Google Ads Placement Exclusions: Where Your Ads Should Not Show

Everything here comes from Google Ads Help: Exclude specific webpages and videos, Exclude placements at the account level, Use placement exclusion lists across your accounts and About content suitability, plus the pages linked where they are used. How Display campaigns work, their ad sizes and targeting are covered in our guide to Google Display campaigns; this page goes deeper on exclusions only.

What a placement exclusion does

A placement is a place an ad can appear outside Google Search: a website or page, a mobile app, a YouTube channel or a video. Just as you can target placements, you can exclude them. Google lists two reasons to do it: placements that "don't fit your brand", and placements "where your ads are showing, but not performing well."

Excluding is not the same as removing. Google points out that when you remove a placement you were targeting, your ad "could still show there based on other targeting methods you have in your ad group – like keywords or topics." An exclusion blocks it. Most placements in a typical account are not chosen by you at all: the "Where ads showed" report lists both the placements you target and those where ads showed through other targeting, which Google calls automatic placements.

Ad group, campaign or account level

You can exclude a placement at three levels. Per the account-level page, they "can be applied at the account, campaign, or ad group level, with account-level exclusions overriding campaign and ad group level settings."

Google says new account-level exclusions "typically take effect within 12 hours" and that you can confirm them in Change history at account level.

Which networks and campaign types they cover

Placement exclusions work on the Display Network, YouTube, Google Video Partners and the Search Partner Network. Google Search results themselves are not placements; for searches you use negative keywords.

• Search partners: since March 2024, account-level exclusions also apply to the Search Partner Network. Google says this affects "all campaigns that serve ads on the Search partner network, including Performance Max, App, Search, Shopping, and Smart campaigns in the account." Exclusions for subdomains, subsites and subpages do not work on search partner sites, so exclude the whole domain there.
• Parked domains: new accounts have been opted out of parked domains since October 2024, and Google says parked domains "will cease to be an ad surface within the Search Partner Network effective February 10, 2026."
• Exception: YouTube Sponsorship campaigns, which are bought on reservation through a Google representative, "automatically bypass all account-level content suitability exclusions."

Campaign and ad group exclusions are set on the same Content page, which appears for Display, Video, Demand Gen, Search, Performance Max and App campaigns. Performance Max works differently, as the next section explains.

Performance Max and YouTube

Performance Max is where most questions come from. Google's account-level page says: "For Performance Max campaigns, placement exclusions are managed at the account level." Its brand suitability page for Performance Max adds that "Performance Max campaigns will respect all account-level and MCC-level placement exclusions," and the Performance Max feature compatibility page lists placement exclusions as supported through the account level. So a site you exclude for Performance Max is excluded for every campaign in the account.

You cannot exclude all of youtube.com. Google's account-level page lists three alternatives: exclude specific channels or videos at account level, use the content suitability settings, and, if you want less YouTube in Performance Max, consider not providing video assets, "as this can reduce serving on YouTube." For searches in Performance Max, the tools are different: negative keywords and brand exclusions, which apply to Search and Shopping inventory. Our Performance Max guide covers those.

For YouTube video ads, the same account-level exclusions hold individual channels and videos, and Google notes that YouTube TV channels can be excluded at account level as well.

How to write an exclusion

The format of each entry decides how much it blocks. From Google's examples:

• example.com blocks the domain and everything under it: www., other subdomains, folders and pages. Google says to leave off www. for this reason.
• www.example.com blocks only that subdomain and its pages. Ads may still show on other subdomains.
• example.com/stuff blocks that folder and the pages in it, not the rest of the site.
• Single pages work too. Multi-level subdomains such as www.placement.example.com are "Not recommended", because only that exact subdomain is excluded.
• Country domains are separate: example.com and example.co.uk need an entry each.
• URLs on Google's own domains, such as mail.google.com, cannot be added as placement exclusions.
• Apps: for an iPhone app, enter mobileapp::1- followed by the number from its App Store URL; for an Android app, mobileapp::2- followed by the package name after id= in its Google Play URL.
• YouTube: search for or paste the channel ID or video URL.

One account can hold "a total of 65,000 placement exclusions", entered up to 20,000 at a time.

Exclusion lists and scheduled uploads

If you exclude the same sites in many places, a list saves work. There are two kinds:

• In an advertiser account: "Each client account can have up to 20 exclusion lists," and these lists are applied to selected campaigns in that account. When excluding at campaign level, choose "Use placement exclusion list" and pick a list.
• In a manager account (MCC): "A manager account can have a maximum of 3 exclusion lists," each with up to 250,000 exclusions. You create them in the Shared library and apply them to client accounts from Sub-account settings. They apply to the whole account: "Account level exclusion lists can't be added to specific campaigns," and they cannot be applied to sub-manager accounts. A change to the list reaches every account using it.

Lists can also update themselves. Under Exclusion lists in the Tools menu, "Schedule a list" links a file held in Google Sheets, on an HTTPS address or on SFTP, kept by you or a list provider you trust. Google Ads fetches it at the frequency you set. Supported entries are sites, mobile apps, YouTube channels and YouTube videos, and Google's template is available from the same screen. Changes must be made in the source file, since advertisers "cannot make permanent changes to scheduled lists from Google Ads."

Content suitability: excluding by type of content

Placement exclusions name specific sites. The Content suitability page in the Tools menu excludes whole kinds of content instead, which catches sites you have never seen. Google's policies already keep some content unmonetized; these settings add your own limits for content that is within policy but wrong for your brand. The settings, as the content suitability page lists them:

• Inventory type: Maximum, Moderate or Limited, for YouTube, the Display Network and Google Video Partners (not App campaigns). Moderate "excludes strong profanity, dramatized violence, and sexually suggestive themes"; Limited goes further and is "recommended only for brands with strict suitability requirements."
• Excluded sensitive content: tragedy and conflict, sensitive social issues, profanity and rough language, sexually suggestive content, and sensational and shocking content.
• Content types: live streaming videos, YouTube videos embedded on other sites, and below-the-fold placements (Display only).
• Content labels: DL-G, DL-PG, DL-T, DL-MA and not yet labeled. These apply to the Display Network; Google stopped using them for YouTube ads in September 2024.
• Content keywords: up to 1,000 at account level, "exact matches" only, so a word with two meanings blocks both.
• Content themes: for example politics, religion, recent or sensitive news, mature games and sensitive health content.

None of this is airtight. Google says it "can't guarantee that all related content will be excluded," lists limited coverage for YouTube Shorts, in-feed ads, Discover and connected TV, and notes for category exclusions that in its tests they reduce exposure to related pages "by approximately 90 percent." Every setting also narrows reach, so pick the ones a real brand rule calls for.

Finding placements to exclude

The "Where ads showed" report

For most campaigns, Google's "Where ads showed" page points you to Campaigns, then Insights and reports, When and where ads showed, then the "Where ads showed" tab, at account, campaign or ad group level. For YouTube it starts at channel level; tick channels and choose View details to see individual videos. Ads outside the YouTube watch page, such as the Home feed, appear simply as youtube.com.

Read it with Google's caveats in mind. Placements with only a few impressions may be missing, invalid traffic "may not be removed" from this report, and it is not a billing record. Google also warns against acting on performance alone: because each placement gets few impressions, the data "is generally not statistically significant," and over-optimizing on it "can severely limit the inventory available to your campaigns." It is best used to check that the content around your ads fits your brand. How Google filters and credits invalid clicks is covered in our invalid clicks guide.

Performance Max placement report

For Performance Max, Google's placement report page uses the Report editor: open the predefined "Performance Max campaigns placement" report, or build one with the "Performance Max placement" attribute and impressions. It shows impressions only. Google says the report "should be used as a brand safety tool", not to judge performance. A few entries need explaining:

• Google Owned & Operated groups impressions on Google properties such as some YouTube formats, Discover and Gmail.
• anonymous.google stands for publishers that hide their site name from advertisers.
• Search is not a placement and does not appear. Search partner sites have been included since March 2024.

A simple routine

This is how we would approach it for a small account; the settings are Google's, the order is our suggestion:

1. Before launch, set the account-level content suitability choices that match your brand, and add any sites or apps you already know you never want, as account-level exclusions.
2. After a few weeks, open the "Where ads showed" report (and the Performance Max placement report if you run Performance Max). Look first for content that does not fit, such as apps aimed at children or sites unrelated to your field.
3. Exclude what you find at the lowest level that does the job: account level for sites you never want, campaign or ad group level when a site is only wrong for one theme.
4. If you manage several accounts, move repeat entries into a manager account list.
5. Repeat monthly, and check that leads still come in: exclusions can cut useful traffic as well as waste.

Placement exclusions control where ads appear, not whether a click turns into a lead. That depends on conversion tracking that records real enquiries, so you can tell useful placements from wasted ones.

Frequently asked questions

Do placement exclusions work in Performance Max?

Yes, at account level. Google says Performance Max campaigns respect all account-level and manager account-level placement exclusions, so add the sites, apps, channels or videos there.

Can I exclude all of YouTube?

No. Google does not allow youtube.com as a whole to be excluded. You can exclude specific channels and videos, use content suitability settings, and in Performance Max leave out video assets to reduce serving on YouTube.

Should I write example.com or www.example.com?

Leave off www. to block the whole domain, its subdomains and pages. With www. only that subdomain is excluded. On search partner sites only whole-domain exclusions work.

Do placement exclusions apply to Google Search results?

No. They cover the Display Network, YouTube, Google Video Partners and, at account level, search partner sites. For Google Search itself, use negative keywords.

How long until an exclusion takes effect?

Google says new account-level placement exclusions typically take effect within 12 hours. You can confirm the change in the account's Change history.

Exclusions keep your ads in the right places; the page they land on still has to convert. See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].