Here Are the 8 Most Annoying Types of Ads That Google Blocked in 2015

If you spent one second looking at every single bad ad that Google saved you from viewing last year, it'd take around 25 years to get through them all. How many ads does that amount to? Around 780 million, according to the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's annual report released today in a blog post. The total number of "bad ads"—those that violate Google's policies in some way—increased substantially, jumping about 49-percent from the 524 million ads blocked in 2014. So what do all those bad promos look like? Here's a list of the types of ads Google blocked last year and how many of each it found: 1. Counterfeiters Google says it suspended more than 10,000 sites and 18,000 accounts that attempted to sell counterfeit goods like fake designer watches. 2. Pharmaceuticals More than 12.5 million ads violated Google's healthcare and medicine policies last year. One example: drugs that weren't approved for use or that claimed to be as effective as prescription drugs. 3. Weight-loss scams Google said it suspended ads from more than 30,000 websites that made misleading claims related to achieving weight loss without diet or exercise. 4. Phishing Google's plan to better block phishing websites netted nearly 7,000. 5. Unwanted software More than 10,000 websites offering unwanted software (the kind that slows down devices or changes a homepage) were blocked from AdWords. Google also said it reduced unwanted downloads via ads by more than 99 percent. 6. "Trick to click" More than 17 million ads that are meant to trick people into interacting with them (fake system warnings, etc.) were blocked last year. 7. Accidental clicks Google said it now has a tool that can reduce how often users accidentally click on an ad while scrolling through content on a website. The company said it now better understands when users mean to click an ad and when they don't. 8. Policy violators Last year, ads that showed up on more than 25,000 mobile apps were found to be in violation of Google's policies. Around two-thirds of those, according to Google, were related to mobile ads placed too close to a button. In total, Google said it blocked more than 1.4 million applications that didn't follow its policies for websites and mobile apps.

Performance Marketing

Here Are the 8 Most Annoying Types of Ads That Google Blocked in 2015

780 million bad promos got the boot

Marty Swant

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Marty Swant