Preventing and resolving AdWords policy violations

We invest a lot of time and resources to ensure that ads deliver a safe and positive experience for users. Our advertising policies play a big role in this effort.

Being familiar with our ads policies can help you avoid violating them. When we detect ads or sites that violate our policies, we block them. And in the case of repeated violations, we may permanently suspend a violator from advertising with us. That's why we strongly encourage advertisers to work proactively to fix problems and learn from their mistakes.

Preventing violations
Here are some tips for keeping your account clean and clear of policy violations in the first place, so your ads can run smoothly:
  1. Learn the key principles behind our ad policies, like "Advertising shouldn't violate users' trust or privacy." Following these principles alone can help you avoid violations. You can also dig into the specific underlying policies to learn details (full list of policies). 
  2. If you receive a warning during ad creation, review the relevant policy to understand if you're compliant before uploading the ad. 
  3. Ensure your contact information is up to date to receive policy notifications, and be sure to read any emails we send you about AdWords policies. We also post all policy updates online ahead of time. 
Identifying and resolving violations 
If one of your ads has been disapproved, you'll want to understand the reason so you can resolve it and prevent the same violation in the future. This is how to get the details:
  1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com
  2. Click Campaigns near the top of your account. 
  3. Click the Ads tab. 
  4. Look through the Status column to see which ads are disapproved. If you have many ads, you might prefer to use a filter (learn how). 
  5. Hover over the white speech bubble next to "Disapproved."
  6. Click the disapproval reason to learn more.
You can find more information on how to locate and fix disapproved ads or fix a site-level violation in the AdWords Help Center.

We appreciate your help ensuring that Google ads provide a trustworthy and positive experience for users.

Posted by Sudhir Jha, Google Product Manager

Announcing: Hangout on Air on Ad Disapprovals and Review Process

Ads are at the lifeblood of any AdWords campaign — they share what’s unique about your business and drive users to action. But since we only want our users to see high-quality ads, disapproved ads are prevented from ever showing.

Some of the most common disapproval reasons can be fixed with just a quick edit to the ad:
(1) Destination URL (Invalid HTTP Response Code, Broken Link)
(2) Display URL (Inaccurate Display URL, One Display URL Domain Per Ad Group)
(3) Editorial Standards (Capitalization, Punctuation & Symbols)

To understand how you can avoid these common disapproval reasons or fix your ads if they’re disapproved, tune in to the Google Ads G+ page Hangout on Air with AdWords Specialists on Thursday, May 9. The Hangout on Air will be live both 11am GMT and 11am PDT, so advertisers around the globe can tune in.

To join the Hangouts, just sign into Google+ and add the Google Ads +Page to your circles. Then, on Thursday, navigate to your Stream where you’ll be able to view our Hangout live with just one click.  See you there!

Posted by Charvi Singh and Saarini Bagga, Ads Review Operations