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Troubleshoot ad tags

Troubleshoot Google Publisher Tags

If your network uses Google Publisher Tags (GPT), you can use an on-screen debugging tool called the Google Publisher Console to troubleshoot delivery problems. The console checks your page for many common JavaScript tagging errors, identifies all of the ad units and creatives on the page, and helps you visualize the ad request behavior of a web page.

DFP doesn't count impressions when you use the console.

To enable the Publisher Console on a page tagged with the Google Publisher Tag:

  1. Append ?google_console=1 to your page's URL.

    For example, if your page is located at www.google.com/gpt, you’d modify the URL to www.google.com/gpt?google_console=1.

  2. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F10 (on a Mac, use Function+Ctrl+F10) to open the console.

The console has two main tabs that display page information: "Ad Units" and "Page Request". In addition, the panel on the right indicates whether the page was tagged correctly, with details in the "Ad Units" and "Page Request" tabs. These features are described in the sections below.

The Ad Units tab

The Ad Units tab displays the following information:

  • Publisher's DFP ID
  • Creative size
  • Time to fetch and render this ad
  • Links to helpful debugging information

There are three links within the Ad Units tab that help you find the most important information quickly:

  • Open Ad Unit in DFP: Opens the ad unit in the "Inventory" tab in their network.
  • Delivery diagnostics: Opens a new window with information about which line item is serving and the other line items eligible to serve to that ad slot.
  • Open Creative in a New Window: Opens the creative in a new window.
To use the "Open Ad Unit in DFP" and "Delivery Diagnostics" links, you must be logged into a DFP network. Although the use of the Google Console is not restricted to the site owner, private network information through these links are not accessible to the public.

The Page Request tab

The Page Request Tab displays the following information:

  • Time to fetch and render ads
  • HTTP user agent information
  • Timeline of events in rendering ads, like the sequential view in a web proxy tool console

This tab can help troubleshoot why a page is loading slowly by showing the sequence of events that occurs during a page load.

Tag checker

The Google Console will also check if your page is tagged correctly. To the right of the tabs, the console will show a green checkmark with the message "Page tagged correctly!"

There is a limit for the number of ad units on a page determined by the length of the ad request URL. If there are too many ad units on a page, the ad request URL limit exceeds 2,000 characters and gets truncated, you will get an error in the console: "Ad unit failed to fetch."

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