List of ad policies
Review process
- About the ad review process
- About Past violations
- Eligible (limited): Definition
- Under review: Definition
- Advertising policies
- Disapproved: Definition
- Not eligible: Definition
- How automation is used in content moderation
- Limited ad serving
Verification and transparency
Change log
List of ad policies
Review process
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About the ad review process
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
To keep ads safe and appropriate for everyone, ads are reviewed to make sure they comply with Google Ads policies. Most ads are reviewed within one business day.
Your ads under review
Check your ad’s status and get help if you need it. Most reviews are completed within one business day, but more complex reviews can take longer.
How ad review works
After you create or edit an ad or asset, the review process begins automatically. The content in your ad will be reviewed, including your headline, description, keywords, destination, and any images and video.
If your ad passes the review, its status will change to "Eligible", and it will start to run. If the review indicates that your ad violates a policy, its status will change to "Disapproved", which means it can’t show anywhere. You’ll be notified of the policy violation and informed what you can do next.
Learn how to check the status of an ad.
Ad status is “Under review”
During the ad review process, the ad’s status will be "Under review". We review most ads within one business day, though some complex reviews may take longer. Google reserves the right to prioritize ad reviews or re-reviews to ensure the overall stability of system operations, or temporarily restrict ad serving to ensure policy compliance. If your ad is under review for more than 2 full business days, check your ad’s status.
How long ad review takes
How to start ads on a particular date- Most ads are reviewed within 1 business day. However, some reviews take longer if the ad requires a more complex review.
- If your ad is under review for more than 2 full business days, check your ad’s status.
- Google reserves the right to prioritize ad reviews or re-reviews to ensure the overall stability of system operations, or temporarily restrict ad serving to ensure policy compliance.
If you need your ad reviewed by a particular date, submit the ad several days in advance. To stop an ad from running as soon as its status is Eligible, pause the ad, ad group, or campaign. Paused ads are reviewed just like active ads. Learn how to pause or resume your ads
If you're also planning to launch a new webpage at the same time, that webpage will need to be complete for your ad to be reviewed.
To make sure that the new page stays hidden until your launch date:
Don't link to the new page on the rest of your website. If you were to link to the new page, then search engines might index it, and the page could start appearing in search results.
Configure your website’s "robots.txt" file. In your website’s robots.txt file, you can tell search engines not to index the page. Then once you’re ready to launch, remove the change. Learn more about configuring your robots.txt file
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About Past violations
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
Google continuously re-reviews ads to ensure they conform with our policies. During the standard re-review process, our system may identify disapproved ads that no longer violate our policies. If your ad was disapproved for an extended period of time and our enforcement system later decides that the policy no longer applies, we may keep the ad disapproved and classify the ad as “Past Violation”. We do this to prevent you from unintentionally exhausting spend on old ads. In order to re-activate your ads, please follow the steps below:
Instructions
Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
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- In the "Status" column, hover over the "Disapproved" status.
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If available, click the Appeal link.
Note: If you don’t have this link, the associated policy doesn’t allow campaign submission. You’ll need to make and save minor edits to each ad to trigger a review.
- Under "Reason for appealing," select Dispute decision or Made changes to comply with policy.
- Under "Appeal the following," select which ads you want to appeal.
- Click Submit.
To learn more about fixing disapproved ads, please visit this help article. - In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
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Eligible (limited): Definition
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
A status given to ads and products that comply with our policies but are limited in where and when they can show.
An ad or product will be marked "Eligible (limited)" when Google Ads policies (common examples include Alcohol, Gambling, Healthcare, and Trademarks) prevent certain types of ads or products from showing in certain regions, to certain ages, or on certain devices. Ads or products won’t show on mobile devices if the destination performs poorly on mobile devices.
For example:
- A gambling ad or product run by an advertiser certified under our Gambling policy will serve as Eligible (limited).
- An ad or product labeled for our Sexual Content: Moderately Restricted policy will serve as Eligible (limited).
If you believe your ad or product has been incorrectly labeled for a policy restriction and should not be serving as Eligible (limited), then follow the appeal process instructions outlined in the article Fix a disapproved ad.
Learn more
Enable the Policy Details column to see why an ad is Eligible (limited)
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Under review: Definition
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
A status given to ads that are being reviewed to ensure they are safe, appropriate, and comply with advertising policies.
We review most ads within one business day, though some complex reviews may take longer. If your ad is under review for longer than one full business day, contact us. Google reserves the right to prioritize reviews to ensure the overall stability of system operations. -
Advertising policies
Guidelines for your ads, keywords, and website. Ads that violate our policies won't be able to run.
- Visit the Google Ads Policy Center to review the guidelines that can apply to you.
- Google's advertising policies are designed to promote a good experience for people viewing our ads, to help you be successful with your ads, and to help make sure that ads follow applicable laws in the countries where they appear.
- All ads go through an approval process to ensure the ads are safe and appropriate for users. Every time you create a new ad or make changes to an existing ad, it will automatically be submitted for review to ensure that it follows our advertising policies.
- Ads that we find in violation of these policies will be marked as Disapproved or Suspended and will not be able to run while in that status.
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Disapproved: Definition
A disapproved ad won't show because it violates the Google Ads policies.
Find out why an ad was disapproved by hovering your cursor over the "Status" column. This will display information about the policy violation impacting your ad. Click “Read the policy” under the disapproval reason to learn how to fix your ad.
If you believe that we’ve made an error or have fixed your ad to comply with our policies, you can appeal the disapproval by following the guidelines here. After you have submitted an appeal, it will be reviewed again and can become "Eligible" if we determine that the ad complies with our policies.
Learn more
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Not eligible: Definition
A status given to campaigns, ad groups, ads, or keywords that are not serving.
Learn more
- About the ad review process
- Enable the Policy Details column to see why an ad is Not eligible
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How automation is used in content moderation
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
To keep ads safe and appropriate for everyone, ads are reviewed to make sure they comply with Google Ads policies. Most ads are reviewed within one business day.
We use a combination of Google's AI and human evaluation to detect and remove ads which violate our policies and are harmful to users and the overall Google Ads ecosystem. Our enforcement technologies may use Google's AI, modeled on human reviewers’ decisions, to help protect our users and keep our ad platforms safe. The policy-violating content is either removed by Google's AI or, where a more nuanced determination is required, it is flagged for further review by trained operators and analysts who conduct content evaluations that might be difficult for algorithms to perform alone, for example because an understanding of the context of the ad is required. The results of these manual reviews are then used to help build training data to further improve our machine learning models.
When reviewing content or accounts to determine whether they violate our policies, we take various information into consideration when making a decision, including the content of the creative (e.g. ad text, keywords, and any images and video) as well as the associated ad destination. We also consider account information (e.g., past history of policy violations) and other information provided through reporting mechanisms (where applicable) and our investigation.
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Limited ad serving
Google provides translated versions of our Help Center, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
To protect the integrity of our Google Ads ecosystem, we limit impressions of ads that have a higher potential of causing abuse or a poor experience for our users. This policy is specific to a certain set of ad-serving scenarios, which are detailed below. In these instances, only qualified advertisers will be able to serve ads without impression limits. This policy is separate from Google’s existing certifications which prohibit uncertified advertisers from serving specific ads, learn more about ad serving eligibility here.
Why will certain advertisers be limited?
Ads from unqualified advertisers will be limited in specific scenarios to decrease the potential for negative user experiences when interacting with these ads and to increase user and advertiser trust in the Google Ads platform. If an advertiser is not promoting ads within these scenarios, their ads will not be limited by this policy. We take the following into consideration when determining if a particular scenario has a higher potential of causing abuse or creating a poor user experience:
- User feedback
- Prevalence of abuse
- Industry trends
Who is a qualified advertiser?
A qualified advertiser’s ad impressions are not limited by this policy. Google will take into consideration various factors to evaluate whether an advertiser is qualified, such as:
- Account attributes
- User activity and reports
- Account maturity
- Ad format usage
- History of policy-compliance
- Advertiser industry
- Identity verification status
What you can do to become a qualified advertiser?
Continue to build campaigns and creatives with positive user engagement while we assess your account. Make sure you’re complying with our advertising policies. And if your account is eligible, consider initiating advertiser verification.
While your account is being assessed
While an advertiser is building trust with Google and our users to become qualified, their ad impressions may be limited in the scenarios described below. Ads will not be disapproved as a result of this policy. We will automatically review and update advertisers’ ad serving limits as we continue to monitor your accounts. Unfortunately, we can’t say how long this might take.
If we detect any issues after lifting a limit, we may need to reinstate the limit while we evaluate further.
How will I know if my account has been limited?
Unqualified advertisers who have a meaningful proportion of impressions in scope of this policy will receive an in-account notification. Individual ads will not be disapproved.
In the meantime, your account will still be fully accessible and ads will only be limited in the scenarios listed below.
Below are the scenarios in which your ads may be limited.
Advertisers with unclear brand relationships and generic ads
We want to ensure that users know which advertisers they are interacting with. At times, users may not be seeking content related to a particular advertiser, brand, product, or service; other times they may have a specific brand in mind. In both situations, Google wants to ensure that the identity of the advertiser the user chooses to engage with is unambiguous.
While an advertiser may not intend to purposefully mislead a user or misrepresent themselves, ads that reference other brands and generic ads that have no branding at all may confuse the user into thinking they are interacting with their desired advertiser. In these cases, Google may limit impressions for all branded and generic ads for that advertiser.
Examples that reference a brand where the relationship to the advertiser is unclear include (non-exhaustive):
- Referencing another brand’s name or likeness (such as an airline or customer service department) in response to a user’s search for that brand
- Referencing a name or brand closely resembling another brand in response to a user’s general search of an industry (e.g., technology, travel, customer service)
- Situations where the user has reason to believe they are interacting with another brand
- Use of a brand logo by an unaffiliated advertiser
Examples when a generic ad may be unclear include (non-exhaustive):
- Users searching for specific brands, products, or services who encounter unbranded ads from third parties
Here are some ways to help make your identity clear in your creatives and minimize limited ad serving:
- Pin your domain (e.g. mydomain.com) in the front of the ad title, especially if you are a new advertiser or not well-known by users. (Note: The ability to pin your domain might not be available in certain ad or campaign types, limiting your access to those features temporarily)
- Make sure you’re complying with our advertising policies
- Don’t use names of other brands or logos in your ad creative, and clearly include your brand in the ad
- Avoid overly generic copy in your ads and landing page
- Avoid promoting products or services without your clear brand identity
- If eligible, complete the advertiser verification.
- Continue to build campaigns and creatives to accumulate positive user interactions so we can better assess your account.