ads.txt Auditor

Fetches and deeply audits a public website's /ads.txt file for IAB Authorized Digital Sellers spec compliance. Parses every entry, validates field formatting, checks DIRECT/RESELLER classification, verifies authority ID presence, detects duplicate entries, checks for app-ads.txt availability, and optionally reads OWNERDOMAIN/MANAGERDOMAIN variables from ads.txt v1.1. Returns a readiness score, letter grade, issues, and recommendations. Built for ad ops teams, programmatic advertising engineers, supply chain transparency auditors, and publisher QA workflows.

Use cases

• Verify that a published ads.txt file conforms to the IAB Authorized Digital Sellers format after a deploy or CMS migration.
• Detect invalid entries with missing fields or incorrect account types that buyers and DSPs may reject.
• Find duplicate entries (same ad system domain, publisher ID, and account type) that cause buyer confusion.
• Identify RESELLER entries missing the TAG-ID authority ID, reducing supply chain transparency.
• Check whether app-ads.txt is published for in-app inventory verification.
• Confirm ads.txt is served over HTTPS with the correct text/plain Content-Type.
• Detect ads.txt v1.1 OWNERDOMAIN and MANAGERDOMAIN variables for improved seller transparency.
• Run scheduled checks on publisher domains to catch ads.txt configuration drift after deploys and CDN cutovers.
• Feed structured results into ad ops dashboards or CI pipelines.

Input

Field	Type	Description
startUrl	string	Public HTTP or HTTPS website URL to audit. The actor fetches /ads.txt from this domain. URLs with credentials and private network targets are rejected.
checkAppAdsTxt	boolean	Also check for /app-ads.txt availability and validity. Defaults to true.
timeoutSeconds	integer	Request timeout from 3 to 30 seconds. Defaults to 10.

Output

The actor pushes one dataset item per run.

Field	Type	Description
inputUrl	string	Original URL from input.
normalizedInputUrl	string	Normalized input URL after defaulting the scheme.
finalUrl	string	Final URL of the ads.txt fetch after redirects.
https	boolean	True when the ads.txt was served over HTTPS.
ok	boolean	True when the fetch succeeded.
checkedAt	string	ISO timestamp for the audit.
adsTxtFound	boolean	True when /ads.txt was found and returned a valid response.
adsTxtStatus	integer or null	HTTP status code from the ads.txt fetch.
adsTxtUrl	string or null	The full URL of the ads.txt file.
adsTxtContentType	string or null	Content-Type header from the ads.txt response.
adsTxtLineCount	integer	Total number of lines in the ads.txt file.
rawAdsTxt	string or null	Raw ads.txt content (up to 2 MB).
appAdsTxtFound	boolean	True when /app-ads.txt was found and returned a valid response.
appAdsTxtStatus	integer or null	HTTP status code from the app-ads.txt fetch.
appAdsTxtUrl	string or null	The full URL of the app-ads.txt file.
appAdsTxtEntryCount	integer	Number of valid entries in app-ads.txt.
entries	array	Parsed and validated ads.txt entries.
entryCount	integer	Number of valid entries.
directCount	integer	Number of DIRECT entries.
resellerCount	integer	Number of RESELLER entries.
commentCount	integer	Number of comment lines.
blankLineCount	integer	Number of blank lines.
duplicateCount	integer	Number of duplicate entries.
invalidEntryCount	integer	Number of invalid entries.
invalidEntries	array	List of invalid entries with reasons.
duplicateEntries	array	List of duplicate entries.
uniqueDomains	array	List of unique ad system domains.
uniqueDomainCount	integer	Number of unique ad system domains.
variables	array	Parsed variable assignments (OWNERDOMAIN, MANAGERDOMAIN, etc.).
score	integer	ads.txt readiness score from 0 to 100.
grade	string	Letter grade from A+ to F.
issues	array	Human-readable issues.
recommendations	array	Suggested fixes.
error	string or null	Fetch-level error, if the request failed.

Per-entry fields

Each object in the entries array contains:

Field	Type	Description
adSystemDomain	string	Ad system domain (lowercased).
publisherAccountId	string	Publisher account ID.
accountType	string	DIRECT or RESELLER.
authorityId	string or null	Authority ID (TAG-ID) if present.
raw	string	Raw line from the ads.txt file.
issues	array	Per-entry issues with severity and message.

Example input

{
  "startUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "checkAppAdsTxt": true,
  "timeoutSeconds": 10
}

Example output

{
  "inputUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "normalizedInputUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "finalUrl": "https://example.com/ads.txt",
  "https": true,
  "ok": true,
  "checkedAt": "2025-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "adsTxtFound": true,
  "adsTxtStatus": 200,
  "adsTxtUrl": "https://example.com/ads.txt",
  "adsTxtContentType": "text/plain; charset=utf-8",
  "adsTxtLineCount": 5,
  "rawAdsTxt": "greenbold.com, 1234, DIRECT, 5345b8ed5e\nrubiconproject.com, 5678, RESELLER, 0ba5b8ed5e\nOWNERDOMAIN=example.com\n# authorized sellers\n",
  "appAdsTxtFound": false,
  "appAdsTxtStatus": 404,
  "appAdsTxtUrl": "https://example.com/app-ads.txt",
  "appAdsTxtEntryCount": 0,
  "entries": [
    {
      "adSystemDomain": "greenbold.com",
      "publisherAccountId": "1234",
      "accountType": "DIRECT",
      "authorityId": "5345b8ed5e",
      "raw": "greenbold.com, 1234, DIRECT, 5345b8ed5e",
      "issues": []
    },
    {
      "adSystemDomain": "rubiconproject.com",
      "publisherAccountId": "5678",
      "accountType": "RESELLER",
      "authorityId": "0ba5b8ed5e",
      "raw": "rubiconproject.com, 5678, RESELLER, 0ba5b8ed5e",
      "issues": []
    }
  ],
  "entryCount": 2,
  "directCount": 1,
  "resellerCount": 1,
  "commentCount": 1,
  "blankLineCount": 1,
  "duplicateCount": 0,
  "invalidEntryCount": 0,
  "invalidEntries": [],
  "duplicateEntries": [],
  "uniqueDomains": ["greenbold.com", "rubiconproject.com"],
  "uniqueDomainCount": 2,
  "variables": [
    { "type": "variable", "name": "OWNERDOMAIN", "value": "example.com", "raw": "OWNERDOMAIN=example.com" }
  ],
  "score": 98,
  "grade": "A+",
  "issues": [],
  "recommendations": [
    "If the domain has a mobile app, publish an app-ads.txt file at the root for in-app inventory verification."
  ],
  "error": null
}

Security

• Only public HTTP and HTTPS URLs are fetched.
• URLs with usernames or passwords are rejected.
• Private IPv4, private IPv6, localhost, link-local, and private DNS resolutions are blocked before fetching.
• Redirect destinations are revalidated before they are followed.
• The actor does not require logins, cookies, browser sessions, or credentials.
• The actor fetches only /ads.txt and optionally /app-ads.txt from the provided domain. It does not fetch any URLs referenced inside the ads.txt file.

Pricing

Event	Suggested price
Actor start	$0.005
Site audited	$0.01

Suggested launch price: about $0.015 per audited site. Teams can schedule the actor for recurring checks on publisher domains after deploys and CDN cutovers.

FAQ

Does this actor crawl multiple URLs or a whole site?

No. It fetches /ads.txt (and optionally /app-ads.txt) from one domain per run. This keeps runs cheap and predictable for CI and scheduled monitoring.

How does the score work?

The score starts at 100 and is reduced for: invalid entries (-10 each, capped at -40), duplicate entries (-5 each, capped at -20), RESELLER entries without authority ID (-3 each, capped at -15), missing app-ads.txt (-5), non-HTTPS delivery (-10), incorrect Content-Type (-3), and zero valid entries (-30). A bonus of +3 is added when OWNERDOMAIN or MANAGERDOMAIN variables are present (ads.txt v1.1). Files that are entirely absent receive an F.

What is the IAB ads.txt format?

Each data line in an ads.txt file is: adSystemDomain, publisherAccountId, DIRECT|RESELLER, authorityId. The authority ID is typically the TAG-ID from the Trustworthy Accountability Group. Lines starting with # are comments. Blank lines are ignored. Version 1.1 adds optional OWNERDOMAIN and MANAGERDOMAIN variables for improved seller transparency.

What is the difference between this actor and ads.txt scrapers on the Apify Store?

Existing ads.txt scrapers extract seller entries from ads.txt files but do not validate IAB spec compliance, do not score file quality, do not detect duplicates or invalid entries, do not check for RESELLER authority IDs, and do not verify app-ads.txt availability or Content-Type correctness. This actor returns one structured audit diagnostic per domain with a readiness score, letter grade, issues, and recommendations suitable for scheduled monitoring and pipeline checks.

What is app-ads.txt?

app-ads.txt is the mobile app counterpart of ads.txt. It is published at /app-ads.txt and lists authorized sellers for a publisher's in-app ad inventory. The actor checks for its presence and parses entry count when checkAppAdsTxt is enabled (default: true).