Block advertiser URLs

To use this feature, you must have a linked Ad Exchange account.

You can block ads from specific advertisers's websites from appearing on your pages. This is helpful when you don't want to display particular advertisements—for example, you may want to block ads leading to competitors' sites.

You can block ads that link (or, click-through) to specific URLs. This way, you can easily block all ads that are linked to your competitor at www.example.com. By entering a top-level domain, such as example.com, you'll also block all ads that link to subdirectories below that domain.

To block individual ads instead of specific advertiser URLs, use the Ad review center.

Advertiser URL blocks apply to these transactions

• Open Auctions
• Private Auctions
• First Look

Learn more about transaction types.

Guidelines for blocking URLs

Action / component	Guideline
When entering the advertising URLs you want to block	You can separate multiple URLs with commas or hard returns. You can block a maximum of 25,000 URLs per protection.
For URL paths	Entering example.com blocks ads to example.com and example.com/sub. Entering example.com/sub does not block ads to example.com/products.
For query paths	Entering example.com/1?2=3 blocks ads to example.com/1?4=5
For subdomains	Entering example.com blocks ads to www.example.com and forums.example.com. Entering www.example.com blocks ads to www.example.com, forums.example.com, and example.com. Entering forums.example.com blocks ads to forums.example.com but does not block ads to example.com, www.example.com, or admin.example.com.
For apps	URLs are normalized for Google Play Store and iTunes URLs. This means you only need to add one variation of the URL to block the app from advertising on your property. For example, if itunes.apple.com/app/id12345 and itunes.apple.com/us/app/id12345 point to the same app, you only need to enter one of the URLs to block the app entirely.
For YouTube videos	Block a single video by entering its URL: youtube.com/watch?v=VID Block all YouTube videos: youtube.com/watch Block an entire YouTube channel: youtube.com/watch?v=VID VID should be replaced with the corresponding video or channel ID.
For URLs that combine a top-level domain with a country code top-level domain (such as google.com.br)	Explicitly include the country code top-level domain as part of the URL.
For internationalized domain names	Internationalized domain names are accepted after being converted to ASCII strings using Punycode transcription and prefixed with xn--. For instance, Bücher.example is converted to xn--bcher-kva.example.

Block URLs in Protections

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Protections.
3. Click New protection  Ad content.
4. Name your protection.
5. The default setting is only to protect specific inventory.
   • To target specific inventory: click Add targeting, select an item from the dropdown, and make your targeting selections. 
   • Click Protect all inventory to create a global inventory protection.
6. Under "Blocks," click Add next to "Advertiser URLs."
7. In the text box, enter (or copy and paste) the display or destination URL(s) you want to block, separating new URLs with a line break.
   Follow the guidelines for blocking URLs.
8. Click Add.
   All of the advertiser URLs you enter appear on the right side of the page. To allow an advertiser URL that you’ve blocked, find it in the blocked list and click  to the right of the URL.
9. Click Update.
10. Add more protections as needed and click Save.

When URLs will be blocked

It can take up to 4 hours for these URLs to be blocked from your pages. Ads with these URLs can appear in the Ad review center for up to 24 hours.