Your AdSense site says Requires review and nothing is happening
If your site has shown "Requires review" for days with nothing happening, the review was probably never requested. Adding a site only creates the row. You still need to open the site, verify ownership and click Request review. Once requested, the status changes to "Getting ready", and review usually takes days to a few weeks.
One site parked at Requires review for a day
On a network of six sites, one had been sitting at "Requires review" for a full day. Nothing was wrong with the site, and it looked submitted in every summary and screenshot. Only the first half of the flow had ever been completed: the row existed, and the second panel, Request review, which sits below the fold on most screens, had never been clicked. AdSense was doing nothing with the site at all.
Auditing the rest of the network turned up the larger version of the same problem. Five live sites had been submitted for ad review while none of them had a working path into Google, so the approvals, when they came, applied to sites nobody could find.
You added your site under Sites in AdSense. The row appeared. Days pass and the status still reads Requires review. Nothing is in progress, no email arrives, and there is no error anywhere telling you why.
Nothing is wrong with your site. The review was never requested.
Adding a site and submitting a site are two different actions
The New site button does exactly one thing: it creates the row. That is the entire effect. The site is now listed, at status "Requires review", and AdSense is doing nothing with it.
Submitting is a separate flow you have to open the site to reach:
- Click the site name in the Sites list to open its detail page.
- Under Verify site ownership, tick I've placed the code and click Verify. If your AdSense script is already live, this passes immediately.
- A confirmation appears. Click Next.
- Scroll down. A second panel, Request review, is below the fold on most screens. Click Request review.
Only after that fourth step does the status change.
This is worth auditing right now. On a network of six sites, one had been sitting at "Requires review" for a full day because only the first half of the flow was ever completed. It looked submitted in every summary and screenshot. It was not.
Two smaller traps in the same screen
The Add site dialog loses keyboard focus. If you click New site and start typing without first clicking into the Website field, the text does not go into the dialog. It goes to the page behind it and toggles the status filter chips instead. The dialog stays empty, you click Save, and nothing is created. Click the field, type, and confirm the text is visibly in the box before saving.
Ads.txt showing "Not found" on a site you just added is normal. AdSense has not crawled it yet. Confirm the file yourself before treating it as a defect:
curl -s https://yourdomain.com/ads.txtIf that returns your ads.txt line, you are fine and the status will catch up. If it returns HTML, you have a different and more serious problem, covered in ads.txt not found when the file exists.
What the statuses mean once you have actually submitted
The Sites list uses short labels that look like progress indicators and are really state names. Knowing which state you are in tells you whether to act or wait.
Requires review. Nothing is happening. The submission was never completed. Go back and finish the four steps.
Getting ready. The review was requested and is in progress. There is nothing to do and nothing you can do to speed it up.
Ready. Approved. Ads can serve on the site.
Needs attention or a policy label such as Low value content. Rejected, with a reason attached. Click through to the Policy centre for the specific finding, because the label on the Sites list is a summary and the detail page names the actual issue.
The one that catches people is a site sitting at Ready while ads do not appear. That is not a review problem at all: it is usually the ad code missing from the page, an ad blocker in your own browser, or a brand new account that has not started serving yet. Check the shipped HTML for your publisher ID before assuming anything about the review.
The realistic timeline, and what to do inside it
Google's own guidance says review usually takes a few days and can take two to four weeks. Both halves of that are true and the long end is more common than people expect for a brand new domain with no traffic history.
Inside that window, do nothing to the site's structure. Adding pages, changing navigation, or redeploying large changes mid-review does not help and can restart the clock. Fixing an outright bug is fine. Rewriting your homepage because you are anxious is not.
What is worth doing inside the window is everything that is not the review: getting indexed, getting the analytics wiring finished, and building the internal links you skipped. Those are the things that determine whether approval is worth anything when it arrives.
It is worth saying plainly that approval on an unindexed site earns nothing. On one network, five live sites were submitted for ad review while none of them had a working path into Google. The approvals, when they came, applied to sites nobody could find.
If it comes back rejected
The first move is to read the Policy centre entry rather than the email, because the email is generic and the Policy centre names the finding and usually shows an example URL.
Then fix the whole class of problem rather than the example. If the finding is low value content and one URL is named, the reviewer looked at your site and picked a representative page. Fixing that one page and resubmitting produces another rejection days later.
Resubmit once, after verifying the fix on the live site. Repeated resubmission of small changes is the single most common way people turn a two week problem into a two month one, because each cycle costs days and none of them address a structural issue.
There is no penalty for a rejection and no limit that matters on resubmissions, so the cost is entirely time. Spend it on the fix rather than the queue.
What finishing the submission will not change
Finishing the submission only moves the site from parked to queued. It does not speed up the review, which Google puts at a few days and up to two to four weeks, with the long end more common for a brand new domain with no traffic history, and it does not stop the site coming back rejected with a policy finding such as low value content. It does nothing about whether the site can be found, which is the part that decides whether approval is worth anything: indexing, analytics wiring and internal links are separate work. A site reading Ready with no ads appearing is also outside this fix, since that is usually ad code missing from the page, an ad blocker in your own browser, or an account that has not started serving yet.
Questions about the Requires review status
Why does my AdSense site still say Requires review after several days?
Because the review was never requested. The New site button only creates the row, and "Requires review" means you still have something to do. Open the site, verify ownership, click Next, then scroll down and click Request review.
What is the difference between Requires review and Getting ready?
"Requires review" means the site is parked and waiting on you. "Getting ready" means the review was actually requested and Google is working on it. If a site reads "Requires review" more than a few minutes after you added it, it is not in a queue.
How long does AdSense review take?
Google's own guidance says usually a few days and up to two to four weeks. The long end is more common than people expect for a new domain with no traffic history.
Should I keep working on the site while it is under review?
Not on its structure. Adding pages, changing navigation or redeploying large changes mid-review does not help and can restart the clock. Fixing an outright bug is fine, and the useful work inside the window is indexing, analytics and internal links.
AdSense says my ads.txt is Not found on a site I just added. Is something broken?
Probably not. AdSense crawls on its own schedule and the status catches up. Confirm the file yourself with curl -s https://yourdomain.com/ads.txt, and if that returns HTML rather than your publisher line you have a different problem, covered in ads.txt not found when the file exists.
What should I do if it comes back rejected?
Read the Policy centre entry rather than the email, because the Policy centre names the finding and usually shows an example URL. Fix the whole class of problem rather than the named page, then resubmit once after verifying the fix on the live site.