No More “Exceptions” in AdWords Display URLs

Well, this news is news to me because I never got any type of exception from Google before but their Blog post today on their Display URL Policy confused the heck of me.

Here is a direct snippet from the post:

For example, if your destination URL is www.google.com, your display URL must also be www.google.com. The following would not be acceptable display URLs for an ad for www.google.com:

* www.google.co.uk - because this URL leads to a different site
* www.gogle.com - even though this URL simply redirects to www.google.com it is still not acceptable
* www.gooogle.com - because this URL leads to a page showing content identical to www.google.com

What about tracking URLs?
We do understand that many advertisers utilize tracking URLs within the destination field of their ads. Therefore, if the URL of your landing page matches that of your display URL, your ads will be approved.

For example:

Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
–> Landing page URL: www.google.com would be acceptable

Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
–> Landing page URL: www.trackingurl.com would not be acceptable

End Snippet

Seriously, when was it ever okay not to have the display URL and destination URL different. I NEVER was able to get by that policy, but evidently some were. So if you have an AdWords account, login to see if you have any issues with your campaigns.