What billions of bad ads taught us

Meet the teams and technology behind milestone moments in ads safety.

For 10 years, Google has publicly reported on efforts to prevent malicious use of our ads platforms in an annual Ads Safety Report.

A free and safe webspace is vital to the livelihoods and empowerment of people around the world.

Here’s a snapshot of how far we’ve come

2011: 130 million bad ads blocked or removed1

2020: 3.1 billion bad ads blocked or removed2

But numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Progress in ads safety relies on the ability of our researchers and experts to set policies and make updates that continually improve the quality of the ads people see.

Terri Ozoroski-Ghen

Director of Monetized Policy, Trust & Safety

JOHN BROWN

Policy Transparency Lead, Trust & Safety

Experts and technology working together 24/7

Our cyclical method creates a feedback loop that improves our practices and policies.

For example, in 2014 our technical system flagged ordinary-looking accounts as suspicious.

Once our human experts dug deeper, they discovered a national vacation rental property scam.4

This finding was a significant landmark that informed future ads‑safety practices.

In 2016, our system disabled 6X more trick-to-click ads than in 2015.5

Over the years, scammers became more sophisticated in the tricks they used to get people to click the ads, so we assembled a specialized team to monitor these ever-changing tactics.

Shu lei

Engineering Director, Ads Privacy & Safety

2015

780 million bad ad experiences eliminated6

2016

1.7 billion bad ad experiences eliminated7

2017

Over 3.2 billion bad ad experiences eliminated.8 That’s 100 bad ads per second.

2020

Temporarily paused over five million ads referencing the U.S. election while results were being certified9

Evan bell

Strategist, Trust & Safety

2020

Over 99 million bad ads blocked from bad actors trying to capitalize on the pandemic10

ERNESTO DE LA ROCHA GOMEZ

Senior Product Manager, Ads Privacy & Safety

BY THE ADS PRIVACY & SAFETY TEAM

Google Global Policy

CREDITS

Copy & Design: Grow (Agency); Product Lead: Casey Fictum; Production Lead: Jenny Maughan.

Sources

1.
Google, Global, Making Our Ads Better for Everyone, Google Public Policy Blog, March 14, 2012.
2.
Google, Global, Our Annual Ads Safety Report, Google Ads & Commerce Blog, March 17, 2021.
3.
Google, Global, Enabling a Safe Digital Advertising Ecosystem, Google Ads & Commerce Blog, March 14, 2019.
4.
Google, Global, Fighting Bad Advertising Practices on the Web — 2014 Year in Review, Inside AdWords, Feb. 3, 2015.
5.
Google, Global, How We Fought Bad Ads, Sites, and Scammers in 2016, The Keyword, Jan. 25, 2017.
6.
Google, Global, How We Fought Bad Ads in 2015, The Keyword, Jan. 21, 2016.
7.
Google, Global, How We Fought Bad Ads, Sites, and Scammers in 2016, The Keyword, Jan. 25, 2017.
8.
Google, Global, An Advertising Ecosystem That Works for Everyone, The Keyword, March 14, 2018.
9.
Google, Global, Our Work on the 2020 U.S. Election, The Keyword, Dec. 9, 2020.
10.
Google, Global, Our Annual Ads Safety Report, Google Ads & Commerce Blog, March 17, 2021.