Policy adjustment for display URLs

The display URL (the URL that appears within the ad itself) shows potential visitors to a site where they'll land when they click on an ad. For sites that sit on shared or hosted domains (such as blogspot.com), we're adjusting our display URL policy to make this more clear.

Beginning this week, all ads leading to sites on hosted domains will need to have display URLs that accurately reflect their destinations.

Let's say I wanted to create an ad linking to this blog: http://adwords.blogspot.com. In the past, blogspot.com would have been an acceptable display URL. Because there are so many independent blogs hosted on http://blogspot.com however, we now require the display URL to reflect the specific blog reached upon clicking the ad– in this case: adwords.blogspot.com.

Incorrect:

Destination URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com
Display URL: blogspot.com

Correct:

Destination URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com
Display URL: adwords.blogspot.com

Going forward, ads that don't include this additional information in their display URLs will be disapproved. A suggested display URL will be provided in the disapproval email notification, but we encourage you to proactively adjust any ads that you think might be affected by this change.

If you'd like to learn about this policy in greater detail, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Thanks for your understanding, and for helping us to continue to improve the AdWords experience.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew