What Has Changed?
Google has listened once more into customer requests and has "based on feedback from both, advertisers and users" changed it’s URL policy. In consistency with Google’s efforts to present the most relevant results to it’s users, it will no longer be possible to use two different URLs in Adwords ads in the way it was before. Until now an advertiser could enter a visible url for the user to see in the ad and an invisible URL, where the user actually has been directed to. With the newest changes in the Google Adwords policy, both url’s have to direct to the web site adevertised in the ad. "These include, but aren’t limited to, redirects and vanity URLs." In clear text this means the URL of your landing page. The new policy will be strictly enforced for new ads and i see a hard time coming for affiliaters.
Even though Google will not take immediate action on existing ads, you might want to make the changes as soon as possible to ensure that your ads run without interruption and red flags.
Using Tracking URLs
Your ads will be approved if the URL of your landing page domain matches that of your display URL domain.
The following would be an acceptable URL set:
- Display URL: www.yoursite.com/topic1
- Destination URL: www.tracking-url.com/topic1
- Landing page URL: www.yoursite.com
And this URL set would not be accepted:
- Display URL: www.yoursite.com/topic1
- Destination URL: www.tracking-url.com/topic1
- Landing page URL: www.tracking-url.com
