As fresh and as dynamic as we all tend to believe the search engine marketing industry is, in terms of its people, it is the same as many other industries out there; the labour turnover is cyclical. With the ever revolving doors of the myriad of marketing agencies worldwide, employees come and go with ever growing frequency, leaving positions once occupied by experienced paid search marketers open to be filled by a new generation.

Considering the vast amount that any new PPC executive has to learn, I thought it might be worthwhile outlining the simple editorial policies that Google (for the sake of argument) employ to make sure that our adverts are law-abiding and more importantly, relevant.

Granted this is a heavy handed way of illustrating the point, but it’s nearly Friday, it’s a million degrees in the office, and you can actually have a bit of fun trying to think up the most provocative advert you can!

If you are new to the industry and want a brief outline of what Google will and won’t allow, just remember the six basics; guns, alcohol, sex, drugs, brands, and exclamation marks!(!!!!!) These topics all come with their own caveats i.e. if you are advertising for the brand then of course you will be allowed to include the brand in your ad copy, and of course there are exceptions when advertising against drugs, alcohol and guns.

Below are three ads that definitely wouldn’t be allowed through the editorial process at Google, but they clearly demonstrate the point I’m trying to make.

Guns

This advert managed to trigger eight alerts within Google’s editorial guidelines, see if you can beat that! Can you figure out each individual reason for immediate disapproval?

Drugs

On a more sensible note, there are very stringent rules on the promotion of drugs, medical or otherwise, on Google. Have a look in your account preferences and you will notice the PharmacyChecker ID that once submitted, allows Google to verify your ability to legally sell (legal) drugs.

Brands

The advert above is clearly in breach of multiple trademark and copyright issues. The general rule now is that if your use of a trademarked brand name enhances the relevancy of your advert, it will be allowed. For example if you are selling running shoes, you are now within your rights to advertise the fact that you offer different brands that might otherwise be trademarked. If the presence of a brand name helps the user decide whether to click, its use will be permitted. However the fact remains that the more exclusive and luxury brand names steadfastly refuse to be included in this exception.

So here is a quick check list of editorial policy for those of you who are new to the game

1.    No excessive punctuation, generally applies to exclamation marks
2.    Make sure your display url has the same domain name as your destination url
3.    No excessive capitalisation
4.    No use of irrelevant trademarks
5.    Stick to your character limits, 25, 35, 35.

Hopefully this post has helped anyone out there new to PPC understand just part of the editorial policy; just make sure you check out the full policies if you are unsure about anything. Good luck to all who are just getting to grips with the world of paid search marketing!