Google Chrome’s better ads ad blocker will go global on July 9

In January 9, 2019, The Coalition for Better Ads announced that it will expand the Better Ads Standards for desktop and mobile web to all countries and regions worldwide to improve the online ad experience for consumers.

The ad experiences in the Standards are based on the Coalition’s extensive research, which has involved more than 66,000 consumers to date in countries representing 70% of global online advertising spending.

What is Coalition for Better Ads

Coalition for Better Ads is an organization where advertising helps support valuable free content, robust journalism and social connections across the internet.

Consumers, however, are increasingly frustrated with ads that disrupt their experience, interrupt content and slow browsing.

Leading international trade associations and companies involved in online media formed the Coalition for Better Ads to improve consumers’ experience with online advertising.

The Coalition for Better Ads will leverage consumer insights and cross-industry expertise to develop and implement new global standards for online advertising that address consumer expectations.

The Better Ads Standards identify the ad experiences that fall beneath a threshold of consumer acceptability and are most likely to drive consumers to install ad blockers.

Stephan Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers said,

“Consumers worldwide have sent a clear message to the online ad industry about the ad formats that disrupt their experience online”

Stephan Loerke added,

Successful brands will respond to consumers by taking steps to avoid these ad experiences in their marketing plans.

Google and Coalition for Better Ads

Last year Google joined the Coalition for Better Ads, a group that offers specific standards for how the industry should improve ads for consumers.

In February, Chrome started blocking ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that display non-compliant ads, as defined by the coalition.

When a Chrome user navigates to a page, the browser’s ad filter checks if that page belongs to a site that fails the Better Ads Standards.

If so, network requests on the page are checked against a list of known ad-related URL patterns and any matches are blocked, preventing all ads from displaying on the page.

Google Chrome’s ad blocker, new race

In January 9, 2019, Google announced that Chrome’s ad blocker is expanding across the globe starting on July 9, 2019.

As with last year’s initial ad blocker rollout, the date is not tied to a specific Chrome version. Chrome 76 is currently scheduled to arrive on May 30 and Chrome 77 is slated to launch on July 25, meaning Google will be expanding the scope of its browser’s ad blocker server-side.

Because the Coalition for Better Ads announced that it is expanding its Better Ads Standards beyond North America and Europe to cover all countries, Google is doing the same.

In six months, Chrome will stop showing all ads on sites in any country that repeatedly display “disruptive ads.”

Results so far for the new start

On desktop, there are four types of ads the coalition has banned:

1. Pop-up ads,
2. Auto-playing video ads with sound,
3. Prestitial ads with countdown, and
4. Large sticky ads.

On mobile, there are eight types of banned ads:

1. Pop-up ads,
2. Prestitial ads,
3. Ad density higher than 30 percent,
4. Flashing animated ads,
5. Auto-playing video ads with sound,
6. Postitial ads with countdown,
7. Full-screen scrollover ads, and
8. Large sticky ads.

Google declared,

We follow the Better Ads Standards when determining which websites to filter ads on in Chrome.

What is Google’s strategy for Ads Standards?

Google’s strategy is simple: Use Chrome to cut off ad revenue from websites that serve non-compliant ads.

For a full list of approved ads, Google offers a best practices guide.

What does this mean for website Owners or Administrator?

If you’re a site owner or administrator, use Google Search Console’s Abusive Experiences Report to check if your site contains abusive experiences that need to be corrected or removed.

You should also consider reviewing your site status in the Ad Experience Report, a tool that helps publishers to understand if Chrome has identified any violating ad experiences on your site.

Conclusion: Google has repeatedly said that it would prefer if Chrome did not have to block ads at all. Its main goal is to improve the overall experience on the web.

Indeed, the company has used Chrome’s ad blocker to tackle “abusive experiences” — not just ads.

The tool is more of a way to punish bad sites than it is an ad blocker.