Google decides redirects no good for AdWords

Posted by stuart as

I logged into my AdWords account today to see zero ad impressions today for the campaign I’m running at the moment.

This struck me as odd, as I’d been averaging around 1,000 impressions a day up till now. On closer inspection, I discovered that my ads had been rendered inactive due to an “Inaccurate Display URL”

What I’d been doing was funnelling ad clickers through a domain, to an affiliate site with a redirect. I couldn’t see this being a problem, and it made tracking clicks much easier.

Apparently, this is not ok:

• Your Display URL must accurately reflect the URL of your website. If your actual Destination URL link is too long for your ad, use a shortened version (such as your homepage) that meets the character limit for this field.
• The Display URL field cannot be used as another line of ad text.
• Your Display URL must include the domain extension, for example: .com, .net, or .org.

Example:
Destination URL: http://www.shoesforsale.com/ladiesshoes/highheels.html
Display URL: www.shoesforsale.com

Apparently, as the URL I listed in the bottom of my AdWords ad was not the actual URL the clicker ended up at, I’m doing the wrong thing. Interesting to note that it’s taken Google around a month to pick this up. I wonder how many people out there are doing the exact same thing?