Dublin — AdSecure, an ad verification tool used by ad networks, ad operations teams and publishers, recently announced that it has updated its scanning technology to recognize and flag advertisements that are not compliant with Google’s Abusive Experience Report.

According to Google, an abusive experience is designed to mislead website visitors. For example, auto-redirects that take visitors to a new page without any action on their part constitutes an abusive experience, as do ads that are designed to mislead or trick users into interacting with them.

AdSecure’s latest platform feature uses state-of-the-art image recognition technology, machine learning and AI to recognize all ad formats and creatives that Google considers abusive.

Per Google, the following types of ads and ad actions are specifically designed to mislead users and are therefore non-compliant. If an ad:

Auto-redirects a page without action from the user

Takes the user to an ad landing page or other content when they click anywhere outside of the user-visible border of the element

Resembles system or site warnings or error messages

Simulates messages, dialog boxes or request notifications

Depicts features that do not work

Displays a “close” button that does anything other than closing the element when clicked

Imitate antivirus alerts

Google stated that, beginning Feb. 15, publishers that feature any of the aforementioned abusive ad experiences will receive an Abusive Experience Report.

For each listed experience in a publisher’s respective report, Google will provide a brief definition, the URL(s) of the incriminated page(s), screenshots and a short video that shows the misleading element(s).

Publishers will then have 30 days to stop displaying the non-compliant ads and/or correct documented issues. Once the publisher has fixed all the issues from the report, they will have to submit their website for review. Even though Google has not publicly shared an exact time frame on how long the review process would take, some sources seem to indicate that the review could take around two weeks.

If the publisher fails to comply, external links will be blocked on the entire site. This will lead to a loss of ad revenue, including from Google Adwords.

Mathieu Derval, Product Manager at AdSecure, commented, “We are excited to be adding new violations that Google considers as abusive to our detection arsenal. This new platform feature is a ‘must have’ for ad network platforms, publishers and ad operations teams. Not only does it ensure that publisher revenues are not compromised by penalization from Google, but publishers continue to preserve trust and security within the online advertising ecosystem.”

Derval continued, “AdSecure clients have the capacity to run comprehensive scans to inspect their ad tags and will receive real-time notification alerts through AI assisted analysis, each alert features a comprehensive report listing the non-compliant elements, allowing clients to take immediate action and reduce the risk of their own publisher clients getting flagged by Google.”

For more information about AdSecure, please visit https://www.adsecure.com/contact.