Google Program Guidelines

Revised: February 9, 2024

Introduction
General Content Policies
Incentives to search or click on ads
Making Requests
Privacy

• Identifying Users and User Consent
• COPPA

Displaying Results
Handling Ads

• Software Restrictions
• Gambling Ads

Ad Filtering

• AdSafe Levels
• Targeting a Specific Language
• Blocking URLs

Search Filtering

• Automatic Filtering of Search Results
• SafeSearch
• Language and Location Restrictions

Monitoring
Beta Features
Technical Support

Introduction

These guidelines apply to the use of Google's WebSearch (WS) and AdSense for Search (AFS).

General Content Policies

If Google services are implemented on a web site, the web site should adhere to the Spam policies.

All Google Services

Websites and client applications accessing Google services may not contain, link to, promote, or distribute any of the following:

• Pornographic, adult, or mature content
• Violent content
• Content that threatens or advocates for harm on oneself or others
• Content that harasses, intimidates or bullies an individual or group of individuals
• Content that incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization
• Excessive profanity
• Hacking/cracking content
• Software or other content that violates the Unwanted Software Policy
• Malware or adware
• Online gambling or online casino-related content
• Recreational drugs and drug-related content
• Sale of beer or hard alcohol, unless permitted by Google
• Sale of tobacco or tobacco-related products
• Sale of prescription drugs
• Sale of unapproved pharmaceuticals and supplements, including items on this non-exhaustive list of prohibited pharmaceuticals and supplements
• Sale of weapons or ammunition (for example, firearms, firearm components, fighting knives)
• Sale of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
• Sale or distribution of coursework or student essays
• Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
• Pages that automatically refresh including via Ajax, unless otherwise approved
• Content protected by copyright law unless you have the necessary legal rights to display that content
• Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others
• Placing ads in a floating box script. (With Google's permission and subject to Google's Sticky Ads Implementation Guideline, we do allow fixed/persistent desktop ads that stay visible in the viewport as the user scrolls the content of the page up or down).

Publishers may not access Google services from pages with content primarily in an unsupported language. See the list of supported languages.

Publishers may not place ads on sites that contain abusive experiences. Please see the abusive experiences page for more information.

Sensitive Events

Policies specific to AFS

AFS may not be implemented on search results pages where the results are comprised in substantial part of the following:

• People
• Music
• Content originating from any Google service (e.g., YouTube API), unless expressly permitted in your relevant agreement or approved by Google in writing. 

Incentives to search or click on ads

In order to provide a great user and advertiser experience, you may not request that users click the ads or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. The following is not permissible:

• Encouraging users to search or click on ads by using phrases such as "search now", "click the ads," "support us," "visit these links" or other similar language.
• Directing user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical means.
• Placing misleading content alongside individual ads.
• Promoting sites that access Google services through malware, adware, or unsolicited mass emails.
• Compensating users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party, such as a charity, for such behavior.
• Placing misleading labels above ads - for instance, ads may be labeled "Sponsored Links" but not "Favorite Sites."
• Placing ads in a floating box script.

Making Requests

• You may not make more than 1 request for ads per page on which results will be displayed.
• If your site uses a different UI for mobile vs. desktop/laptop traffic for AFS, then you must use a separate client ID for mobile traffic.
• You may not request more than 10 WS results per request.
• You may not place ads on a page that also concurrently displays Google Ads text demand through other units.
• The number of ads on the page should not exceed the number of organic search results.
• You must segment traffic from Alternative Search Queries in accordance with Google's technical requirements or as requested by Google (for example, by implementing separate client IDs).

Google may assign and modify the number of client IDs and channel IDs for each service from time to time. You must use client IDs and channel IDs as instructed by Google, and must provide such information to Google as Google may reasonably request with respect to the use and application of any client IDs and channel IDs.

Privacy

You must disclose clearly any data collection, sharing and usage that takes place on any site, app or other property as a consequence of your use of any Google advertising service. To comply with this disclosure obligation with respect to Google's use of data, you have the option to display a prominent link to How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps.

Identifying Users and User Consent

You must not pass any information to Google:

• that Google could use or recognize as personally-identifiable information; or
• that permanently identifies a particular device (such as a mobile phone's unique device identifier if such an identifier cannot be reset).

You must not use Google AdSense to facilitate the merging of personally-identifiable information with information previously collected as non-personally identifiable information without robust notice of, and the user's prior affirmative (i.e., opt-in) consent to, that merger.

For more information, please refer to Guidance for complying with the Identifying Users Policy.

You must also comply with the EU user consent policy.

COPPA

If you implement any Google advertising service on a site or section of a site that is covered by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), (a) you must notify Google of those sites or sections of sites covered by COPPA using the tools found here: https://search.google.com/search-console/coppa and (b) you must not use interest-based advertising (including remarketing) to target: (i) past or current activity by users known by you to be under the age of 13 years or (ii) past or current activity on sites directed at users under the age of 13 years.

Displaying Results

Each cluster or grouping of ads should be clearly distinguished from search results as applicable. Ad blocks must be placed on the page and formatted or delineated in such a manner that users can clearly identify the ads. ads may not be interspersed with Google search results or the results of any other search provider. When a user clicks on an ad, the advertiser's site must load in the same browser tab (or browser window if a user's browser does not support tabbing), and the user's click may not open a new browser window that opens the advertiser's site unless the implementation is approved by Google.

Handling Ads

Software Restrictions

Ads may not be loaded by any software that can trigger pop-ups, redirect users to unintended websites, modify browser settings, or otherwise interfere with site navigation. For clarification, this prohibition precludes the use of any system that overlays or creates ad space on a given site without the express permission of the site owner, including without limitation toolbars.

Gambling Ads

You must not opt into gambling ads if your Site(s) is targeted at individuals under 18 years old. If you choose to opt into receiving gambling ads, then you have confirmed that your Site(s) is not targeted at individuals under 18 years old.

Ad Filtering

AdSense has filtering capabilities, such as AdSafe and URL blocklists, that may be used to restrict certain types of ads from showing on a partner's site. AdSafe filters may be enabled on each request, while blocklists, if specified, apply to requests generally on a client identifier basis. Google doesn't make any commitment that the filters will always be accurate. These filters should be set in accordance with the instructions provided by Google.

AdSafe Levels

AdSafe is a filtering technology that assists Google to screen for ads that contain adult content and prevent those ads from being returned to partners. Google AdSense recognizes three categories of ads:

1. Family-safe ads contain content that is generally appropriate to display for all ages.
   • This includes ads for products like flowers, electronics and insurance.
   • For some types of products and services, such as lingerie or dating services, ads may be family-safe if the ads and the advertisers' sites do not contain adult language or adult sexual content.
2. Non-family-safe ads contain adult content or are intended for users over 18 years of age.
   • This includes ads for products like wine.
   • Some types of products and services, such as sexual aids, abortion, cosmetic surgery or dating services, may be non-family-safe if they contain adult content or language but do not contain material categorized as pornography.
3. Adult Sexual Content ads link to sites that contain nudity, partial nudity, sexual imagery/acts or lewd/graphic language. This may include certain ads for escort services or sexual aids if they contain the above content.

Google's ad review process is designed to evaluate both the content and the context of an ad. An ad that only uses family-safe language may be categorized as adult sexual content if it links to a site with explicit sexual material. Similarly, ads for services like cosmetic surgery or dating sites may fall into any of the three categories depending on the content of both the ad and the site to which it links. For more detailed information, please view the Google Ads Advertising Policies.

The following table shows Google's AdSafe settings and how those settings affect the ads that are returned to partners:

Ad categories shown	Filter action	Sample ads that may appear	Types of ads targeted for filtering	Filter setting
Family-safe ads	Filters out pornographic and adult ads	Flowers	Gambling, sexual aids	High
Non-family-safe ads + Family-safe ads	Filters out pornographic ads	Flowers, gambling, alcohol	Sexual aids that contain pornographic content	Medium
All ads	Filter out pornographic ads except when query is pornographic in nature	Flowers, gambling, alcohol, and sexual aids when query is pornographic in nature	None when query is pornographic in nature	Low

Family-safe ads are shown by default.

Targeting a Specific Language

For language targeting, if the page being viewed is in Google's index, the target language for ads will be determined by the language in which the page is written.

Blocking URLs

This feature specifies ad URLs that should be targeted to be excluded from the ads results set. Partners may update blocklists once per quarter or as otherwise approved by Google. To update a blocklist, please follow the instructions provided by your Google account manager.

Creating a URL Blocklist

To target filtering of ads that link to specific URLs, you will need the following information:

• The client identifiers to which the URL blocklist should be applied. The client ID is the value of the client identifier parameter in each AdSense request.
• A list of domain or site names, with one name listed on each line.
  • Good examples: names should not specify a protocol ("http://" or "https://") and should not contain trailing slashes ("/")
    • goodexample.com
    • goodexample.com
    • goodexample.com/goodpages
  • Bad examples
    • http://badexample.com
    • badexample.com/

Adding to a URL Blocklist

After submitting the initial URL blocklist, all future submissions should contain the client identifier and only the additional domain and/or site names to be blocked.

Removing Sites or Domains from a URL Blocklist

To remove (unblock) URLs from the URL blocklist, please specify the client identifier and the domain and/or site name to be removed.

Search Filtering

WebSearch has automatic filtering as well as SafeSearch, Location Restrict, and Language Restrict capabilities that can be used to restrict certain types of Google results from showing.

Partners enable the use of each of the filters and it is their responsibility to enable such features in accordance with the instructions provided by Google. Google doesn't make any commitment that the filters will always be accurate.

Automatic Filtering of Search Results

In an effort to provide the best search results possible, Google uses two techniques to automatically filter Google search results that are generally considered undesirable:

• Duplicate Content: If multiple documents contain the same information, then only the most relevant document of that set is included in the Google search results.
• Host Crowding: If there are many search results from the same site, Google returns the two most relevant results for that site in the XML response to the query.

SafeSearch

SafeSearch allows partners to screen and eliminate search results that contain pornography and other explicit sexual content. SafeSearch has these settings:

• on — SafeSearch is applied across all search modes; results are filtered for pornography and other explicit sexual content.
• off — No SafeSearch filtering. This is the default behavior.

SafeSearch is available in these languages:

Arabic (Modern Standard) Bulgarian Catalan Czech Danish German Greek Spanish (European) Finnish

French (European) Hindi Croatian Hungarian Indonesian Italian Hebrew Japanese Korean Lithuanian

Latvian Dutch Norwegian (Bokmål) Norwegian (Nynorsk) Polish Portuguese (Brazilian) Portuguese (European) Romanian Russian Slovak

Slovenian Serbian (Cyrillic) Swedish Thai Filipino Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Chinese (Simplified, Mandarin) Chinese (Traditional, Mandarin)

Language and Location Restrictions

The Google WebSearch service returns results from an index of web documents. The index contains subcollections of documents that are grouped by particular attributes, including language and country of origin. You can use request parameters to restrict Google search results to subcollections of documents (e.g. documents that are written in particular languages). Google WebSearch determines the language of a document by analyzing:

• The top-level domain (TLD) of the document's URL
• Language meta tags within the document
• The primary language used in the body text of the document

The algorithm for determining the language of a document is not customizable for individual Google customers and may not be useful to all Google customers.

You can combine language values with other values to customize Google search results. For example, you may request documents that are written in French.

Monitoring

Google may generate a reasonable number of requests or make a reasonable number of uncompensated clicks on any search results or ads at any time to check that the services are properly maintained.

Beta Features

Services may include one or more Google confidential beta features, which can be enabled in your discretion. Google may cease providing beta feature(s) at any time in its discretion. Google may not, in its discretion, provide any technical support services in relation to beta features.

Technical Support

Google will provide technical support services in accordance with Google's support guidelines. Prior to making any support request to Google, you must first use reasonable efforts to fix any error, bug, malfunction, or network connectivity defect without any escalation to Google. Thereafter, a written request for technical support can be submitted to the applicable email address that Google may provide from time to time. You must provide support services to end users at their own expense.

From time to time, Google may consult you with the objective of optimizing the performance of the ads and or Google search results provided.

Google Confidential and Proprietary. For customer use only.

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