About the Site and Category Exclusion Tool

All pages in the Display Network are required to comply with Google's AdSense policies, which prohibit pornography, violence, and other potentially inappropriate content. Several levels of automated and manual review are in place to help ensure that the pages in the Display Network don't violate these policies.

However if you've enabled your ads to show on the Display Network, you may still find that certain websites in the Google Network aren't a good match for your ad campaign.

 You can use the Site and Category Exclusion Tool to prevent your ads from appearing on those sites or groups of sites related to specific categories.

You can choose to Add Exclusions or Exclude Placements (for existing placements that have shown your ad) for either the ad group or campaign level from the Networks tab.

Available Exclusions

A description of most exclusion types is included below. Due to the quickly changing nature of the Display Network, we're unable to give you a list of pages in each category.

• Specific URLs or subdomains: You can choose to exclude an entire website, a domain path, or a specific page on a website.
• Parked domains: Parked domains are sites in Google's AdSense for domains network. Users are brought to parked domain sites when they enter the URL of an undeveloped webpage into a browser's address bar. There, they'll see ads relevant to the terminology in the URL they entered. The AdSense for domains network is encompassed by both the Display Network and the Search Network. If you exclude this page type, you'll exclude all parked domain sites, including the ones on the Search Network.
• Error pages: Error pages are part of Google's AdSense for errors network. Certain users are brought to error pages when they enter a search query or unregistered URL in a browser's address bar. There, they'll see ads relevant to the search query or URL they entered.
• User-generated content (Limited availability): This option supports the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Please don't make exclusions in this section if your campaign targets an unsupported language.

   Forums are websites devoted to open discussion of a topic.

   Social networks are websites offering an interactive network of friends with personal profiles.

   Image-sharing pages allow users to upload and view images.

   Video-sharing pages allow users to view uploaded videos.

Site and Category Exclusion Tool Best Practices

When using this tool, here are some things to keep in mind to ensure that you do not severely restrict your ad distribution unnecessarily, and to ensure you are using the tool effectively:

Language and Location Targeting

You do not need to exclude a site just because it is located outside the target region for your ad. This is a common mistake. No matter where a site is located, your ad will be shown only to visitors who are located in the regions you have targeted. For instance, if your ad is targeted to Germany, your ad will be shown only to users in Germany (based on their IP address) even if the site in question originates in a different country.

Topics and Categories

It's important to take the following into account when choosing to exclude a topic or category from your ad's placement-targeting:

• Our system may identify several topics on a single page. By excluding a topic, you may exclude webpages that contain material relevant to your product or service.
• While webpages are categorized under these topics to the best of our technology's ability, excluding a topic does not guarantee that you have excluded every related webpage. If you see that your ad has shown on an undesired webpage, please exclude that page entirely by using the specific URL or subdomain path.
• Excluding a topic can significantly reduce traffic to your campaign.