About content exclusions for Video campaigns

Our Video Ad Safety Promise is that certain types of content can’t be monetized for ads on YouTube and Google video partners: we'll automatically apply exclusions to prevent your ads from showing on the most controversial content, such as terrorist acts, nudity, and recent sensitive events.

The content exclusion settings described below—inventory types, content types, and digital content labels—are meant to give you additional control and help you exclude types of content that, while in compliance with our policies, may not fit your brand or business. While content exclusions are done to the best of our ability, we can't guarantee that all related content will be excluded.

This article provides an overview of content exclusion settings for Video campaigns. Learn more about setting up content exclusions for Video campaigns.

Content exclusion settings

You can use the following content exclusion settings for your Video campaigns, at the account level.

Important: Starting September 2024, digital content labels, currently available in the Brand Safety settings, will no longer apply to ads served on YouTube. This will apply to all buying doors, Google Ads, DV360, and Connect Reserve. Digital content labels will continue to apply to the Google Display Network, including App inventory, and Content suitable for families (CSF) will continue to exist even after the deprecation of digital content labels.

Inventory types

With inventory types, you can opt out of groups of sensitive content that don’t align with the brand or message of your campaign.

You can select from the following 3 inventory types. You can also view more details about what content types are included and excluded for each inventory type.

Expanded inventory

This option lets you show ads on all videos on YouTube and Google video partners that meet our standards for monetization. This option may be an appropriate choice for brands that want maximum access to the full breadth of videos eligible for ads, including, for example, videos that have strong profanity in the context of comedy or a documentary, or excessive violence as featured in video games.

Standard inventory (recommended)

All Google Ads accounts are opted in to this inventory type by default. This option lets you show ads across a wide range of content that’s appropriate for most brands, such as popular music videos, documentaries, and movie trailers. The content you can show ads on is based on our advertiser-friendly content guidelines that take into account, for example, the strength or frequency of profanity, or the appropriateness of subject matter like sensitive events. Ads won’t show, for example, on content with repeated strong profanity, strong sexual content, or graphic violence.

Limited inventory

This option lets you show ads on a reduced range of content that’s appropriate for brands with particularly strict guidelines around inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness – above and beyond what our advertiser-friendly content guidelines address. The videos accessible in this inventory type meet heightened requirements, especially for inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness. For example, your ads will be excluded from showing on some of YouTube's most popular music videos and other pop culture content across YouTube and Google video partners.

Video Ad Safety Promise and inventory type content details

Video Ad Safety Promise

Your ads automatically will be excluded from showing on the following types of content, no matter what inventory type you choose.

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
Profanity in the title or thumbnail image, or profanity used repeatedly or throughout	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Full nudity, exposed nipples, animal mating, sexual abuse, or sexual content in the thumbnail	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Content showing abusing, buying, making, selling, or finding drugs	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Content discussing terrorism or sensitive current events like war, death, or tragedy Note: If these types of content are posted from authoritative news sources and comply with our advertiser-friendly content guidelines, these can run in “Standard inventory”.	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded

Profanity

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
Light profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic or artistic way	Included	Included	Included
Moderate profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic, or artistic manner, or a music video with frequent profanity	Included	Included	Excluded
Strong profanity used throughout or at the very beginning of the video in comedy, documentary, news, or education	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Sexualized content

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
Romance, kissing, limited clothing in non-sexual settings, or general discussions of relationships or sexuality	Included	Included	Included
Limited clothing in sexual settings, sensual dancing, moderate sexually suggestive behavior, or a music video containing sexual content	Included	Included	Excluded
Blurred nudity, focus on sexual body parts, focus on sex as a topic, discussions about sex acts, implied or display of sex acts or sex toys without visible contact or nudity	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Violence

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
Mild violence or injury without showing blood or graphic content	Included	Included	Included
Violence or graphic content in video games, comedy, or music videos	Included	Included	Included
Focus on blood, gore, and excessive violence in video games, animal violence, or animation; sports, accidents, pranks, or “fails” with serious injury; blood shown in body modification or medical procedures	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Drugs

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
Content with humorous references, education, music, or statements without glorifying or promoting drugs	Included	Included	Included
Drug consumption, fabrication, and distribution in the context of music, comedy, news, education, or documentary	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Hurtful language

Video content	Expanded inventory	Standard inventory	Limited inventory
News, documentary, or education content with words that could be considered biased, demeaning, or hate speech against a race, religion, gender, or other group	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Content types

Digital content labels

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About content exclusions for Video campaigns

Content exclusion settings

Video Ad Safety Promise and inventory type content details

Video Ad Safety Promise

Profanity

Sexualized content

Violence

Drugs

Hurtful language

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