No Joke: Adwords New Display URL Policy

According to John at PPCHero.com, Google will start making some significant changes to their enforcement of display URL policies starting April 1st. No, it's not going to be an April fools joke.

Google's Adwords Policy Team is taking a strict stance on the relationship between display URLs and destination URLs. For example, if your destination URL is www.example.com, your display URL must be www.example.com. For those not involved with PPC advertising at Google or anywhere else, display URLs are what is displayed within your ad text – destination URLs are where your ad text leads post-click.

Who this affects the most are affiliates advertising within Adwords as they will no longer be able to redirect automatically to their affiliate links unless indicated in the display URL - which affiliates are prevented from doing anway.

Some examples of acceptable and unacceptable uses of display URLs:

• Acceptable:
  display: www.example.com
  destination w/ custom tracking: www.trackingurl.com/{customstuff}
  landing page: www.example.com
• Unacceptable:
  display: www.example.com
  destination w/custom tracking: www.trackingurl.com/{customstuff}
  landing page: www.trackingurl.com