Competetive Ad Filter

How long does it take to remove them?

[Eazygoin]

I have placed a number of competitive ads in the filter, and some of those are still showing a few days after I opt to remove them.

On the filter page it says it may take a few hours. Is it normal to wait days, or maybe longer?

[zett]

For me it takes usually up to 12 hours until new entries to the filter list do not appear any longer on my sites.

If the ads are still there after a few days, I suspect that you did not use the Preview Tool to determine the respective URLs, but used just the display URL that is shown in the ad.

Often, the display URL (shown in the ad) is different from the real landing URL. For example, a display URL that says "www.greenwidgets.com" might have a landing page of "www.widgetredirector.com/red?jump=greenwidgets.com" - i.e. you have to block widgetredirector.com in order to block greenwidgets.com

Advantage: You block all the scum run by widgetredirector.com

Disadvantage: You might block legit advertisers also using the widgetredirector.com service

[Eazygoin]

Thanks for the info but I did use the preview tool, and in these cases the URL in the tool was the same as on the website, but they seem to take forever to be removed.

[greatstart]

I have seen it take up to 48 hours to take effect.

[Eazygoin]

Google says "Changes will take effect within a few hours" which should be the case. But it certainly is taking days in some cases. Maybe it can take weeks, but I haven't had them in the filter long enough to know!

[Mentat]

In my experience ~ 24 hours.

[Scurramunga]

up to 48 hrs

[Eazygoin]

Thanks for the replies. I have removed them from the filter now, as the replacement ads were coming from New Zealad and other countries, and totally irrelevant to my site, which is just for the UK. But many I placed in the filter still weren't removed after 3 days!