Do content ads use destination URL or URL in ad?

I hope they all use destination URL, my ad URL is false!

[Sports Workout]

So on my ad on adwords it shows my URL as

www.Widgets.com/blue

but my destination URL is a long www.Widgets.com/productID1001.asp

I heard a rumor the other day that googles content partners use the URL that shows in the ad, NOT the destination URL that may contain a long address.

Can someone clear this up? I hope myself (and undoubtedly many many others) are not paying for clicks that go to a 404 page!

Zack (not Shak)

[wackybrit]

I just ran some tests, and it goes to the Destination URL, rather than the visible URL (or, that which would be visible in regular Google SERPS).

However, you should know that the display URL must also go to a page. It cannot go to a 404. That defeats the point of the display URL, and is against the Adwords TOS.

Create some rewrite rules to make your fake URLs actually work.

[Sports Workout]

Thanks! That was helpful. Although the adwords support team hasnt turned off my ads for invalid display URLs!