We’ve already talked about how to block certain ad categories from appearing in your Google Adsense ads. But, even once you’ve filtered out the categories that you don’t want to appear on your site, there may still be some advertisers that you don’t want, either because of their content or perhaps because you’d consider it a competing site.
Let’s say you see an ad appearing on your site that doesn’t fit into your filtered categories but you don’t want to appear. You can block that specific advertiser by logging into your Adsense account, clicking on the Adsense Setup tab on the top, and then going to the Competitive Ad Filter.
From the Competitive Ad Filter, you can enter the URLs of the advertisers you want to block. Let’s say you have an Adsense ad that’s running and points to www.YourCompetitor.com/competing-ad. To block this ad, just enter that URL in the field and click Save Changes.
Now, Adsense ads that point to www.YourCompetitor.com/competing-ad will no longer appear on your site. However, note that you’ve blocked a specific permalink, not an entire domain, so if the same advertiser creates a campaign pointing to www.YourCompetitor.com/this-is-a-different-competing-ad, this new URL will not be blocked.
In order to block all ads from this domain, enter YourCompetitor.com in the field. This will ensure that nothing from the YourCompetitor.com domain will appear on your site. This is the most broad way to block an advertiser.
You can block as many specific advertisers as you want. Make sure to copy and paste this list from your Adsense for Content tab into wherever else you may be using Adsense, such as on Adsense for Feeds or Adsense for Search.
Umm… but wait? How do you figure out the URL of the advertiser you want to block? Clicking on your own ads, or soliciting others to do it for you, is against Adsense policies and could cause your account to be disabled. Come back tomorrow to find out how to figure out the URL of your Adsense advertisers!
Carrie Isaac blogs about coupons and deals local to Colorado Springs at Springs Bargains, and handles internet marketing for her husband, a Colorado Springs Realtor.
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Thanks!!! You ladies ROCK!
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Actually, you can only block up to 500 domains this way, but that is enough for most sites.
Nice post, by the way.
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I am so glad that you wrote this post. I just saw an incredibly offensive ad was posted yesterday on my newsletters. Really upsetting to me actually. I just blocked it. I am still nervous now though about other similar ads that may pop up. Thanks so much for writing this up!! Rene
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