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Google Blocks 524 Million 'Bad Ads' From Serving Up In 2014

Google banned more than 214,000 advertisers from serving ads across its network in 2014, and blocked more than 524 million "bad ads" in the process. The company has released its annual report, which reveals a sharp increase from the prior year — up from 350 million in 2013 — as well as a decline when it came to banning advertisers at more than 270,000.

When it came to promoting counterfeit goods, Google banned more than 7,000 advertisers in 2014 — down 50% from the prior year — and 82,000 in 2012. It also removed 250,000 sites from Google’s ad network for masking links to malware, 4.3 million disapproved for violating copyright AdWords infringement policies, and 9.6 million ads removed for healthcare-related violations.

While many advertisers selling dietary supplements provide accurate information, some bad actors use outrageous claims to entice consumers.

In 2014, TrustInAds.org, a group that includes Google, AOL, Yahoo and others, released a report showing the collection and removal of more than 2.5 million ads related to weight loss and dietary supplements during the past 18 months. 

Google also reports in its numbers that more than 5,000 advertisers were banned for attempting to practice phishing, and more than 43 million ads for using trick-to-click approaches.

Overall, there were more than 150 countries and territories with bad advertisements, and 86 languages employed in bad ad attempts. There also were more than 33,000 merchants banned from Google Shopping for bad practices.

Other than fighting bad ads, Google disabled more than 160,000 publisher sites in its network, and rejected more than 1.25 million applications to join the network.

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