We’ll only display one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the display URL. This means that if you’re an affiliate advertiser, your ad may not show for a query because another affiliate or the website that runs the affiliate program also has ads using the same (or a similar) domain in the display URL. Also, your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company’s or another advertiser’s site.

For example, for the domain google.com, we would determine the following URLs and display URLs to be equivalent:

  • home.google.com
  • www.google.com
  • google.com
  • www.google.com/home
  • www.Google.com

However, we’d determine the following display URLs to be distinct, since each has a different top-level domain:

  • www.google.co.uk*
  • www.google.fr
  • www.google.com
  • www.google.edu
    *Domains with a specific extension are considered distinct.

For more information about this change, please review the January 2005 Google AdWords service announcement.

Helpful Definitions:

Display URL

This is the URL displayed on your ad to identify your site to users. This URL displayed is limited to 35 characters; it need not be the same as the URL your ad links to, but it should be an actual URL that is part of your site.

Domain

Website domains are a naming procedure by which web users may identify a particular website address and location (e.g., www.google.com). They are usually made up of two parts: a name and a category. The following are common URL domain categories: .com (commercial), .edu (education), and .gov (government). Domain categories can also be location-specific, for example: .fr (France) , .br (Brazil), or .jp (Japan). In some cases, one category is appended to another category, for example: examplename.co.uk, examplename.com.ph, examplename.org.uk).