AdWords site exclusion filter upped to 500 URLs

Nice change from previous limit of 25

[Jenstar]

AdWords bumped up the limit on the number of content network site URLs you can filter from 25 up to 500 - if you add a site URL to an ad campaign using the site exclusion filter tool, your ads will not appear on that URL. I often heard complaints from advertisers who felt they would have opted into the content network if that limit was a lot higher than 25, and jumping up to 500 should make a huge differemce.

I beta tested this tool before it was officially released, and I felt 25 URLs per campaign was too low. In the end though, even after going through a couple weeks of logs and tracking ROI, I ended up not needing more than the 25.

But many advertisers do not want their ads showing on any scraper site period, so having the increased 500 URL limit will make it easier for advertisers. Rather than having to "pick and choose" which would make the "top 25" list of URLs to block, I would bet most advertisers won't take the time or effort to find 500 content network site URLs to filter out.

I was a little disappointed to see that you still cannot block URLs from all campaigns at once. If you have a site you don't want any of your ads showing on, you need to add that site manually to every campaign.

You won't be able to access the tool unless you are opted into the content network.

More about the site exclusion tool:
[adwords.google.com...]

[europeforvisitors]

Sounds like a nice improvement, but scrapers will just follow the lead of affiliate spammers (if they aren't doing so already) by using multiple disposable domains. The exclusion filter would be more effective if advertisers could block by domain or by AdSense publisher code.

[limitup]

You can block by domain, or sub-domain, such as:

google.com
adwords.google.com
adwords.google.com/support
etc.

In fact you can ONLY block by domain or sub-domain and up to one directory. You can't block at the page level.

[JKelly]

This may be a dumb question but why don't they offer a site inclusion option. For example, I stopped advertising on the content network along time ago because my ads were showing up on sites that were nothing more than domain parking pages. Under the site exclusion feature I could monitor my refering URLs daily to see these domains then add them to my exclude list but would'nt it be alot easier to add the 2 or 3 domains of the top content sites that I want to advertise on to an include list and not have to worry about it any further?

[Jenstar]

would'nt it be alot easier to add the 2 or 3 domains of the top content sites that I want to advertise on to an include list and not have to worry about it any further?

They do have the site targeting feature, where you can do just that, but it is on a CPM basis rather than CPC.

[adwords.google.com...]

[JKelly]

Thanks for the info. While that is a step in the right direction, I need it on a CPC basis and can't figure out why they don't offer it nor offer a similar service for their search network.

[limitup]

The new limit of 500 opens the doors for some more useful tools to manipulate and analyze clicks from content sites for possible exclusion, such as conversion tracking etc. I'm sure we're not the only one with an inhouse system to do this ... does anyone have any ideas for other features that would be useful?