Google is constantly battling back the tide of shoddy ads and outright scams being posted as ads on their network every hour of every day. According to Google itself, they pulled over 350 million bad ads from their service in 2013, a significant amount more than the 224 million they pulled down in 2012. Are more bad ads being uploaded? Probably, but the main cause of the increase of that number is Google getting better at spotting and separating the bad from the good.
In fact, there were actually less bad advertisers trying to get through this year. In 2012, they estimated 850,000 spam, counterfeit product sellers, and other bad advertisers tried to use their service. In 2013, that number dropped down to 270,000, which is a pretty significant drop.
Mike Hochberg, Director, Ads Engineering explains, “In part, we attribute this decline to scammers — counterfeiters, for example — being thwarted by our safety screens and searching for less-secure targets.”
If you’d like to know more about how Google focused on busting bad advertising practices in 2013, check out the infographic below. It’s made by Google and it covers what they cut, why they cut it, and should give the smart marketer some insight to make sure they never end up on the list.
