Google almost doubled the number of so-called bad ads it took down from its site last year, reaching 3.2 billion, compared with 320,000 in 2016. In addition, the search giant blocked 79 million ads that automatically directed users to malware-laden sites, of which it removed 400,000. Google said it also eliminated 1.7 billion bad publishers and blocked more than 7,000 AdWords accounts for hosting sites that masqueraded as news but which diverted users to an advert – so-called tabloid cloaking – a fivefold increase from 1,400 in 2016. Also 12,000 sites were blocked for "scraping" – copying content from other sites.
Google almost doubled the number of so-called bad ads it took down from its site last year, reaching 3.2 billion, compared with 1.7 billion in 2016. In addition, the search giant blocked 79 million ads that automatically directed users to malware-laden sites, of which it removed 400,000. Google said it also eliminated 320,000 bad publishers and blocked more than 7,000 AdWords accounts for hosting sites that masqueraded as news but which diverted users to an advert – so-called tabloid cloaking – a fivefold increase from 1,400 in 2016. Also 12,000 sites were blocked for "scraping" – copying content from other sites.