Google took down 2.3 billion ads in 2018 for violating its advertising policies

According to Google’s Bad Ads Report 2018, last year, Google banned six million ads every day. The company banned a total of 2.3 billion misleading ads and took down one million bad accounts, twice as many bad advertiser accounts in 2017.

Google defines bad ads as ‘misleading, inappropriate, or harmful ads’ that violates its advertising policies and pose a threat to users, Google’s partners, and the “sustainability of the open web itself.“

Google also went after the bad actors behind numerous bad ads and using improved machine learning technology, the company identified and terminated almost one million bad advertiser accounts. Google also terminated about 734,000 publishers and app developers from its ad network and removed ads completely from nearly 1.5 million apps. To tackle the challenge of misinformation and low-quality sites, Google removed approximately 1.2 million pages, over 22,000 apps, and nearly 15,000 sites across its ad network for violations of policies directed at misrepresentative, hateful or, other low-quality content.

The company also introduced 31 new ad policies last year and will launch a new Policy Manager in Google Ads to make it easy for well-meaning advertisers to ensure their creatives are policy compliant and to give tips on common policy mistakes.

To counter fake news and questions about the purchase of political ads, Google launched a new policy for election ads in the U.S. ahead of the 2018 midterm elections for transparency in political advertising. Similarly, an India-specific transparency report will go live before the general elections in the country in April this year.