An update to display URL policy

We'd like to give you advance notice of an update to our display URL policy, which will take effect on April 1st. While the majority of advertisers will not be affected at all, action will be required from those who are. Please take a few minutes to read this post thoroughly, as the information below should help you determine whether you will be affected by this change.

In response to advertiser and user feedback, and in an effort to provide more relevant advertising results and a higher quality experience for our users, we have made the decision to no longer allow certain exceptions with regards to our display URL policy. This includes, but is not limited to redirects and vanity URLs. This policy will be strictly enforced regardless of past approvals and will apply to all advertisers, beginning on April 1st.

In line with our existing policy, we will continue to require that your ad's display URL match its destination URL (the URL of your landing page).

For example, if your destination URL is www.google.com, your display URL must also be www.google.com. The following would not be acceptable display URLs for an ad for www.google.com:

• www.google.co.uk - because this URL leads to a different site
• www.gogle.com - even though this URL simply redirects to www.google.com it is still not acceptable
• www.gooogle.com - because this URL leads to a page showing content identical to www.google.com

What about tracking URLs?
We do understand that many advertisers utilize tracking URLs within the destination field of their ads. Therefore, if the URL of your landing page matches that of your display URL, your ads will be approved.

For example:

Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
--> Landing page URL: www.google.com would be acceptable

Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
--> Landing page URL: www.trackingurl.com would not be acceptable

Are sub-domains still acceptable?
Yes, the use of sub-domains and additional text within the display will continue to be acceptable provided the top-level domain matches the URL of your landing page.

For example, display URLs such as the following:

sub.google.com
google.com/extratext

www.google.com/extratext

would all be acceptable for the landing page URL below, as the top-level domain of google.com is matched:

http://sub.google.com/miscellaneous

In light of this update to display URL policy, we'd encourage you to make any necessary changes to your ads in advance of the April 1st date to ensure that they'll run without disruption by future disapprovals related to this policy.

Thanks for reading this far, and please note that more information will be provided before April 1st via alerts in all AdWords accounts.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew