Can My Site Be Monetized by the SHE Media Collective?
The SHE Media Collective has a specific set of criteria for sites that come into the network. The most basic qualification is that your site must run on a platform that allows third-party advertising and supports ads.txt.
What is third-party advertising?
Third party advertising is any advertising that you yourself did not directly place on your site, or hasn’t been provided to you by your platform itself. You are going to a third party (like SHE Media) to monetize your site.
How do I know if my platform allows third-party advertising?
In the agreement you signed with your platform, it will say whether or not you’re allowed to monetize your site through third party advertising.
Two examples of plans that do not allow third-party advertising are Squarespace’s personal plan and the free plan on Wordpress.com. Wordpress.com will let you monetize your site if you have a business level plan (with a domain) with them - but any account lower than that can only be monetized through their WordAds network.
Some platforms will tell you they offer Google AdSense integration - if you see that, then you can use third party ads. Not all of these platforms are eligible for the SHE Media Collective because we require support for ads.txt as well.
If you have a custom build, you will need to consult with your platform’s developer to make sure that it can run JavaScript ads.
What is ads.txt?
Ads.txt is a security protocol put out by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) in order to make sure that ad providers and publishers have some sense of security that the ads running on sites are authorized to be there - think of it as a handshake between your site and a provider. It’s a text file that is uploaded to the root directory of your site - or injected there to create a virtual file. This file lists all the ad providers that your network states that it uses, using specific codes. When a page loads, the ad providers quickly check to see that you have the correct lines and then delivers an ad. And your ad network personally vets each and every ad provider, so if it’s included in the list, you know that it’s been checked and has reputable inventory.
As of June 2022, platforms like GoDaddy’s SiteBuilder and Weebly are not eligible for the SHE Media Collective, as they do not support ads.txt. (Note: Sites that are hosted on GoDaddy and built using WordPress.org are fine - but if you use Site Builder, their Drag and Drop design platform - there is no support for any type of advertising other than AdSense.)
If you are on these platforms and want to fully monetize your site, please contact their support desk and let them know that you want them to add support for ads.txt. Even if they allow a plugin connection for AdSense, please let them know that you would like to use premium ad networks, which require more access.
What platforms support ads.txt?
1. WordPress.org sites support ads.txt, though they require for you to pay for hosting through a company. Several companies out there offer WordPress hosting, and will help make it easy for you to set up a site with them.
2. Blogger supports ads.txt files.
3. Any Squarespace account higher than their current Personal plan can support ads.txt with our network (though supported directly by them. It requires a workaround - so we do recommend that you still reach out to ask Squarespace to add ads.txt support).
4. Any custom platform that can allow you to upload a file to the site’s root directory can support ads.txt.
What else should I know about platforms?
Not all platforms and themes are the best for monetization. For example, while SHE Media can monetize sites with Wix that are in an appropriate plan that gives them access to insert code and create ads.txt files - Wix uses a What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG / drag and drop) builder, it can make it very difficult for our ads to render on the page. Same for some sites built in WordPress, if you’ve used a drag and drop theme builder like Elementor or Divi.
What makes it difficult? Traditional platforms (like Wordpress.org) use layouts with plainly named elements, usually with flexible elements to allow for different sizes of pages, or rotating a screen.. Some drag and drop builders render elements on the page as absolute, meaning we can’t inject any code because those elements are fixed in place. Or, the builders give elements names that don’t carry from page to page - so we can’t create rules for our injections to work. (All layouts are essentially a series of boxes, that fit within each other. They usually have carefully named elements so that you know what’s the content well, what’s the sidebar. Some of these builders will end up just naming each box element-5, element-6, etc.)
The SHE Media team will always do our best to make sure you have a site filled with ads, but please understand that some themes, we might be limited in what we can offer you.
If you have any questions at all about whether or not your site is eligible for the SHE Media Collective, don’t hesitate to reach out to our helpdesk at support@shemedia.com