Upgraded URLs - which items are auto upgraded on July 1st?

[HK]

Hi,

1. I don't think I've seen this explicitly stated, so I wanted to get a confirmation. On July 1st, I'm assuming keywords, placements, ads and sitelinks with destination URLs will be auto upgraded (destination URL moved to final URL 1). Is this correct? Wanted to double-check that it's not just ads that are upgraded.

2. Also, I've read that the auto upgrade won't happen if the destination URL has a different domain than the display URL. Now, using the APIs or the AdWords UI, this limitation does not seem to be enforced. I can create, update or upgrade an ad where the display URL is different than that of the destination URL and final URLs. Will this continue to be allowed after July 1st? Basically wondering if it's only a limitation of the auto upgrade, but not otherwise not enforced.

Thanks in advance for any clarifications.

Hans

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

The automatic migration will not occur on July 1st, but sometime thereafter. On July 1st, all destination URLs will become readonly, so you will no longer be able to create new ads with destination URLs; you will be forced to use final URLs.

When the migration does occur, you are correct; all these items with destination URLs will be upgraded to use final URLs.

Do you have an example that you are able to create where the display URL doesn't match the final URLs? You can reply to me privately if that is a concern.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Mike

Thanks for your reply and apologize for taking so long to get back to you. Good to know that the migration doesn't necessarily occur 7/1. Do you by any chance know when you expect to have migrated everyone? End of July?

As an example of the ad scenario, I had the following text ad (adid = 58166625610, adgroupid = 1743243130):

Display URL: www.displayurl.com

Destination URL: http://trackingprovider.com?url=http://www.landingpageserver.com

I then selected "Upgrade destination URLs..." from the AdWords UI and ended up with this:

Display URL: www.displayurl.com

Final URL: http://trackingprovider.com?url=http://www.landingpageserver.com

Because the documentation states that this can't be done in the auto-upgrade, I assumed it would be blocked in the UI and APIs as well. We have done something very similar (or identical) via the APIs as well, I believe both creating an ad and upgrading an ad (upgradeurl).

Thanks,
Hans

[HK]

Correct AdId should be 58166978650.

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

While it is possible to create an ad where the display URL and final URL don't match, that ad will trigger a policy violation and won't be able to serve. If you look at the ads you created this way, you will see that they are disapproved.

You are prevented from upgrading ads where they don't match since there's no reason to automatically create ads that we know will be rejected.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Mike,

That makes sense, thanks for the clarification.

As to when the migration occurs, can you offer a timeline for when you expect all merchants have been migrated?

Hans

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

We don't have a public timeline for when the migration will be complete.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Mike, I understand this is difficult for you to predict. It does matter to us though as we need to determine how much effort we should invest in dealing with destination URLs in between 7/1 and when the migration is completed. Are you able to guess whether it's 2-3 weeks or several months?

Thanks again,

Hans

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

Migration will begin around 7/1, although that says nothing about how long it will actually take to complete. Are you planning on allowing the automatic migration to migrate all your ads (i.e. you don't plan to migrate manually before that date)? If so, there is no guarantee on when or if any given ad will be migrated. Ads that are not or cannot be migrated will still serve, although you cannot create new ones using destination URLs.

Unfortunately, I simply cannot make a prediction about how long this process will take.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Mike,

That is correct. We have planned our support for Upgraded URLs around the auto-migration that we expected to start 7/1. We are not doing the migration ourselves.

Thanks,

Hans

[Santhosh Neyyar]

We too expected the migration to start at 7/1.  If this is not the case, is it possible to check (via API) whether an account is been (entirely) migrated ? We would like to download all these changes to our local database, once the (auto) migration is completed. Any suggestions on how we could accomplish this efficiently ?

thanks,
Santhosh

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Santhosh,

There is no single API call you can make to check whether your account has been migrated. You will probably have to just check a handful of ads across your account to see if they have final URLs instead of destination URLs.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team