How to Write Ads That Don't Get Disapproved (or Worse) — the checks that separate a fixable rejection from an account-ending one

Most ad copy problems are avoidable at write-time: Google's editorial rules, restricted-category triggers, and destination requirements are documented and checkable before submission. The one thing that is *not* avoidable after the fact is an egregious violation — it skips every warning step straight to account suspension. This page is the write-time checklist and the severity map, so a marketer or an AI agent drafting ads knows which mistakes cost a re-review and which ones cost the account.

Editorial and technical requirements

These are the baseline mechanical checks that apply to every ad, regardless of category.

- Capitalization: must follow standard rules — capitalization used for promotional or gimmicky purposes (not its "intended purpose") is prohibited — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546. - Punctuation and symbols: must be used correctly or for their intended purpose; invalid/unsupported characters are disallowed, and excessive or gimmicky symbol substitution triggers disapproval — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546. - Spelling and grammar: ads must use commonly accepted spelling/grammar; content that is incomprehensible or doesn't make sense violates policy — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546. - Spacing and repetition: omitted or excessive spaces are not allowed, and non-standard/gimmicky/unnecessary repetition is disapproved — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546. - Claims that require substantiation: advertisers must be honest and transparent about costs, services, and expected results, and must not exclude relevant product information a user needs to decide — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955. Ad claims must be substantiable by content on the landing page the ad points to — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6368661. Concretely: don't claim something in the headline that the destination page doesn't back up.

Restricted category triggers

Certain claim types are disapproved on their content even if grammatically clean.

Health claims

offering prescription drugs without a prescription is not allowed; products claiming to cure, treat, or mitigate disease without government approval are prohibited; Google does not allow ads for prescription opioid painkillers at all — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/176031. Separately, anti-vaccine advocacy and denial of medical conditions are prohibited, as are unproven cures for incurable diseases (Google's examples: arthritis, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, cancer) and extreme weight-loss claims without medical basis (e.g. "lose 10 pounds in a month") — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15936857.

Financial promises

guaranteeing top placement in search results, claiming ads appear "in Google Search at all times," or offering "unlimited clicks or visits" are all prohibited as false/misleading/unrealistic claims — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6086777. "Get rich quick" schemes, presenting investments as risk-free while downplaying real risk, and promising large financial return with minimal risk/effort/investment are prohibited as unreliable claims — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15936857.

Superlatives and guarantees

Google's false/misleading/unrealistic-claims policy prohibits unsubstantiated claims in general but does not explicitly say the word "best" itself is permitted — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6086777. *(inference, not stated in the source)*: treat "best" and other superlatives as subject to the same substantiation requirement as any other claim, not as pre-cleared language. "Guaranteed" is allowed only if backed by a clear, easily accessible refund (money-back) policy. Testimonials citing specific results need a visible disclaimer that results aren't guaranteed and may vary. Claims implying improbable or non-typical results are prohibited — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15936857.

Before/after imagery

Google's publicly available policy documentation does not explicitly list before/after images as outright prohibited under the false/misleading claims policy — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6086777. *(unverified, not confirmed in notes)*: before/after imagery may still be restricted in healthcare and beauty contexts where results can't be substantiated — treat this as an open question, not a documented rule, until checked against the healthcare-specific policy directly.

Destination and landing page requirements

An ad can be flawless and still get disapproved — or the account penalized — over where it sends users.

- URL matching: the display URL must match the actual destination domain — showing "google.com" while linking to "example.com" violates policy — and subdomains must clearly distinguish the site from others on the parent domain (using only "blogspot.com" for "mycompany.blogspot.com" is a violation) — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16428020. Tracking templates and expanded URLs must lead to the same content as the final URL, not a different page or domain — same source. - Deceptive redirects: redirecting the final URL to a different domain is generally prohibited, with narrow exceptions requiring prior Google approval (e.g. a manufacturer redirecting to a pre-approved retailer) — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16428020. - Functional landing pages: the site must be functional, useful, and easy to navigate — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6368661. Disqualifying patterns: pop-ups/interstitials that block the requested content, a disabled back button, slow loading on popular browsers, auto-redirects, fake warning messages, misleading clickable elements, browser-history manipulation, fake/misleading countdowns, large sticky ads, flashing animated ads, and direct-download/email-link/phishing patterns — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16427615. - Business identity: the business name must exactly match either the domain name or the legal name verified through Google's Advertiser verification program; the logo must match and correspond to that verified identity; both must be clearly visible on the landing page — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/12499303. - Original content: the destination must offer unique value — pages built primarily to show ads, or content replicated from elsewhere without added value, are disapproved. Pages must be crawlable by Google AdsBot to verify they match the ad's claims, and must be accessible in the targeted location — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6368661.

Trademark and third-party content rules

Trademark use in ad copy is restricted, not banned outright — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118. Permitted: using a trademark as a keyword; using it in the second-level domain of the display URL; landing pages primarily selling or clearly facilitating sale of the trademarked product; landing pages giving informative detail about the trademarked product/service; and descriptive use in the trademark's ordinary meaning. Not permitted: using a competitor's trademark in your own ad text, or using any trademark in a confusing, deceptive, or misleading way. One technical point worth flagging for review: the trademark must appear *in the ad itself* to fall under this policy — a trademark used only on the landing page, not in the ad, is a different case — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6118. Separately, advertisers are solely responsible for their own keywords and ad content, and third-party partners managing accounts on a client's behalf must stay honest/transparent about services, costs, and expected results, and must keep every managed account compliant — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955.

Monitoring and status tools

Policy Manager, in the Tools menu's Troubleshooting section, is Google's tool for monitoring policy compliance across an account for ads that have already been created or reviewed — it is not a pre-submission check — support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9273517. Adding a "Policy details" column to the Ads or Assets table surfaces status and violations per item — support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6327680.

After submitting

review is automatic and most ads clear within one business day. Hovering over a "Disapproved" status shows the specific violation, and "Read the policy" opens the full text — support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722120. If disapproved, appeal by hovering the status and selecting "Appeal," choosing either "Dispute decision" or "Made changes to comply with policy"; track it in Policy Manager's "Appeal history" tab. If no "Appeal" link appears, that policy simply doesn't allow campaign submission for review — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7501932.

The threshold that matters most

most policy violations are non-egregious and trigger a 7-day warning before any suspension, with up to 3 strikes per policy and increasing penalties before permanent suspension — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7187501. An egregious violation skips all of that: it's serious enough to be unlawful or to pose significant harm, and it triggers immediate account suspension with no prior warning — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/9841640. The documented egregious list: circumventing Google's systems, coordinated deceptive practices, counterfeit products, malicious software, prescription opioid painkillers, unauthorized pharmacies, child exploitation, sexually explicit content, trade sanctions violations, and unacceptable business practices — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/9841640. "Unacceptable business practices" (phishing, impersonating public figures, false business claims, offering services you can't deliver) also triggers immediate suspension without warning — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15938071. See Google Ads Policy Taxonomy: What Gets an Ad Disapproved vs an Account Suspended for the full policy-tier map this threshold sits inside, and Account Suspensions: Triggers, Verification, and the Appeal Process — the policy trap that can end a Google Ads account overnight for what happens once a suspension (not just a disapproval) hits.

Three distinct outcomes, not one: ad disapproval (that ad is rejected, won't run until fixed and reapproved), limited serving (Google restricts serving in certain regulated areas — alcohol, gambling, healthcare — to eligible locations only), and account suspension (all ads stop, related accounts get suspended, new accounts auto-suspend) — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/7187501. Detection combines automated (AI) and human review; complex cases go to trained reviewers — same source.

Assuming there's a pre-launch compliance checker

the notes found no official Google tool that verifies an ad's policy compliance *before* submission *(unverified: absence, not a confirmed negative — treat as "not found in documentation," not as Google's stated position)*. Policy Manager and the Policy details column are monitoring/status tools that report on ads already created or already reviewed, not a pre-flight gate — support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9273517, support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6327680. The practical implication: writing to the editorial and category rules above *before* submitting is the only available substitute for a checker that doesn't exist.

Trying to route around a suspension with a new account or domain does not work — it escalates. "Circumventing systems" is itself an egregious-violation category, and includes creating new accounts after suspension, false verification, cloaking, or spreading policy-violating ads across domains — support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15938075. That converts a recoverable, appealable state into an unappealable one.

Why this matters for the objective

every rule above is a way to keep an ad from becoming wasted spend — a disapproved ad simply doesn't run, but an egregious violation removes the account's ability to run *any* ad, which is the single worst failure mode this wiki exists to help a marketer or AI agent avoid.

Related

- Google Ads Policy Taxonomy: What Gets an Ad Disapproved vs an Account Suspended — the full tier structure (prohibited content, prohibited practices, restricted/regulated categories, editorial requirements) that this page's checks are drawn from; read it for the taxonomy, this page for the write-time checklist. - Account Suspensions: Triggers, Verification, and the Appeal Process — the policy trap that can end a Google Ads account overnight — what happens after the egregious-violation line in this page is crossed: identity verification, why a new account after suspension fails, and the appeal process in full. - How to Respond to a Suspension or Disapproval Without Making It Worse — the sequence that avoids turning a fixable violation into a permanent ban — the next step once one of this page's checks fails in production: how to fix and request review without the new-account mistake escalating things. - How to Structure a Search Campaign (Ad Groups, RSAs, Settings) — the foundation an audit checks and a budget plan assumes is sound — where Responsive Search Ad copy actually gets written; this page is the compliance filter to apply while writing those headlines and descriptions. - How to Audit an Existing Google Ads Account (Priority Order) — the sequence that stops you from trusting broken data — Step 4 of that audit reviews policy status account-wide; this page is the reference for interpreting what a disapproval or limited-serving flag found there actually means.