Google Took Down 2.3 Billion Bad Ads in 2018

[engine]

Google has reported it took down 2.3 billion bad ads in 2018, which is a staggering number, and that was actually down on last year.
It just shows how many bad ads there are out there.

Is google getting better at detecting bad ads, or bad actors before they succeed in placing ads? It says it has done a better job of detecting the bad actors before they can get their ads out there.
[blog.google...]

[RhinoFish]

Yet the number of bad ads keeps growing... go after the people behind the ads.
Maybe train the robots to police things... :-)

[not2easy]

I have wondered whether they bothered to look into accounts that AdSense publishers take the time and effort to block since the same type of ads do not go away for long without returning under a new URL. I'd think it would be simpler to investigate advertisers the way they do publishers to maintain a more productive system.

[tangor]

^^^ True ... and since commonsense is apparently no in vogue, I remain an ad blocker/script killer when surfing as a user. :)

NOTE: I do keep a separate browser to see what all the noise looks like. (sigh)

[aristotle]

I'm confused. Does "took down" means that the ads were already being shown as live ads before they were "taken down"?

If so, why weren't the ads screened out before they were approved, instead of waiting until after they go live?

[yiwubuying]

i had del it by google

[tangor]

@yiwubuying ... Welcome to Webmasterworld!

@aristotle ... I suspect g means they killed the ads in inventory. :)

That does beg the question how 2 billion ads they removed got in the inventory in the first place. Was no human involved in an approval process before display? (Wait, that's right! This is all done by machines ... programmed by humans racing to make a buck.)

[engine]

You can upload most anything, but it won't get approval, which means it's taken down.

[aristotle]

Well my question is, does it mean that they do the manual human reviews BEFORE the ads are screened by the automated screening system?

In other words, were the ads approved by human reviewers, and then went live, only to be "taken down" later by the automated system? That what it seems to say, but it makes no sense at all in terms of efficient use of resources.

[aristotle]

If I understand it, when a new ad is submitted, it is subject to two reviews (or screenings):

1. A manual human review
2. An automated system screening.

My first question is, which of these two is done first?

My other question is, what does "took down" mean?

[topr8]

>>Google has reported it took down 2.3 billion bad ads in 2018, which is a staggering number

to me it is not really a staggering numbrer as there is no context.
how many good ads are there? or rather how many ads are not taken down. in that article there is no indication.

[aristotle]

to me it is not really a staggering numbrer

Well to me it's an incredible number. That's why I keep trying to find out exactly what the process is.

Did these ads get through one of the reviews or screenings, and go live, but then later were "taken down" by the other review or screening process? Can someone please explain?

[aristotle]

That article appears to use the term "take down" in two different ways. After discussing various types of bad ads that google took down, it then talks about taking down a big fraud operation

In 2018, we worked closely with cybersecurity firm White Ops, the FBI, and others in the industry to take down one of the largest and most complex international ad fraud operations we’ve ever seen.

Overall the article covers a lot of interesting territory, but unfortunately doesn't provide much detail about how the various bad ads and bad actors were identified and "taken down".

[engine]

...unfortunately doesn't provide much detail about how the various bad ads and bad actors were identified and "taken down".

That's probably to keep the bad actors from discovering their techniques.

[aristotle]

That's probably to keep the bad actors from discovering their techniques

Sure, we can't expect them to reveal any secrets.

But the article is very vague even where it shouldn't need to be. It seems to imply (reading between the lines), that a lot of these bad ads slipped through the initial screening and were shown live for a while, but google doesn't want to admit this, and so tried to hide it by being vague.

[tangor]

Rulz for Korps:

1. Make money
1. CYA/Deny
2. Make more money
3. Do business

In reality, this admission of removing billions and billions of ads is kind of self-serving, a PR thing, and should be accepted as such and go from there.