequently changing web content from websites and other online publishers.
It allows users to keep track of updates to their favorite websites without having to visit each site individually. They are able to read the latest content in an RSS feed reader or their email.
In April 1999, developer Peter Merholz added some humor to his website, Peterme.com. He broke up the word ‘weblog’, into two words, ‘we blog’. This caught on, and the term ‘blog’ was born.
April 1999: LiveJournal, an Early Blogging Platform, Was Launched
In April 1999, programmer Brad Fitzpatrick launched the LiveJournal platform as a way to keep in touch with his high school friends. It quickly grew into a community of people recording their thoughts online.
LiveJournal was easy to use because it provided a single open text area. Its competitors at the time offered form-based text fields.
In January 1995, the blogging company Six Apart purchased the company that operated LiveJournal, and the platform is still operating today. Although a lot of LiveJournal users have switched to WordPress by following our guide on how to move from LiveJournal to WordPress because WordPress is more powerful and easier to use.
In July 1999, another blogging platform called Metafilter was launched. It was known as MeFi, and its members could post entries to be published on the main website.
August 1999: Blogger Was Launched by Para Labs
Blogger is another early blogging platform, first launched in August 1999 by Pyra Labs. It offered a quick and easy way to create a blog for non-tech-savvy users.
Every entry on Blogger was given a permanent and shareable URL or permalink. This made it easy for users to access the content they were searching for and made Blogger the platform of choice for a lot of writers.
Later in 2003, Google acquired Blogger and over time redesigned it into the product we know today. It is WordPress’s largest competitor, and you can learn more in our comparison of WordPress vs Blogger (Pros and cons).
In January 2000, the first known vlog entry was created by Adam Kontras, and also the popular blog Boing Boing was born.
Early 2001: b2/cafelog, the Precursor of WordPress, Was Launched
In early 2001, the French programmer Michel Valdrighi launched a personal publishing system with a new design known as b2 or cafelog.
In contrast with most other blogging systems at the time, the software needed to be installed on the user’s own web server, and it dynamically created pages from the contents of a MySQL database. WordPress users will find this familiar.
b2/cafelog became popular and was eventually installed on about 2,000 blogs. Unfortunately, the project was abandoned, paving the way for its source code to form the basis of WordPress in 2003.
October 2001: The Moveable Type Blogging Platform Was Released
The company Six Apart launched the Moveable Type blog publishing system in October 2001. Like b2, it needed to be installed on a web server. They introduced a trackback system in version 2.2 that has been adopted by other blogging platforms including WordPress.
In February 2002, Heather Armstrong lost her job for writing about her work colleagues on her personal blog, dooce.com. As a result, ‘dooced’ has become a term that means ‘fired for blogging.’
April 2002: TheMommyBlog.com Was Founded
In April 2002, Melinda Roberts started TheMommyBlog.com, one of the first blogs focussing on parenting and family life. This would inspire more than 3.9 million other parenting blogs over the next ten years.
The popular Gizmodo blog was also launched in July 2002.
August 2002: Blogads Allowed Blogs to Be Easily Monetized
Blogads, the first broker of blog advertising, launched in August 2002. This allowed many bloggers to turn their hobby into their primary source of income.
Less than a year later, Google launched AdSense, a competing platform.
November 2002: The Blog Search Engine Technorati Was Launched
Technorati provided a search engine for bloggers in November 2002, allowing blog readers to easily find useful content. In 2008, Technorati also launched an ad network.
Gawker, the first gossip blog, was launched in December 2002. It ceased operations in August 2016 after a legal battle and was later relaunched in July 2021.
February 2003: The Birth of Live Blogging
In February 2003, The Guardian made use of live blogging during the Prime Minister’s question time. They called this ‘live text’ and started to use it frequently for sporting events.
Today live blogging has taken many forms from self-hosted live blogs done on CNN and other blogs, to even real-time tweets which in essence are a form of live blog.
In February 2003, Google acquired Blogger, which was at that time the biggest and most successful blogging platform. It continued to grow in popularity until mid-2010.
However, since then WordPress steadily rose in popularity, and has been beating Blogger and dominating the trends since 2014.
Blogger remains the second most popular platform used by about 0.4% of blogs, while WordPress used is by an astonishing 97%.
In March 2003, an anonymous Iraqi blogger known as ‘Salam Pax’ blogged about the Iraq War to a worldwide audience.
May 2003: WordPress Was Released
In May 2003, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little released the first version of WordPress. It was based on the code of an earlier blogging platform, b2/cafelog, that they were involved in. The new software retained the best parts of the older platform and added new features.
Like b2/cafelog, the software needed to be installed on a web hosting server, and dynamically created web pages from a MySQL database, just as the current version of WordPress does.
One goal of the platform was to be easy to set up. Here’s a preview of the WordPress 1.0 basic settings screen:
After purchasing Blogger, Google launched its online advertising platform Adsense in June 2003. Its unique feature was to match ads with blog content, and it made it easy for bloggers to start making money.
Jason Calacanis founded Weblogs, Inc. in September 2003. It eventually grew into a portfolio of 85 blogs. In 2005 he sold the company to AOL for $30 million.
TypePad, a commercial blogging platform based on Moveable Type, was released in October 2003 and hosted blogs for major multimedia companies such as the BBC.
February 2004: The Year of the Video Blog
In February 2004, videographer Steve Garfield started to upload one or two short videos each month to his personal blog. These often covered news events such as protests and rallies.
Other video bloggers started doing the same, and this became known as ‘vlogging.’ Steve Garfield dubbed 2004 ‘the year of the video blog.’
This led the way for YouTube to be launched the following year.
In September 2004, Darren Rowse launched ProBlogger.net.
December 2004: ‘Blog’ Was the Merriam-Webster Word for the Year
In 2004, the most looked-up word in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary was ‘blog’. It became their word for the year.
This shows how much blogging was impacting the mainstream world. In fact, 32 million Americans were reading blogs at the time according to one study.
In February 2005, WordPress 1.5 was released, introducing themes.
February 2005: YouTube Was Launched
With the growth of video blogging, YouTube was launched in February 2005. This made it much easy for users to upload video content to the internet.
It would be purchased by Google the following year.
Blogging continued to grow in credibility. In March 2005, Garrett Graff became the first blogger to be granted a press pass for the White House. The popular tech blog TechCrunch was launched in June 2005, and Mashable the following month.
August 2005: Automattic Was Founded
In August 2005, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg founded a new company, Automattic. The following year, it launched a new blog hosting service known as WordPress.com.
This allowed you to create a WordPress blog for free, but without the advanced features of self-hosted WordPress. You could purchase additional options like a custom domain name, additional storage, and other premium services.
Because of the similarity in names, beginners often start with WordPress.com thinking they are getting the powerful WordPress.org software.
In December 2005, it was estimated that $100 million worth of blog ads were sold that year. Also, WordPress 2.0 was launched, introducing the new admin dashboard.
November 2005: Google Analytics Was Launched
To create a successful blog, it’s helpful to know how users interact with your website, including the blog posts they enjoy and those they don’t. In November 2005, Google Analytics was launched to help website owners track user activity.
It was initially developed from other analytics software acquired by Google, including Urchin on Demand and Adaptive Path, and additional features were added in the following years.
March 2006: Launch of Twitter, the Popular Microblogging Platform
In March 2006, Jack Dorsey co-founded Twitter and sent out the first tweet. This new platform restricted posts to 140 characters or less, introducing the concept of microblogging.
You can use WordPress Twitter plugins to include your recent tweets on your website or encourage visitors to share your blog posts.
Automattic filed for trademark registration for the WordPress name and logo in March 2006. At the time there were 50 million blogs on the internet according to Technorati.
August 2006: The First WordCamp Was Held in San Fransisco
WordCamps are locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. The first WordCamp was organized in San Francisco by Matt Mullenweg in August 2006.
Since then local communities around the world have organized hundreds of others. If you would like to attend one, you may be interested in our infographic on what a WordCamp is and why you should attend.
October 2006: Wix Hosted Blogging Platform Was Launched
Wix was launched in October 2006. It is a popular hosted platform that offered a drag-and-drop website builder, allowing small businesses to easily build a website without coding skills. However, themes were limited, and you had to pay for every third-party plugin.
Wix currently has over 110 million users across the globe. Learn how it compares with WordPress in our article on Wix vs WordPress.
Google acquired YouTube in October 2006.
February 2007: Tumblr Microblogging Platform Was Released
Tumblr was launched in February 2007. It’s a microblogging platform with social networking features including following other blogs, reblogging, built-in sharing tools, and more.
The platform was purchased by Yahoo in 2013, then acquired by Verizon in 2017. It is currently owned by Automattic.
Posterous, a similar microblogging platform, was launched in May 2008. On an unrelated note, the White House started its own blog in January 2009.
July 2009: WPBeginner Was Launched
In July 2009, the WPBeginner blog was launched by 18-year-old web developer Syed Balkhi. He decided that instead of maintaining his clients’ WordPress websites, he would teach them to do it themselves.
He scoured the web to find a resource that could help his clients and other new WordPress users, but most WordPress tutorials were written by developers for developers. So he created WPBeginner as a resource targeted toward WordPress beginners and DIY users.
Since then, WPBeginner has become the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry.
In June 2010, Automattic donated the ‘WordPress’ trademark to WordPress.org. By the end of the year, there were more than 152 million blogs across all platforms and 11% of bloggers were earning their primary income from blogging.
August 2012: Medium Was Launched
Evan Williams, a co-founder of Pyra Labs which created Blogger, launched a different type of blogging platform called Medium. It works like a social network where you can publish articles.
Medium has grown into a community of writers, bloggers, journalists, and experts. It is an easy-to-use blogging platform with limited social networking features.
April 2013: Ghost Minimal Blogging Platform Was Launched
Ghost is a minimalist blogging platform with features entirely focused on writing blog posts. It was launched in April 2013 and is available as a hosted platform, and also a version that you can host on your own server, though this is tricky.
Ghost now has over 3 million installs with an active monthly user base of over 10,000. You can learn how it compares with WordPress in our WordPress vs Ghost guide.
In April 2013, LinkedIn acquired the Pulse blogging platform, which was rolled out to all users over the next couple of years.
September 2013: OptinMonster Was Launched
In September 2013, Syed Balkhi and Thomas Griffin co-founded OptinMonster, the most powerful conversion optimization software. It was designed to help bloggers grow their email lists in WordPress and convert website visitors into subscribers.
Over the years, Syed had tried numerous techniques to get more email subscribers. He was able to get 70–80 new subscribers each day by adding a sidebar form, contact form, and other landing pages to his site.
When he started using OptinMonster, he started getting 600% more email subscribers even though his blog was getting the same amount of traffic as before.
In April 2015, there were more than 227 million blogs worldwide.
March 2016: WPForms Was Launched
The following year, Syed Balkhi co-founded another product, this time with Jared Atchison. WPForms is a powerful WordPress plugin that makes it easy for bloggers to create forms using templates and drag and drop.
You can easily create a contact form, online survey form, email subscription form, donation form, billing order form, or any other type of form with just a few clicks without hiring a developer or learning how to code.
In April 2016, Syed Balkhi acquired Yoast Analytics, the most popular Google Analytics integration in the world, and rebranded it as MonsterInsights. The plugin allows you to easily install Google analytics in WordPress and shows you helpful reports in your dashboard.
Google Analytics shows you how your audience interacts with your website, which is crucial for a successful blog. The best part about using MonsterInsights is that you can add the Google Analytics tracking code without editing code or hiring a developer.
In May 2016, WordPress introduced the .blog domain extension as an alternative to .com, .net and .org. By February 2017, there were more than 300 million blogs online.
November 2017: Substack Was Founded
Substack, an online newsletter publishing platform, was founded in November 2017. It allows you to easily send newsletter emails to your subscribers.
You can have both paid and free subscriptions, and Substack gets a share of all your paid subscription fees. Apart from newsletters, you also get a basic website and podcast hosting.
However, Substack doesn’t have all the functionality of a typical blogging platform or a content management system. You can learn how it compares with WordPress in our guide on Substack vs WordPress: which one is better?
WordPress 5.0 was released in December 2018 and introduced the block editor, codenamed Gutenberg.
October 2018: SeedProd Joined Awesome Motive
In October 2018, SeedProd, the popular coming soon and maintenance mode plugin for WordPress joined Awesome Motive through a merger, along with the plugin’s founder, John Turner. At the time it was used by 800,000 WordPress sites.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the WPBeginner blog, the WPBeginner Engage Facebook Group was launched in April 2019. It currently has over 89,000 members and is the largest WordPress group on Facebook.
February 2020: All in One SEO Acquired by Awesome Motive
In January, Awesome Motive acquired All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the original WordPress SEO plugin that was being used by over 2 million websites at the time.
The plugin was released in 2007 by Michael Torbert and allows you to easily optimize your WordPress blog for search engines and social media platforms.
Later that year, PushEngage a leading web push notification software was acquired by Awesome Motive to help more bloggers use push notification to notify their users about new blog posts.
Web push notifications have become one of the most effective way to notify blog subscribers about new content, and it’s used by large news sites and publishers.
July 2021: SearchWP Acquired by Awesome Motive
Awesome Motive made another acquisition in July 2021: SearchWP, the leading search engine plugin for WordPress. It was originally developed in 2013 by Jon Christopher.
Effective site search is important to bloggers. It allows their users to find what they’re looking for, resulting in more sales and page views.
By 2022, 43% of the web was built on WordPress. There were 572 million blogs globally, and over 31 million bloggers in the US alone. For more statistics like this, see our list of blogging statistics, trends, and data.
July 2023: End of Life for Google Analytics UA
Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of Google’s analytics platform. It has many changes, like a new reporting system and metrics. The way GA4 collects and processes data is also different from the previous version known as Universal Analytics (UA).
Google will sunset the old Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023. It’s important to switch your blog over to the new version before then.
We hope this article helped you learn about the history of blogging. If you have additional blogging history facts, please let us know by leaving a comment below.
Google Analytics is the most comprehensive analytics tool for WordPress blogs and websites.
It tells you how your visitors found your website, what devices they used, what pages they viewed, and how they interacted with your website.
This information helps you better understand your audience, so you can plan and execute an effective content strategy. You’ll be able to see what topics and pages convert the best and steadily improve your website over time.
The default WordPress search feature is quite limited and not very good at finding relevant content. As your website grows, you’ll want a way to help your visitors find what they’re looking for.
Google Programmable Search gives you an easy way to add custom search to your WordPress site.
You have complete control over the content it will search, and you can design the search feature to fully blend into your website.
For more advanced search with customization options, we recommend using a WordPress search plugin like SearchWP, but Google Programmable Search can be an affordable option to get started.
Google Tag Manager allows you to easily add and manage code snippets, or “tags”, to your website. Tags are commonly used by analytics and marketing tools to add tracking or other features to your site.
Adding tags to your WordPress site usually requires custom code. These custom code snippets load an external script, and it’s hard to manage them all.
Google Tag Manager solves this problem by allowing you to manage all your external codes from one dashboard.
You only need to add one Google Tag Manager snippet to your site, and then you can manage the rest from a single dashboard.
Having a fast loading website is one of the most important parts of providing a good user experience and solid WordPress SEO.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a website performance monitoring tool. It tells you how your website is performing on both desktop and mobile devices.
The results are broken down into different sections, so you can see what’s holding your site back. There are also resources and best practices to help you fix any issues you might be having.
For many WordPress websites, a high volume of traffic can come from mobile devices. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, then you’ll create a poor user experience, and you can lose out on search engine rankings.
The Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool will tell you how well your website is optimized for the mobile web. It will give you a detailed breakdown of any issues and what you can do to fix them.
The easiest way to ensure your website is optimized for the mobile web is by using a responsive WordPress theme. These themes will automatically adjust to your visitor’s screen size, so they’ll look perfect on mobile devices.
The Google Ads Keyword Planner gives you insights into what people are searching for in Google search. It pulls data from the Google search results and paid advertisers.
Using this tool, you can generate a list of keywords related to your blog and see which keywords get the most searches per month. The data doesn’t provide exact numbers, but it does give general estimates.
This tool can also help you generate new ideas for your blog posts, plan your content strategy, and run your own pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns using Google Ads.
Think with Google Research is one of the best market research tools. This collection of tools will help you understand your market, spot new trends, and grow your website or online store.
The data and insights you can gain depending on which tools you use.
For example, the Market Insights tool can help you find new regional or global markets to expand into.
There’s another tool that shows retail categories that are growing in popularity, along with the related search terms. This tells you if the niche you’re in is growing in popularity.
For those who have a YouTube channel, or edit videos, you can use the audience finder tool to uncover new audiences on YouTube.
Google My Business is a tool that lets you add your local business information to Google, so it can display your business information in search results.
If you run a local business, or provide services to a local area, then Google My Business is something you cannot miss.
Displaying your business information in Google search results will boost your brand’s search visibility, and bring you new customers and potential leads.
Google Optimize is a tool that helps website owners optimize their websites by running A/B split tests. This lets you compare two different versions of a page to see which converts better.
For example, you can run a split test of two different sales pages to see which one leads to more customers.
By split testing, you can gradually optimize pages on your site to get the highest conversions possible.
You can create a split test simply with the drag and drop builder. Google will automatically show the variations to your visitors randomly and gather data.
Google Adsense lets bloggers and website owners easily monetize their websites with display ads. Adsense is one of the longest-running display advertising programs.
Once you’re approved for the program, you can add the display ads to your site and start making money.
In terms of productivity tools to help you create better content, Google has you covered. You’ll find a wide range of tools for mobile and desktop, including Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Calendar, Gmail, and more.
The main advantage of using Google’s productivity apps is the easy sharing features, with full privacy control, unlimited revisions, inline comments, and real time collaboration, all without needing to hit the save button.
Google Drive is a cloud storage tool you can use to store all of your Google Docs, Google Sheets files, and more. The free version shares 15GB of storage across your Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos accounts.
You can use the free cloud storage space to store any file you want and sync them across other devices with a Google account.
If you’re looking for a place to store your WordPress backups safely, then this can be an ideal option.
Google Maps gives you a great way to embed interactive maps into your WordPress website. Adding a map to your website can show your visitors where you’re physically located.
This is a must have feature for local businesses like restaurants and cafes.
If you’re a travel blogger, then you can also make use of Google Maps by creating and embedding an interactive map of all the places you’ve been.
Google Alerts will instantly notify you any time your brand or name is mentioned on the web.
It only takes a few seconds to create a Google Alert for your brand name or keywords, so you’ll get email notifications when you’re mentioned online.
It’s an important tool to use for building a strong brand image. Plus, these alerts can help to notify you of backlink opportunities and potential business partnerships.
Google Trends gives you a bird’s eye view of what’s trending in the world of search. You can browse through the latest curated data, or search for keywords related to your niche.
This tool can be helpful in addition to other research tools like the Google Ads Keyword Planner. When you enter a keyword, you’ll be able to see if its popularity is trending up or down.
You can use these insights to decide on new niches to go into or new article topics to write about.
Typography and font choice play a very important role in the design and usability of your website. Google Fonts is a great place to look for free fonts you can use on your website.
You can download and use these fonts directly from Google, or embed them into your website and serve them from Google’s servers.
Google Hangouts is a free conference call and video meeting tool from Google. It offers secure messaging, phone, and video conferencing for teams and businesses.
This is perfect for smaller teams who want to have quick conversations and easily share Google Docs during the call.
Users can join video meetings with a dial-in number or meeting link.
YouTube is not just a video hosting service, it’s also the second most popular search engine on the web. Millions of users are looking for video content on YouTube all the time.
Adding videos to your blog content can help you get more engagement, but we recommend that you never upload videos to WordPress. Instead, we recommend to host them on YouTube.
Google AdSense is one of the most popular ways to monetize your website.
It allows you to automatically sell your website’s ad space to advertisers and get paid. AdSense is one of the easiest way to start making money online with your website.
In this article, we will show you how to add Google AdSense in WordPress along with some best practices and tips to increase your earnings.
What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is an advertising network run by Google that allows bloggers and website owners an opportunity to earn money by showing text, image, video, and other interactive advertisement on their websites. These ads are targeted by site content and audience, so they’re highly relevant.
Google AdSense is hassle-free because you don’t have to deal with advertisers or worry about collecting money. Google administers and maintains relationships with advertisers. They collect the payment, take their management fee, and send the rest of the money to you.
AdSense offers cost-per-click ads (CPC) which means that you earn money every time a user clicks on the ad on your website. The amount received per click varies based on a variety of factors.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Getting Started with AdSense
First thing you need to do is sign up for a Google AdSense account. If you have a Gmail account, then you can use your existing account to sign up.
Once you’ve submitted your application, you will need to wait for the Google AdSense team to review it. This may take a few hours to a few weeks for some publishers.
Once it is approved, then you can log in to your AdSense account and get your ad code. This is the code that you need to place on your website to display ads.
Recently, Google AdSense announced auto ads, which means you paste just one piece of code and Google automatically decides when, where, and how many ads to show on each page.
However, most publishers are still using the manual method to individually place ads on their website.
We’ll show you both methods. We recommend starting with the manual ad placement first. Once you have started earning, then you can experiment with auto-ads to compare them yourself.
1. Manually Place Google AdSense Ad Code in WordPress
You’ll start by clicking on the Ads menu in the left column and then switching to the ‘By ad unit’ tab. From here you need to click on ‘Create New Ad’.
You will be asked to choose an ad type. You can select from ‘Display ads’, ‘In-feed ads’, and ‘In-article ads’.
If you are unsure, then start with the display ads.
Next, you need to provide a name for this ad unit and select the ad size and type.
The name of the Ad is only used for internal purposes, so you can name it anything like “SiteName Sidebar”.
The next option is choosing the Ad Size. While Google offers a wide variety of ad sizes, there are certain sizes that are listed under recommended because those are the most popular among advertisers.
You can also choose whether you want your ad to be responsive or fixed. We recommend choosing responsive ads as they work well on all devices and screen sizes.
Next, click on the Create button to continue.
AdSense will now generate the ad code for you. It contains the unique ad unit ID and your publisher ID.
If your website has a Google AMP version, then you can also copy the code for your AMP pages.
Simply copy your ad code and paste it in a plain text editor like Notepad or TextEdit. You will need it in the next step.
Adding Google AdSense in WordPress
You need to determine where you want to show the ad on your website. Ads are most commonly displayed in the sidebar. You can add Google Adsense in your sidebar by using WordPress widgets.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress admin area. Next, drag & drop the ‘Custom HTML’ widget to the appropriate widget area and paste your Google AdSense code in there.
Adding individual ads to different areas of your website takes a lot of time. Most beginners struggle to find the best locations to display ads on their sites.
To solve this, Google has introduced auto-ads. This allows you to simply add one code snippet to your site and let Google AdSense figure out the highest paying location, ad-size, and type.
The disadvantage of this method is that you have less control over ad placement on your website.
If you want to add use auto-ads feature, then this is how you’ll add Google AdSense to your website.
First login to your Google AdSense account and click on the Ads tab. Next, you need to click on the Get Code button to generate the auto-ads code.
AdSense will now generate a code snippet with your publisher ID and show it on the screen. You can now copy and paste this code in a text editor.
Adding AdSense Auto-Ads Code in WordPress
The auto-ads code uses the single code snippet to generate ads everywhere on your WordPress website. This means you need to add the code to all the pages where you want to display the ad.
One way to do this is by adding the code in your WordPress theme’s header.php file. However, the disadvantage of this method is that your ad code will disappear if you update or change your theme.
The best way to add any site-wide code to your website is by using a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers.
Upon activation, go to the Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page. From here, you need to paste your Google AdSense code in the header section.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.
The plugin will now add the ad code on all pages of your website. It may take Google AdSense sometime to start showing ads.
AdSense Best Practices and Frequently Asked Questions
Over the years, we’ve answered several AdSense related questions. Having used AdSense on several of our sites in the past, we’ve learned a whole lot about optimizing. Below are some AdSense best practices and frequently asked questions.
What’s the best AdSense Ad Size?
Although ad placement is key, we’ve found that the best sizes are 336×280 and 300×250. These ads tend to fit on most screen sizes and have the best pay rate as well.
What’s the Best AdSense Placement?
This entirely depends on your layout. The goal is to get more clicks, so you want to place your ads in a more prominent spot. We have found that ads within post content towards the top of the screen tends to get the most clicks.
Several users have asked us about adding AdSense in a floating widget because it will be very prominent. We strongly recommend against that because it is not allowed by Google Terms of Service. If you violate their TOS, then you can get banned from the program.
Can I click on my own Google AdSense Ads?
Often beginners are tempted to click on their own ads or ask their family members to click on their ads. Please don’t do that. Google’s algorithm is very smart and knows when you’re clicking on your own ad. This can get you banned from the program.
What is Page RPM in Google AdSense?
RPM stands for Revenue per Mille meaning revenue per 1000 impressions. This is determined by multiplying the total number of clicks and cost per click and then dividing that by the total number of pageviews.
Can I use my Blogger or YouTube AdSense account with WordPress?
Yes, you can. If you started using AdSense on one of Google’s hosted platforms like Blogger or YouTube, then you can change your AdSense account type and use it with WordPress. You’ll need to provide Google AdSense with the URL of the site you want to monetize by filling out an application form.
Simply login to your AdSense account and then under ‘My Ads’ click on ‘Other Products’ option. Next, you need to click ‘Upgrade now’ and complete the application form.
What is CTR in Google AdSense?
CTR or click-through-rates differ vastly for different kind of websites. Your ad clicks depend on a lot of factors like your website’s topics, your audience type, ad placement on your site, and more. The ideal CTR for Google AdSense is really hard to define because you don’t have access to the click rates of other websites like your own.
However, Google AdSense has built-in tools that will start showing you messages if your site is not getting a good CTR. You can follow the optimization guides shown inside Google AdSense dashboard to improve your ad revenue.
When and how does Google AdSense pay publishers?
Each month, Google AdSense calculates your previous month’s earnings and shows them on your ‘Transactions’ page. If your earnings match the required threshold, then your payment is processed and released by the 21st of that month.
There are multiple payment methods available including direct electronic transfer, wire transfer, check, Western Union, and more.
Why Google AdSense rejected my application?
Google Adsense may reject your application if your website doesn’t meet the AdSense program policies or their terms and conditions.
What are the requirements to get Google AdSense application approved?
Here are the minimum requirements to get your Google AdSense account application approved.
Your website and all its content must comply with AdSense program policies and terms and conditions.
Your website should be at least 6 months old.
You, the applicant, must be over 18 years old.
Note: Even if your application meets all the requirements, Google AdSense still reserves the right to decline your application.
Can I add Google AdSense in my WordPress.com blog?
WordPress.com does not allow you to add Google AdSense to your website unless you upgrade to the Business plan. For more on this topic, please see our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
What is the difference between Google AdSense vs Google AdWords?
Google AdWords allows you to advertise on other websites including those participating in the Google AdSense program.
Google AdSense allows you to make money from your website by showing ads on your website.
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