Hello AdSense publishers and partners!
This article will tell you all about the different blocking controls available to AdSense publishers.
You are in control
In order to give you editorial control over the ads on your website, we offer various options for blocking ads.
We’ve been offering category blocking options for publishers since 2010, recognizing that it’s part of best practices.
advertising
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We have received feedback from publishers that they are looking for better, easier, and faster ways to drive the ads on their sites.
We’ve also received feedback that publishers want to block ad themes from certain categories for a variety of reasons, including trademark protection and competitor exclusions.
Based on this feedback, we’ve increased our category list from 250 to 497, which gives publishers more precise controls. This contains:
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To block, you can block at the product level or at the site level.
What can be blocked
Publishers can block:
- By urls. A typical use case here would be blocking your competitors’ URLs. After all, you may not want your competitors to advertise on your website.
- Specific advertising networks. By default, we only allow certified Google advertising networks to be displayed on your pages. However, you can block certain networks if you wish.
- By categories. Here we’ve increased the number of category options for publishers.
In general, you shouldn’t think of blocking as an optimization strategy.
When more potential categories are available, it creates a more competitive ad auction environment, with the largest possible amount of ad inventory competing for an impression on your website.
Hence, the decision to block is a decision that must be made after careful consideration.
However, due to our expansion of categories, the potential negative monetization impact of blocking has been mitigated to some extent, as blocking can now be done at a more granular level, allowing publishers to block very specific categories. This is an improvement over blocking a broader category.
Perhaps some publishers could see a surge in monetization due to careful blocking. When a publisher is experiencing a large percentage of total impressions and there is little revenue from a category, blocking can help.
This block would then open the auction to new potential advertisers who may be performing better.
advertising
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Why is ad and category blocking good for publishers?
While monetization concerns should be considered, blocking offers a number of key benefits for publishers.
- Publishers who are particularly sensitive to certain categories (e.g. politics, religion, sexuality) should use blocking to prevent ads from showing that particular content.
- Publishers should block ads from specific companies with whom they have direct advertising contracts.
- Publishers can block advertisements from competitors for their business.
Publishers should use the controls in AdSense to control the ads on their website.
Just as advertisers want to protect their brands, publishers should have similar ways to protect themselves from showing ads from categories that are inappropriate for their brands.
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Final thoughts
We want publishers to be successful on the Google advertising network. Because of this, we try to provide as many tools and resources as possible to help our editors.
Blocking can be a useful tool and something you should take advantage of.
For more information and information about blocking options, see AdSense Help.
We look forward to your feedback and look forward to continuing this dialogue.
Let the questions come!
Featured image: Paulo Bobita
