Since an increasing percentage of the users of the AdWords Forum are new affiliates, this article is meant to cover a common misunderstading leading to problems with the Display URL. Basically when you are creating an ad you have to complete 2 URL fields: the Display URL field and the Destination URL field. It is the Display URL field that is shown to a Google Search user, on the search results page, while it is the Destination URL that determines where the user will be taken on clicking on your sponsored link which is another name for an advert.
Figure
* The figure shows the moment a new advert is being created. What is surprising you in the above configuration relative to the 2 URLs?
.
After a few days of study, most new affiliates seem to be knowledgeable about the requirement that the Display URL should match the Destination URL. What does the word *match* mean in this context? It means that the domain names associated with the 2 URLs should be identical. The usual problem for affiliates is generally associated with the fact that most of them are registered with one of the major affiliate networks, sush as ClickBank, Commission Junction (CJ) or ShareASale. As a rule, these networks provide their affiliates with affiliate links (or HopLink at ClickBank) that don’t match the website URL of the online merchant. In fact, these affiliate links are tracking URLs, serving statistical and reporting purposes, that redirect to the particular webpage of the online merchant.
And that’s the root of the problem. When your Destination URL is a tracking URL the known rule is simply not true. The Display URL is not supposed to match the Destination URL when it’s a tracking URL. In such cases, the Display URL has to match the URL of your Landing Page which is the webpage the user will be taken to on clicking on your advert displayed on the user’s search result page. Of course, the Landing Page is, in most cases, a page of the website of the online merchant.
* Display URL: HomeLivingStyle.com
ShareASale is one of the popular affiliate networks and the above URLs are the details of an old experimental advert, not in use any more. HomeLivingStyle used to be an online merchant participating in the network. The Destination URL was the affiliate link provided by the network. In fact, it was a tracking URL so that the network was able to keep records of clicks the online merchant received from the affiliate link via the network. It redirected to a product page of the website of the online merchant, namely to a page selling some sorts of electric fireplaces on the HomeLivingStyle website.
The striking thing in the above URL configuration is that the Display URL does not match the Destination URL - because it shouldn’t. When a user clicked on the advert he was taken to:
* Landing Page: http://www.homelivingstyle.com/Berkeley_Corner_Fireplace_Mantel_p/ft-28cm500pch.htm?netid=sas
which was a workable page of the online merchant in those days. It was what we call the Landing Page. Remember, that in fact, the Display URL is supposed to match the Landing Page URL when your affiliate link is a tracking URL. In such cases, the Destination URL is different from the Landing Page. The former only serves tracking purposes while the latter is an actual page on the merchants website.
So you are saying the landing page should be different than the Destination page. Would you use a product that you are selling as the landing page and than put .com after? I am new and learning and have been reading some of your e-mails when I have time.Will this help you to get more out there on the organic pages if it is like that. I have several campaignes going on Google and I have landing and destination all the same?
thanks for your help june
The crucial point is that the DISPLAY URL must match what users see after they click on the advert. If the user clicks, and after tracking redirection, ends up on http://www.Amazon.com, then the Display URL must be
www .Amazon .comorAmazon.comoramazon.comorwww .amazon. com, with an optional directory (e.g. book title). The spaces in the name were to defuse a WordPress thing that prepends “http://” when it sees “www” followed by a period – don’t insert those spaces when you do this.If the user clicks and lands on eBay.com, then the DISPLAY URL must reflect www .ebay.com or ebay.com or www .eBay.com or eBay.com. It doesn’t matter what URL the tracking code in the Destination URL shows – that is private between you and Google.
The rule that counts is “do not mislead the user”. The user who clicks the advert must be told the website they will finish on. If you offer a different name, then your advert is not truthful and will not run – because you are not revealing the site that the user will land on.
I understand that google won’t display two ads that have the same display URL although they sometimes do. How would I go about getting a unique display URL for a clickbank product that many others are advertising at the same time.
Regards
Phil
Hi Phil – an excellent marketing question. How would you improve the offer? What could you uniquely offer to search users? That’s an oblique answer, but answering those questions will give you a benefit that other readers here won’t have…
I read everything said and yet still cant find the answer.
With regards to clickbank, this is the hop link I was given :
xxxx.sspykiller.hop.clickbank.net
I have to replace the xxx with my username. Now adwords will not accept this url! What do I do??? Its too long to be a display url and it cant be a destination url, so how do I get this thing right??? Arent there like thousands of affiliates at Clickbank? What do they all do?
Thnaks,
Yuval
Why can’t that be a Destination URL? It *IS* the Destination URL.
The question is – what site does that take you? That domain it takes you to is the Display URL.
@Yuval
Regarding your query, I see the link leads to the site spywarecease.com which becomes your display URL and xxxx.sspykiller.hop.clickbank.net (xxxx filled with your account name) becomes your destination URL.
But if someone else also uses the same domain to bid on Google, then the ad display will be determined by the CPC + QS.In such case using another domain which closely matches the offer like spywareceasereview.com or spywareceasetruth.com and creating a pre sell page could be your best chance of winning results with adwords.
@Phil,the second part of the comment should answer your question too.
@JezC, hope I haven’t stepped in too much :)
@Vijay – no problem. Good explanations.
What I have seen here helps a lot but I am still confused about some issues.
First off I to am a CB Affiliate and I am not sure on the url thing… Let me explain!
First you have display url in which I understand that will be the top domain they will be taken to but this is where I get lost.
Destination url from what I understand it has to have the same top domain name as the display url. so if I put my hop link in there which in turn does not look like anything like the display url.
Example 1: let say display url is (www .amazon .com) but your hop link for the destination url read something link this (http://XXXXX.amazon.hop.clickbank.net/) therefor not maching the display url which = rejected
But if you go this route do you not lose your tracking therefor clickbank knows not to pay you for the conversion?
Example 2: again with the url’s …let say display url again is (www .amazon .com) and your destination url this time is the landing page which would look something like this (www .amazon .com/?hop=xxxxx). OK now the domain names match and is still takeing you to the same landing page but the question is, can you still get the credit for the conversion if it takes place being that you didn’t use the hop link they gave you for tracking but still got them to the same page.
Sorry! if I made this a bit long but please can I get some answers on this matter so I am not wasting my money on clicks that I will never see as a conversion.
@wkv72 – your confusion is about the Destination URL. That can be anything at all – so long as it reaches the Display URL. The Destination URL doesn’t have to match (in domain, in path, in any part) the Display URL. But the consequence of using that URL *MUST* be that you end up on the Display URL. That’s all.
So your tracking is perfectly safe.
Can u please advice me why this URL is not shown in your results. Further even when I type the entire URL it dose not go from your site. But the link works when we try for the browser itself. Please advice
@Sanath – I don’t understand your question. If you use the search box, at upper right, with the search query “display url”, this page is the first result. You may be asking about something else? I don’t understand the phrase “it does not go from your site” at all. Please rephrase your question :)
I have an incorrect display url error but my destination url (thru pepperjamnetwork.com) redirects to the same top level domain and it still isn’t working. Is there anything else that could be causing a problem? – Thanks
Hi Mike – Just because the Destination URL and the Display URL are the same, doesn’t make it right. The key is the URL that the user is taken to. When you click on your advert, when the dust settles, what site are you looking at? That’s the domain to use for the Display URL.
I’ve been researching this issue all afternoon (I’d gladly pay $ to google to actually talk with someone) and there is something that doesn’t smell right. First, JezC, your clarity above has been most helpful, thanks. But what is odd is when I find ads with display URLs that are related to the query term and TOTALLY different than the destination URL. For example if you do an automotive parts query you will see display URLs related to auto parts, but the destination URLs are parked pages, often monetized with Yahoo paid links. These parked pages have display URLs like Tesco.com and destination URLs like DealGator.org. The displya URLs are pure fiction. There are THOUSANDS of these. So if the policy is that the URLs have to have the same domain in both display and destination, how is it that these parked domains are running outside the policy?
Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks.
@Greg – I’m not clear about the terminology you are using – and I think the terminology is a major cause of problems.
* Display URL – the domain and path shown in adverts to users
* Destination URL – the URL that a user clicks on, when clicking an advert
The policy is to prevent misleading users. So the Display URL must be based on the domain of that a user would end up on, after entering the Destination URL in the web browser bar.
Example:
* Destination URL is http://www.gooogle.com/
it redirects and you end up on http://www.google.com. So the Display URL must be:
* Display URL: google.com
So the Display URL *MUST* reflect the domain that the user will end up on. That’s all. Thats’ the policy. “Don’t lie to or mislead users”. Tell them what site they will end up looking at. The Destination URL is only important because it is the way to reach the Display URL, that results in tracking leads.
So, Greg – I’m unable to understand the problem as you’ve described it. If you are saying that the Display URL is not where users end up, that’s a breach of the policy and should be reported. Also Google, should be detecting it *and* suspending those adverts and possibly the account because it is misleading users.
Terminal URL. It need have no relationship whatsoever with the Destination URL – other than that a web browser, given the Destination URL will end up on the domain of the Display URL after all the browser based redirects, on the Terminal URL. There *MUST* be a relationship
JezC – I can’t seem to post a follow up to #16 above.
JezC thanks for your reply. Let me try to clarify a bit.
My definition/understanding of these is:
Display URL is the bottom (4th) line of the ad (of 4) that is displayed on the Google results page. It is green in color. It is the URL the users sees.
Destination URL is the URL the user ends up on after clicking on the ad and potentially going through some tracking redirects. It is last URL loaded in the browser. The final URL. The URL the advertiser wanted the user to end up at.
Allow me to show some real world examples. I searched and clicked on these today. Please note I added spaces into the URLs so this message would get posted, hope that is OK.
Example 1:
Query Term: Mens Suits
Display URL: keymanengravables.com
Destination URL: ht tp:// www .straightarrowsavings. com/search.aspx?skzr5=Mens%20Suits
Example 2:
Query Term: Catalytic Converter
Display URL: annsfinegifts.com/Products.html
Destination URL: ht tp:// www .myhugesavings. org/search.aspx?re8v1h=seattle%20catalytic%20converter%20theft
Example 3:
Query Term: Table Lamps
Display URL: www .brecks.com
Destination URL: ht tp:// www .onlybestlinks. net/results.aspx?mmxl=table%20lamps
You will notice that these are all “parked pages” with nothing more than paid links on them. No other content. No privacy policies. My question is not around landing page quality but these seem out of bounds on that front as well.
There are thousands and thousands of these. They typically appear in ad positions 10-50+. You can click on the “More Sponsored Link” link at the bottom of the right ad block on Google’s result page. The resulting page will have 12 adverts on it, and these typically start showing up on pages 4 or 5 or 6 depending on how competitive the term. For some terms they represent nearly half of the ads running.
I appreciate any insights you have on these.
Thanks,
Greg
@Greg – ah. You have the Display URL and Destination URL meanings backwards. The domain “gooogle.com” (three letter “o’s” in the middle) redirects to “google.com”. So:
Destination URL -> Display URL
gooogle.com -> google.com
The Display URL must not mislead users as to where they *end up*. The Destination URL is the tracking/redirection URL, the ClickBank hoplink. I’m on train – I’ll look at the other part later :)
JezC, thanks. Hopefully my note below doesn’t make this any more complex than it needs to be … :)
I might be a slow on this, thanks for taking the time to help, but what you just described seems like the same definition I have. You say “destination URL is the tracking/redirection URL” which is what I listed above?
OK, so if I reverse my original understanding to:
Destination URL = 4th line green link in the advertisement that is shown on the SERP
Display URL = final URL users ends up at
Then I don’t get how the policy could be that the Display URL must not mislead since the display URL is never seen by the end user. In fact you can’t get to it even by right clicking on the title link in the ad? Why have a policy for something that can’t happen?
If you use my original (Display = green link, Tracking = final destination) then the policy makes sense. And the examples in my prior post are in gross violation of misleading since the domains of the two (display and tracking) don’t match at all. BTW, these examples aren’t via clickbank to my knowledge.
Perhaps I’m still missing something. :)
Again, thanks for your follow up and your insights are much appreciated.
My goal is not to bust the violators I’ve posted, but rather, I am interested in doing affiliate SEM where the green link in the ad is www .mysite.com and when the user clicks on the link, they arrive at my affiate retail parters landing page, this way the user doesn’t ever see www .mysite.com and I increase the conversion percentage by driving them straight to the retailer. Granted many retailers don’t allow this, but some do. The examples above in post #18 seem to be doing exacly what I want to do yet they also seem to be in violation of the policy. I don’t want to violate policy hence my deep dive on this.
Again, thanks.
Best,
Greg
@Greg – look at the graphic above. The Display URL is the fourth line of the advert, and is shown to users. Only 35 characters. Users are not shown the 1024 character Destination URL. You need the extra space in the Destination URL to handle redirection tracking and long path names on web sites.
Your goal is not achievable. It would breach the principle. Showing a Display URL of www .mysite.com means that the user must end up, after the automated redirects, looking at some path on a site in the domain “mysite.com”.
To do what you want, sending users to your partner, you must disclose the partner to search users. If your partner site is “acme-tentacles.com”, then your Display URL *MUST* include “acme-tentacles.com” in the domain part. Anything else is a policy violation.
FWIW, I checked the examples you listed above.
The search for “mens suits” has “keymanengraveables” on page 6. It leads to the “keymanengravables” site from a Destination URL that includes a tracking redirection via “toxictrax”. The Display URL is not misleading – however, “toxictrax” *could* redirect to other sites – though not with Google’s permission.
The search for “catalytic converters” yields “annsfinegifts” on page 3. It leads via a redirection to annsfinegifts.com – a completely irrelevant site, with no catalytic converters.
The search for “table lamps” yields “brecks” on page 7. The final URL is brecks.com – offering bulbs.
Both the “catalytic converters” and “table lamps” results you point out, are redirected via arnoldostrom.net – an anonymized domain. Could do redirection based on IP address – so I may be seeing something other than you see. I’m certainly *very* suspicious about how and why that advertising is present.
Thanks JezC!
That clears it up for me. MUCH appreciated.
And I now understand what those other parked domain guys are doing to get around this. Display a URL and have your visitor land on that same URL as the destination and then redirect them to a parked page so Google only sees the first destination.
Will be interesting to watch if Google changes policy on these. There are a TON of them and must represent a significant portion of Google’s billing.
I must say, it is frustrating when you see lots of advertisers redirecting to parked pages with nothing but paid links and zero content in clear violation of the spirit of the policies and that same opportunity isn’t afforded advertisers who want to respect the end user and abide by the guidelines. OK, I’m better now. :)
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Best,
Greg
What if i cloak the links with my sites url say
My aff link … aff .product .hop .clickbank.net
After cloaking it with my site url mysite.com/product
then what shall the display url be … mysite.com
and destination is mysite.com/product
Is this allowed and is this good to start with as i am a newbie … starting adwords
@Maya – the Display URL must be the site that the user is taken to. You can do whatever you want with the Destination URL – so long as when typed in to a Web Browser URL bar it takes the user to the domain of the Display URL.
The key point is that the user must not be deceived. The user *must* be told the site that they will end up on.
Thx for your help
I’m new to this gig.today I list a new ad. I had everything going. Well that’s what i thought until I got a disapproval. With the a 4xx and 5xx code. anyone out there got a clue about this code. Give me some details or some changes that I could do. thanxx.
4xx codes are about the server denying access – usually because of a “404″ (page not found); that usually means a cut&paste error or a miskeying.
5xx codes are to do with server problems. IME, the most common is “500″, meaning that the server failed completely when offered the URL. In the AdWords context, usually a cut&paste problem or a miskeying problem.
What happens if you cut&paste the URL into the browser URL bar? I expect the browser to fail, too.
I am always getting error “incorrect display URL”
What i can do to remove this error?
@Rashmi – As described above, the right URL is the one that users will see if the Destination URL is entered in the Browser. It is the Landing Page – the place that people end up on. If you give that to Google, then you won’t get error messages.
I am new to SEM. I have another question about all this Display URL stuff. My advertiser will not allow the use of there domain or landing page to be any part of the ad campaign in the Display URL. What should I do. Am I missing something? The adveriser allows SEM. Is there still a way to use them or should I just move on to another advertiser?
Dee
@DeeDee this is a reasonably common affiliate clause stemming from the businesses internet strategy. It is telling you that they don’t want pure-search affiliates. They want affiliates who build their own sites, with their own content, some of whom will be sent to the advertiser, or they want affiliates with email lists, blogs, etc. You can use PPC or SEO to drive traffic to *your* site, but not theirs.
Part of the reason is simple. Pure paid search affiliates sending traffic to the business domain are all grouped together by Google. Only *one* affiliate shows an advert, so the business appears once per search, and it can’t run its’ own PPC program so cost effectively. If, instead, the affiliates offer unique content and direct users to different offers from other companies too, the total share of voice increases – the business can be reached via more adverts for each search. This increases the reach of the business and increases the total amount of advertising, while allowing the Brand to exploit its own Brand Equity through its’ own PPC campaigns.
JezC,
I’ve read through this post several times (thanks, by the way) but still feel a little confused.
When I first started my website several years ago, I made a BAD newbie mistake and made my URL way to long.
Consequence: it doesn’t fit in the display URL box.
Now I want to do some PPC for some of my deeper pages and I’ve hit a wall. I have parked a shorter URL to the home page. However, when I use that one, it is rejected, even though you are landing on the same site as the destination url.
How do I do this? Do I create a subdomain like stuff.shorterURL.com for my display URL, using the same for my destination URL that redirects to the original long-url page?
Or will that be rejected because the final page is not shorterurl.com? I don’t want to spend the money creating these subdomains if it’s just going to be rejected.
Thanks so much.
@Heather – Here are 2 options:
1) Use a shorthand for your Display URL and then file an exception request. Maybe try EssentialInfantResourcesForMoms.com as the Display URL and then explain to Google why you are using that – which is close to the original domain name. Sometimes, they will make exceptions.
2) Have your web hosting company or domain name registrar make your shorter URL an alias of the original domain (instead of doing a redirect). They will create a CNAME record to do this. Ask them about this.
RBall,
How would I go about filling an exception request? I will also look into the CNAME option…
Thanks.
Heather
@Heather – See these help pages:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7523
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138481
RBall,
It looks like an exception is no good. Even taking out the hyphens, it’s STILL too long. Stupid newbie mistakes…grumble..grumble…
I’ll look into the CNAME option instead. Will this alias allow me to deep link to the bedding page? Would it be like a clone?
Hi Heather – yes, the CNAME will create a second name by which the site is known. Strictly you should have a different Virtual Server, so you can feed the search engines a different ROBOTS.TXT file. Under the old domain, you need to let search engine spiders roam at will. However, since the new domain is a duplicate, you should really deny access to all robots *except for* Google Adsbot – or it can’t do the landing page quality score checks.
The new shorter named site will act just like your main domain name, except be shorter. The Display URL need not reflect the path. You can have the Display URL just be the domain name.
Ok JezC let me see if I understand. I have to create a web site or blog for each clickbank hoplink that I want to promote and the display have to be relate to the the destination page?
@Masterchivo – Not quite. You have to disclose to users the site they’ll end up seeing. That’s all that the policy requires. *HOW* you do that, is up to you.
You have a Landing Page – the URL you want users to end up seeing. You have a Link URL. You create the Display URL by looking at the Domain of the Landing Page. The Link URL is the Destination URL – how you’ll get people to the Landing Page.
If the Landing Page is on Amazon, then the Display URL should reflect that it is Amazon. If the Landing Page is a high quality page with unique information and offers, some of which are ClickBank eBooks, then whatever that domain is called, should be the Display URL.
Just don’t lie to or mislead the user about where they will be taken to by the Destination URL. If you do, the advert will be disapproved. Re-read some of the many examples of this principle in the comments above.
If you create a new domain with a landing page that links only to your ClickBank offer, and you bring users to that domain with your Destination URL, you will be disapproved for a different reason. You will have created a Bridge Page – that’s a different policy violation; the intention behind a Bridge Page is for the affiliate to show a second advert on the search results page for the same offer; Google doesn’t like adverts that offer the same thing to users, so you get trapped by the Bridge Page policy. I suspect that you are trying to avoid a Bridge Page disapproval, not a Display URL/Destination URL conflict.
so the display URL don’t exactly have to be the whole URL for example if the destination URL is http://www.art.com you can put http://www.art.net so don’t have to be exact, the domain will be the same.
@Masterchivo – I mean the commonly accepted definition of a domain. The TLD is part of the domain name.
You can omit the lower level, where that is not misleading. For example, “google.com” and “www.google.com” are exchangeable as a Display URL. But “google.info” is a different entity and cannot be used as a Display URL for a Destination URL of “http://www.google.com/”, even if the domain has a redirect. The user would be mislead into thinking that they would visit “google.info”, when they are in fact being taken to “google.com”.
The rule still means “do not mislead users about the domain to which they will be taken”. Where domain includes the TLD, as is entirely normal usage within the industry – no special definition for AdWords.
How to use Click Bank affiliate links with Google Adwords.
1. Click your affiliate link.
2. Copy the address that’s in the immediate browser.
3. Paste that link into the “Display URL” box in your GAWs account.
4. Copy and Paste your affiliate link into the “links to” box in your GAWs account. (Not the address in your browser, but the link you clicked to get there.)
35 characters max.
omit these
http://
https://
If it’s still too long, ask them to make an exception.
I need help bad, there could be thousands of $$ to Google monthly if I can get this to work. I recently set up and account (not approved yet due to inaccurate URL) and found all of this very interesting. While all these issues surround affiliates and click through agents and such, my problem is this: We are a national developer of cancer treatment centers with physician partners all over. We own a majority of each of the practices by percentage, controlling billing,… yada, yada. We also host websites for our partners on our server under our domain. We simply want to use their registered domain name in the display then have the user land on a specific landing page on our server. For example, Their URL name may be something like Imperial Valley Cancer Center. com which points to our server but our domain is www . vantage oncology. com. How can we move forward? Is there no exception for extended business models in a corporate environment? We own these centers but they have their own identity and URL’s… We simply cannot have our corporate web address in the display field. Anyone, please help.
@David – we’re not Googlemployees here. We can tell you how the system works, as much as we understand it. We can interpret the policy – as anyone could. While the top contributors here have a good relationship with Google AdWords staff, I don’t personally believe that we have a strong voice in product design or policy – or the Starter Edition would have been withdrawn shortly after release.
The DIsplay URL policy exists so that Google can deliver a range of search results. Your own experience with search results should tell you that having the same business dominate all the responses is unsatisfactory for users. Affiliates are the primary users of attempts to spam the search results – to redundantly present the same proposition as is already offered by another advertiser. The core principle is actually even stronger than the issue surrounding the Display and Destination URLs and at some point I hope to contribute an article about it.
So, at the risk of misrepresenting your question, is your issue about Brand (that your affiliates would be using your brand, as represented by your URL) or is your issue that you want to spam the listings? Frankly, if you want to spam the listings, I’m personally unsympathetic; I think users find despammed listings to be more useful, and despammed listings eventually result in a larger audience of more trusting search users, which ultimately makes my life easier.
If instead you want to have your agents appear in search results with their brand identification as their URL, while physically hosted on your server, consider using Virtual Hosting Servers. A single Apache Web Server can respond on a single IP address as hundreds or even thousands of server host names; and can do so when fronting an IIS or other web server using a Reverse Proxy configuration. It is a reasonably simple server hosting configuration and an easy piece of Domain Name Service administration. If you require that your affiliates purchase their own domain, why not let them have that domain used for the landing page and their main service pages?
I’d caution against having these landing pages be bridge pages, where pretty much every link leads to your domain – another common affiliate trick to evade anti-spam policies.There are mechanisms to allow unique domain landing pages to operate without spamming, and that evade the Bridge Page problems, but that satisfy Google’s requirements to eliminate spam. They require some negotiation with Google to arrange, in order to prevent Google later identifying the sites as duplicates and extending a suspension to all advertising for all the domains. I’m not aware of mechanisms other than using a Google AdWords Professional to handle this, but that may be because I run an agency; when the tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail :)
I need help too! Thanks to everyone above especially JezC for your great answers and unlimited patience. All of a sudden after having some minor success with GAW my ads are disapproved for “inaccurate display URL”. Obviously I”m not the only one.
So, my destination URL is https://alexadivett. renegadeprofessional.com/Product.aspx and my display URL is PositiveRenegadeProfessionals.com
and after watching the “help” tutorials and reading carefully through these posts I learned that my Display URL must be an accurate representation of where people will land. The tutorial says it doesn’t have to be exactly the same (but it should be similar) and recommends shortening it by purchasing a similar domain name and having it re-direct.
Did that…so my display URL is PositiveRenegadeProfessionals.com
And, it still doesn’t work.
SOS SOS SOS SOS
Hi Alexa,
Destination URL – https://alexadivett. renegadeprofessional.com/Product.asp
Leads to landing page – https://alexadivett. renegadeprofessional.com/Product.aspx
So the Display URL could be – RenegadeProfessional.com
PositiveRenegadeProfessionals.com is 34 characters. But that’s *NOT* the domain that users see in the URL bar when the dust settles – so it is misleading the user. It should be rejected.
You could use that domain *IF YOU ALIAS THE DOMAIN* that, is the same site is available under two names. And no, before you ask, you can’t successfuly, for long, create two accounts with two adverts just because the Display URL is different. Google appears to have policies involving permanent suspension for people using duplicate sites to evade spam restrictions.
Thanks again JezC for all your help. I guess my roadblock is that RenegadeProfessional as a display URL is already in use as the landing page is used by many many affiliates.
I suppose I will have to get creative and see what works or abandon this whole promotion all together.
GRRRRRRR
>> landing page is used by many many affiliates <<
Yup. You could, of course, enter a *bidding war* against your fellow affiliates, however, it’s usually a losing strategy. It should also be noted that generally speaking AdWords does not seem to be the best advertising medium for AM folks.
I am a new affiliate and am just learning. I have tried to begin an Adword campaign but failed. I got disapproved. Inappropriate URL. Am I allowed to use the website URL for my parent company? for the display and my hoplink for the destination, both going to the same site. I tried this also got disapproved…Google policy does not permit ads for websites promoting tools or information that aid in copyright infringement. Related keywords or ad text also are not permitted. The product is a system to download movies, legally. So is the URL issue solved and now I have a new issue here?
My problem is with an international offer (an image ad). My campaign is set to only run in Australia, and that has a specific landing url.
If you try to click on the ad here in the USA, it says that offer isn’t available here and redirects to a different url. I have tried using the correct Australian url, since that’s where the customer will be clicking from, but it get disapproved as incorrect display url. i suppose i’ll try the USA redirected url, but that seems to defeat the purpose of having it be accurate for the user.