What's the simplest way to add Google Adsense ads to my site?

For basic management of Google Adsense advertisements you don't need anything more complicated than the Banner component provided with Joomla!

It can be useful to put all Adsense ads under the same client so that we can easily locate them on Banner Manager screen. Let's name this new client 'adsense'.

Log in to Joomla! backend and go to Components >> Banner >> Clients. Click the New button on the toolbar.

Fill in client's details as in the picture to the left. As this is not a real client there's no need to enter a real e-mail address, but all fields must be filled in or Joomla! won't let you save the record.

Then you will need to create a different banner category for each ad size you plan to show on your site, for example: standard banner, half banner, narrow and wide skyscrapers, boxes, rectangles and buttons of various sizes.

Let's start with standard banner (468 x 60 pixels). Go to Components >> Banner >> Categories. Click the New button on the toolbar: enter adsense_468x60 as category Title, leave all the other fields blank or set to their default values and click the Save button on the toolbar.

Now go to Components >> Banner >> Banners and click the New button on the toolbar. Under Details (see picture to the left) enter a banner name, select adsense_468x60 as Category and adsense as Client Name.

Set Impression Purchased to Unlimited and fill in the Custom Banner Code field with the Adsense code to display a 468x60 unit. You will need to login to your Adsense account to create the code and customize it with the colors you like.

All the other fields should be left blank or set to default values. Do not select any image in Banner Image Selector as the custom code will serve your ads.

Click the Save button.

The final step is creating a module for the banner and assigning it to a module position in your template. Go to Extensions >> Module Manager and click the New button on the toolbar; on the next screen select Banner and click the Next button.

On the module edit page (see picture to the right) enter a module Title and set Show Title to No, Enabled to Yes and select a module position from the drop down list.

Then on the right column under Module Parameters select adsense as Client and adsense_468x60 as Category. Finally under Menu Assignment assign the module to all pages where you want your banner to appear.

That's all. You can repeat the process for all the Adsense units you want to display on your site. The client can be the same for all units, but you must use different categories and a different banner module for each unit size. The reason should be obvious: banners, skyscrapers, rectangles require module positions of different sizes.

The only difficult part of the process explained above can be selecting the right module position for banner modules. Positions available in the drop down list you find on the module edit page entirely depend by the current template: many templates contain a position named banner that is usually suitable for a standard banner, left and right positions are also usually available and good for a skyscraper or vertical banner ad.

Otherwise you can use the Preview feature in Template Manager to look for a module position for your banner. If everything else fails, you may need to add a new position to your template