Google Releases 2023 Ads Safety Report and Search Updates

Google released two announcements about Google Ads and Google Search this week.
If you haven’t already, it’s time you catch up with the latest news from the world's most popular search engine.

Let’s dive in.

2023 ADS SAFETY REPORT RELEASED

On Wednesday, Google released the 2023 edition of their annual Ads Safety Report, which takes a deeper look at how they have created a safer experience for users in the ad ecosystem in the past year. Google also launched a brand new transparency tool called the Ads Transparency Center, which will be a fully searchable repository of the global ads served from verified advertisers.

Key Insights from the 2023 Ads Safety Report:

• Google blocked or removed over 5.2 billion ads for violating its policies. That's more than 9,000 ads per minute.
• Google restricted over 4.3 billion ads.
• Google blocked over 17 million ads related to the war in Ukraine under our sensitive event policy.
• Google suspended more than 6.7 million advertiser accounts for egregious policy violations.
• Google removed ads from over 1.5 billion pages last year.
• Google added or updated 29 policies for both advertisers and publishers in 2022.

NEW FACT-CHECKING TOOLS ON GOOGLE SEARCH

With International Fact-Checking Day (April 2) approaching, Google believes it’s an important time to consider information literacy and misinformation online. The company states that everyone should be empowered with the tools they need to find information they can trust, which is why it is highlighting tools and features available on Search to help people evaluate the information they come across online. More details about the new Search features can be found in this blog post.

Key insights:

• About this page, is a new Search results page experience. Now when you search for a URL on Google.ca, About this page will appear below the top navigational results on the Search page. It provides quick, important context about the webpage you searched for, to help you evaluate the credibility of the page.
• About this result will now be available for all Canadians. Through the feature, you can quickly find more context about the sources and topics you’re searching for. This includes information like a description of the source (if available), when the site was first indexed, and whether your connection to a site is secure. You’ll see Information about some of the factors used to connect a result to the query, and whether a result is personalized for you.
• Fact Checking Fund (GNI), back in November, Google and YouTube announced a $13.2M grant to the International Fact Checking Network to provide indirect funds to 135 fact-checking organizations across 65 countries covering 80 languages. The fund will be opening very soon, building on our previous work to address misinformation, and is Google and YouTube’s single largest grant in fact-checking.