Some Thoughts on the {ignore} Parameter

[Dorian Kind]

Hi there,

I just had a use case for the {ignore} parameter in Final URLs. While reading up on the documentation, it occurred to me that it seems to be possible to use this parameter to circumvent Adwords policy by redirecting to a different page for specific URLs.

As an example, let's say I use the same final URL for all my ads, e.g. http://example.com/landingpage{ignore}?param={_param} Then I set different values for the custom parameter _param in each ad, some (or most?) of which trigger a redirect on the landing page that goes to a completely different domain (not matching the display URL and offering services that violate Adwords policies). It is my understanding that only one specific value of _param would be crawled to check for policy violations, as the {ignore} parameter indicates that the content always stays the same.

Am I misunderstanding how {ignore} works, or are there additional safeguards in place to ensure that the functionality is not exploited?

Thanks for any feedback and best regards,
Dorian

[Shwetha Vastrad (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

On this forum, we address issues related to AdWords API. This question is related to the AdWords product in general, and is not specific to AdWords API. Please post this question in the AdWords Community Forum as they are better equipped to answer this question.

Regards,

Shwetha, AdWords API Team.

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Shwetha,

thanks for your efforts. Unfortunately, the AdWords Community forum has not quite the same level of expertise as this group, in my experience. I'll try anyways.

Best regards,

Dorian

[Dorian Kind]

Hello again,

I posted the question on the AdWords Community forum but did not really receive any significant replies: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Advanced-Features/Question-About-the-ignore-ValueTrack-Parameter/m-p/599770

Any suggestions on where I might be able to get more insights about the {ignore} parameter?

Thanks and best regards,

Dorian

[Michael Cloonan (AdWords API Team)]

Hello,

Unfortunately, with product-level questions, we really cannot provide thorough support like we can for API level questions. I apologize that the AdWords Community didn't provide a better help in this case, but that is really the go-to for questions like this.

That being said, I don't think it's wise to try to us this feature to circumvent policy.

Regards,

Mike, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Michael,

thanks, I appreciate your answer. Rest assured that I did not want to imply that we would try to use the feature to get around Adwords policies, it just seemed to me from the description of the parameter that it might be possible to do so.

Thanks & best regards,

Dorian