Chrome started blocking all ads, even AdSense, on “unscrupulous” sites

Prohibited Internet advertising formats

Today, February 15, will take place (someone has already taken place) the update of the Chrome browser to version 64. The new version has an ad blocker, which the company warned in advance about in June 2017. Now the browser blocks all advertising on the site if it has not fulfilled the requirements of the standards for quality advertising Better Ads Standards , which the Coalition for the best advertising approved for 30 days.

Website owners had a month and a half to check ads on their websites for violations. If, within the last 30 days, they have not received normal status in Ad Experience Report, then Chrome browser starts blocking all ads on these sites. Yesterday, the company explained in detail in the Chromium official blog how ad filtering in Chrome works and why it’s good for everyone.

The Coalition for Best Advertising is an organization that brings together advertisers and owners of Internet sites. They are concerned, among other things, that the popularity of ad blockers is growing among users. In this regard, the organization conducted a study and found out: the main reason for the installation of blockers is an annoying and annoying advertisement that some sites feel free to show. They do this in order to increase the CTR for banners, because many experienced users have developed the so-called “banner blindness” over the years - people simply do not notice the unobtrusive advertising of the standard format.

The study showed that the most annoying ad formats for users include pop-up windows with blocking access to content on mobile devices ( prestitial ads ), as well as animated flickering banners that distract people due to the constant change in the background color.

The Coalition for Best Advertising draws attention to the fact that many of the annoying factors are under the control of the site owners, that is, they are responsible for the fact that users are unhappy and install blockers. These are factors such as excessive saturation of the site with advertising or a countdown on the pop-up window before it can be turned off. In this regard, it was decided to fine for violating the principles of benign advertising of site owners.

To date, the list of advertising violations consists of 12 items (see the screenshot on the KDPV). This includes a ban on the use of advertising more than 30% of the site (on mobile sites), automatic playback of ads with sound, pop-ups, flickering ads (on mobile sites), etc.

Depending on the number of violations, Google assigns the website status Passing, Warning or Failing. You can find out your status through the Ad Experience Report API or in the Ad Experience Report report in the Google Search Console.

Chrome 64 checks the status of each site and uses the built-in ad blocker to verify adherence to the principles of fair advertising. If the site has a Failing status, the browser will block all advertising on the site, including banners from its own advertising platforms AdSense and DoubleClick . This is the fundamental difference between Chrome blocking and blocking, which, for example, was implemented in Yandex.Browser (it never blocks Yandex advertising, which does not violate the recommendations of IAB Russia).

It looks like this.



As you can see, Chrome blocks all ads on “bad” sites by default, but the user has the option to disable blocking. In the desktop version of the browser notification is similar to the one that now pops up when the pop-up window is automatically blocked.

The first results of using the new Chrome 64 feature have been well received by users, Google writes. Site owners also made conclusions. As of February 12, about 42% of those who used inappropriate banners stopped doing so. This was the main task that the Coalition for Best Advertising sets itself: to improve the quality of Internet advertising and its perception in the eyes of users. Thus, the advertising industry will increase revenue, and ad blockers will become less common. Representatives of the advertising industry also express generally positive opinions about the new ad blocker in Chrome. They believe that this is an important event for the industry, given that Chrome uses more than 50% of the Internet audience.