Google has officially announced that from April 1 2008, it will be enforcing its AdWords URL policy more strictly. While this display URL policy is already in existence, a recent blog post on the official Google AdWords blog has publicised the fact that Google will no longer be allowing certain exceptions to their policy guidelines. Its enforcement policy will apply to all advertisers, regardless of past approvals and will include redirects and vanity URLs.
While the enforcement will not affect all advertisers, it is an important development for advertisers to be aware of. Anyone who does not comply with the policy guidelines risks disruption to their ads and the possibility of future disapprovals.
Google told Barry Schwartz at searchengineland that its goal is to "have policies that are fair, consistent, and adaptable". However, there has been speculation that monetary gain may be driving this development. Google would have the potential to increase its revenue by charging advertisers more when they are not allowed to display a different URL.
On the other hand, it could be a reasonable response to the complaints of some advertisers who claim that their competitors are not playing fair when it comes to URLs.
It looks like advertisers with display URLs affected by the enforcement may have a busy month and a half ahead of them as they attempt to fall into line with Google's AdWords policy.
