Ad experience reviews

• Desktop and mobile ad experiences
• We review a sample of your pages
• Ads in short form video content
• About domains and subdomains
• Review status
• The review cycle
  • Ad filtering status and review submissions
  • Review timing and ad filtering status if your site is in "Failing" status"
  • Multiple “Failing” statuses in a one year period

Desktop and mobile ad experiences

The list of annoying ad experiences is different for desktop and mobile environments. For example, flashing animated ads are considered to be more annoying on mobile devices than on desktop screens, and are part of the mobile ad standard, but not the desktop ad standard, each as defined by the Coalition for Better Ads.

Because of this, we review pages on both the desktop and mobile versions of your site, and you’ll see a review status for each environment in the Ad Experience Report. 

We review a sample of your pages

Ad reviews are not exhaustive—we do not look at every page of your site. Instead, we review a sample of pages and report on ad experiences we find. (If your review status is “Failing,” you can see the violations we did find in the “What we found” column of the Report.) When you submit your site for review, we again look at a new sample of pages, which means we may find ad experiences that we did not find on earlier reviews.

Ads in short form video content

In addition to reviewing display ads, we review ads shown during online video viewing sessions of 8 minutes or less, whether or not videos that make up that session are on autoplay or manually selected. 

For example:

• Ads shown immediately before or during a 10 minute video are not reviewed.
• Ads shown immediately before or during a 4 minute video are reviewed. 
• If a 4 minute video is followed by a 10 minute video, only ads shown immediately before or during the 4 minute video are reviewed.
• If a 4 minute video is followed by a 30 second ad and then by a 7 minute video, ads shown immediately before and during the 4 minute video are reviewed, the 30 second ad is reviewed, and ads in the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds of the 7 minute video are reviewed.
• If a 4 minute video is followed by a 30 second ad and then by a 10 minute video, only ads shown immediately before or during the 4 minute video are reviewed. Any ads that appear after the 4 minute video are not reviewed. 

Video ads are evaluated in desktop web, mobile web, and in-app environments. 

About domains and subdomains

The Ad Experience Report shows issues that affect any page up to and including your root domain. Note that submitting your site for review implements a review of the entire site domain, not just the subdomains for which you are registered. 

Learn more about your site’s domains and the Ad Experience Report. 

Review status

You'll see one of the following statuses at the top of the Report:

Not reviewed: We haven't yet reviewed the ad experiences on your site. As a best practice, we recommend preemptively fixing any ad experiences before we review your site. 

Passing: We reviewed your site and haven't detected a significant number of annoying ad experiences on your pages. 

Failing: We reviewed your site and detected numerous ad experiences that violate the Better Ads Standards. You should fix the issues as soon as possible and submit your site for another review. If your site remains in this status, Chrome will filter ads.

Review pending: Your site has been submitted for a review. You’ll be unable to submit it for another review until we've completed this one. If your site was in "Failing" status, ad filtering may be paused during this time period.

Note: If your site is in “Failing” status, we’ll send an email to registered site owners and users at least 30 calendar days prior to the start of ad filtering, and you’ll have the opportunity to submit your site for an ad experience review.

The review cycle

You should fix your site's issues and submit it for review if:

• Your site’s review status is “Failing”; and
• You are a site owner or user as defined by the Google Search Console. 

Note that restricted users can view the Report, but cannot submit the site for a review.

Ad filtering status and review submissions

If your site is in “Failing” status, ad filtering is paused while your request is being processed. However, after your 2nd request, there is a 30 day period during which you can't submit another review; during this time period ad filtering will commence on the date specified in the Ad Experience Report if your site remains in "Failing" status.

Review timing and ad filtering status if your site is in "Failing" status

• 1st review submission: ad filtering is paused while the request is being processed. If the result of the review is "Failing," a 2nd review can be submitted immediately.
• 2nd review submission: ad filtering is paused while the request is being processed. If the result of the review is "Failing," a 3rd submission cannot be made for 30 days, and ad filtering commences upon the date specified in the Ad Experience Report.
• 3rd and subsequent review submissions: cannot be made until 30 days have passed since the previous review submission, or until the site’s review status changes from “Failing” to “Passing.”

 

An example

The following example illustrates how ad filtering occurs if multiple site reviews do not address issues on a site whose review status is “Failing.”

Site example.com is notified that it's in "Failing" status, and that ad filtering will begin in 30 days. The following then occurs:

1. An ad ops manager immediately fixes or removes some of the ad experiences and submits example.com for a review. This is the 1st review.
2. 7 days later the review results come back, and the site remains in "Failing" status. 23 days now remain before ad filtering commences if the issues are not addressed.
3. 3 days later the ad ops manager removes or fixes additional ad experiences, and submits the site for another review. This is the 2nd review. The site can now not be submitted for review for 30 days. If the site remains in "Failing" status, ad filtering begins in 20 days.
4. 6 days later the review results come back, and the site remains in "Failing" status. The site cannot be submitted for another review for 24 days, but ad filtering will begin in 14 days. Unfortunately, this means that ad filtering will occur for 10 days before the site is eligible for another review submission.

Multiple “Failing” statuses in a one year period

Starting on June 19, 2020, when your site’s status changes to “Failing” for the 4th time within a one year (365 day) period, enforcement begins immediately, and you won't be able to submit your site for review for 30 days. 

Here’s how to figure out if your site is affected by multiple “Failing” statuses in a one year period:

1. At the time of your last “Failing” status notification, look back 365 days.
2. Add up the number of times your site changed to “Failing” status within the past 365 days, including the most recent.
3. Use the table below to see when ad filtering begins, and when you’ll be able to request your next review.
    

The table below defines enforcement and review timing for multiple “Failing” statuses in a one year period.

Number of "Failing" statuses within a one year (365 day) period	Amount of time before ad filtering begins	Able to request a site review
1	30 days	Immediately after notification of “Failing” status
2	7 days	Immediately after notification of “Failing” status
3	0 days (immediate ad filtering)	24 hours after notification of “Failing” status
4 or more*	0 days (immediate ad filtering)	30 days after notification of “Failing” status

* Starting on June 19, 2020

Note that the above timeframe is accounted for in the Ad filtering status at the top of the Report.

When you do submit your site for a review, ad filtering is paused until the review is complete.

An example

The following example illustrates the timeframe of Chrome ad filtering when a site changes between “Passing” and “Failing” multiple times in a one year period.

Site example.com has moved from “Passing” to “Failing” review status twice in a one year period, and has just received a “Failing” status for the third time. 

The following then occurs:

1. Because this is the third “Failing” status in a one year period, ad filtering begins immediately.
2. The webmaster fixes or removes the ad experiences, but is not permitted to submit the site for review for 24 hours after the notification of “Failing” status. During this time period, ad filtering continues.
3. After 24 hours, the webmaster submits example.com for a review. 
4. The site’s status changes to “Review pending,” and ad filtering is set to “Paused” while the site is reviewed.
5. 4 days after the submission, the review results come back, and the site’s status now changes to “Passing.”
6. Ad filtering status is now set to “Off.” 

If the site were to fail again within the same one year (365 day) period, enforcement would begin immediately, and the webmaster would be unable to submit the site for review for 30 days after the notification of the “Failing” status.