Google search ads spotted in compromising placements
Reading Time: 5 minutesResearch delving into a less visible component of Google’s search ads business — a network of third party sites called Google Search Partners (also known as the GSP network or SPN) — has documented scores of instances of Google search ads being served on non-Google websites that the media buyers paying for the marketing campaigns probably weren’t bargaining for. Such as hardcore pornography websites; sites hosting large amounts of pirated content; and websites of companies located in countries such as Iran and Russia which may be under sanctions by the U.S. government.
The report — whose title poses the question: ‘Does a lack of transparency create brand safety concerns for search advertisers?‘ — also found instances of search ads bought from Google being served on Breitbart.com, a news website which espouses far right views, despite brands in question having taken steps to avoid their ads appearing on the site, such as adding it to an ad blacklist.
‘This raises the possibility that ads were served on websites and publishers despite the brand’s deliberate efforts to ensure brand safety and control over their media investments,’ writes Adalytics, an ad analytics firm which is behind the study of the GSP network, discussing an example involving ‘a major Fortune 500 brand’ client whose Google search ads not only appeared on Breitbart (despite it having the site on a blocklist) — but, per the report, were also being served on ‘pirated content sites, hardcore pornographic sites, and hundreds of putatative Iranian websites, which may potentially be under US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) sanctions’.
Advertisers running search ads on Google (i.e. which appear on Google’s own search engine results pages in response to user inputted keywords) are, by default, opted into this additional ad display network that Google monetizes — which is comprised of third party websites, including those that have embedded Google’s custom search widget and not opted out of displaying its search ads (such as by paying a fee to use the custom search widget ad-free). This means ads running on the GSP network can appear on all sorts of sites around the web.
The GSP network is by no means a new feature of Google’s ad business. It appears to be around two decades old at this point — with references dating back a couple of decades (here’s one from April 2003 which discusses how Google’s search ads, then called AdWords, can also be displayed on ‘a growing network of partner sites’, for instance).
But at some point over the last several years Google appears to have flipped a switch that started defaulting advertisers into the GSP network — whereas, previously, it may have required an active opt in. (See, for example, this Search Engine Land post from 2016 — which describes an active step being required at that time: ‘To target users searching on these partner sites, advertisers need only check a box in campaign settings to ‘include search partners’.’)
This means advertisers buying a Search or Shopping campaign within Google Ads must actively opt-out of the Search Partner Network or else their ads might be served to non-Google sites.
Down the adtech rabbit hole…
Google does not publish — and apparently never has — a comprehensive list of third party sites participating in its search partners ad network. But using publicly available information and ‘open-source methodologies’, including searching for a piece of JavaScript code that websites can use to embed Google’s custom search widget, Adalytics says it was able to identify thousands of sites that are (or have been) in the GSP network.
It used additional technical analysis and manual verification to confirm a subset of the sites were running Google search ads — and its report focuses on sites that appear to fall outside Google’s T&Cs for participating as a GSP. Such as the aforementioned hardcore porn sites; sites hosting substantial amounts of copyright-violating material; as well as websites whose operators are located in countries such as Iran where U.S. sanctions may apply.
Google’s Publisher Policies, which its search partners are required to adhere to, do not permit ads being served alongside content that infringes copyright or is graphically sexual. The T&Cs also stress Google must comply with ‘sanctions and export controls maintained by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’ — going on to stipulate its ad products are therefore not available to publishers in sanctioned countries or territories, including Iran.
Google’s publisher terms also bar GSPs from using deceptive tactics like redirects and pre-scripted searches in a bid try to manipulate the display of search ads.
Yet Adalytics was able to document scores of instances of GSPs that appear to be in breach of one or more of these rules being able to serve Google search ads — raising questions about the adtech giant’s enforcement of its own publisher policies on this third party network it monetizes.
Adalytics also contends it was able to identify examples of controversial sites featured in its report that had been set up to run Google’s adtech in a way that potentially allowed them to earn a revenue share from Google on any search ad clicks.
Since Google does not provide advertisers with a list of the entities that participate in the GSP, nor does it appear to allow ad customers to use techniques such as independent third party verification pixels or JavaScript tags to independently monitor where their ads are being served, it is not obvious how Google’s ad customers could take proactive steps themselves to verify that their marketing is not being shown in places where it shouldn’t. (Although Google claims its customers can request an SPN report from their account manager to get visibility on where on this third party network their ads ran after the fact.)
Hence why Adalytics’ report poses the question of whether greater transparency is needed on this less visible corner of the mainstream search ad market?
One caveat to note: Adalytics’ motivations to undertake the research are not free of self interest, given it’s a for-profit company whose own business is centered on selling analytics services to media buyers — via a self-styled ‘ad quality and transparency platform’. So it might stand to profit from negative publicity about Google, including any hike in concern around use of its ad tools. (And Google’s response to the findings — see below for its statement — takes the form of just such an attack on Adalytics’ motives.)
Digging into the report a bit more, out of 51,280 different websites which Adalytics found had embedded the Google Custom Search engine JavaScript on their pages at some point in time, it said 46,773 were associated with Google’s custom search engine loading — 36,612 of which appeared to have ‘some evidence’ of search ads being served on them currently or at some point in the past. It also found a subset ‘of at least 6,414’ sites that appeared to have linked publisher AdSense IDs.
Detailing more of its findings, it writes:
Reference: https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/28/google-gsp-risks-adalytics-report/
Ref: techcrunch
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