Expanded Text Ads Illegal character in path

[Ian P]

The Path(1/2) field doesn't allow the '.' but I could not find this documented, and it's rather frustrating that you cannot use a '.' in a path. I understand it's in part to avoid people putting ".html" but there are valid uses, such as /Acura/1.6_El/ 

Can this be better documented? Even in the web version, it just says "An illegal character" and with no explanation. What other characters, which woul dbe valid in a path, are not allowed in that field?

[Shwetha Vastrad (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Ian,

The Path1 and Path2 fields are added to the display URL after your website's domain which will help people get a better sense of where they'll be taken when they click an ad. The text you put in the path fields doesn’t necessarily have to be part of your website’s URL, but it should be related to the content on your landing page. In your case, you can provide the complete URL in the finalUrl field and provide appropriate values for the Path1 and Path2 fields of your Expanded Text Ads. The Expanded Text Ads should meet the editorial requirements. 

Regards,

Shwetha, AdWords API Team.

[Ian P]

That's not a very helpful response. The Final URL contains the model name the vehicle mentioned in the ad. The model name contains a '.', so what is the problem? The editorial standards make no mention of using a '.' in a Path field.

The display URL (as it was with TextAd ) should be example.com/Acura/1.6_El but it's rejected (invalid characters) and took awhile to determine that you consider a '.' in the path invalid (which it shouldn't be!).

I cannot find a documentation of the character restrictions of the various fields, and I find no mention of this limitation change from the TextAd displayUR Lfield

[Shwetha Vastrad (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Ian,

Since this relates to Expanded Text Ad requirements, I suggest that you post your question in the AdWords Community Forum as they are better equipped to address this.

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Ian,

for what it's worth, we found that the following characters are not allowed in the path fields: / \ . , : ; and any form of whitespace. Apart from that, we didn't (yet) encounter any other illegal symbols.

Cheers,

Dorian