Last month Google announced in its Ads Safety Report that 3.1 billion ads were blocked globally in 2020 for violating policies. Although many of these ads were blocked due to being scams, a good number of ads were also from legit companies that might have not understood that they were violating any policy.
Getting your ad blocked can be frustrating and with Google updating their policies can often catch you off guard. Although there is a huge amount of policies, by following certain guidelines you can avoid any of your ads getting blocked and in the case that one of your ads are blocked, you will quickly be able to find the solution for your problem and put your ads live again.
When it comes to avoiding violations, you must of course make sure that your ad is respecting the policies, but that is not the only place you should be paying attention to. Violations can also be caused by the content of your page or if Google believes there exists automated inflation of clicks/impressions.
Usually, policy violations will be caused by the content of your ad, especially if you are new to Google Ads there might be some policies that you did not realise existed:
- Copyrighted/Trademarked Content: in the last years’ copyright enforcement has gotten even stricter and simply mentioning a copyrighted word could get your ad blocked. Therefore, you should always verify that your ad does not contain words that fall under the copyright/trademark category. In the case that you want to advertise such a product, make sure that you have permission.
- Exclamation Marks: exclamation marks are very common when it comes to advertising, but when it comes to google ads they should be avoided. Although exclamation marks are allowed in the ad description, they should never be in your headline as even if they might sometimes go through, Google will most probably eventually flag them.
- Unnecessary Capitalization: google is strict when it comes to using all caps in a situation where it is not necessary. This does not mean that it cannot be used coupon codes, abbreviations, or product/brand names, but if it can be written without caps, there is no reason for it to be in all caps.
- Unnecessary Call to Actions: Avoid using a call to action like “Click Here” or “Check us out” as these are considered “Generic Call to Actions” and will most often automatically be flagged by Google. This is because they do not provide any valuable information to your ad, instead use a call to action such as “Shop Now”, “Get Quote” and “Sign Up”.
- Low-Quality Images: If you are creating shopping ads or display ads, make sure that the images you are using and not blurry and are related to the product that you are selling.
As we previously mentioned, an ad violation can also be caused due to your website and its content. Of course, any fraudulent activity on your site will normally result in your account getting blocked, but there are also other reasons why your site could be causing issues with your ads account:
- Landing Page: you should make sure that your landing page does not include any content that might be against the terms of service. This can even include words that might be red flags for Google and depend on the country. For example, in the UK mentioning certain medications on your landing page or ad can get your ad blocked unless you fall in one of the exceptions listed here.
- Redirection to Variable IP Addresses: Google will believe your ad is violating their policies if your domain often changes its IP address. This means that you should avoid the use of Dynamic DNS or IP Mapping on your site.
- Incorrect URL: make sure that your root domain is the same ad your destination and display URL as Google will sometimes block your ad for this reason. If your root domain is redirecting to another site this will also cause your ad to be blocked.
We hope with the help of this article you have developed a better understanding of how to avoid violating Google ad policies. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us for more guidance on how to grow your business through pay-per-click advertising!
