Google's invisible keyword flag.

[sitecreations]

After pouring over our clients' adgroups and logs until my eyes were popping out, Google told me today (after I called them) that they had invisibly "flagged" our ad keywords for review - and taken our ad off line. A very nice Google rep helped me out - and we're back on.

No notice, no "Inactive" indicator in the Adwords control panel, no email stating editorial review. The ad showed "Active" but was not. Impressions at zero. For 15 of the clients' most important selling days this ad has been off-line.

The cause? The word "kids" was part of our keywords phrase list.

But the issue remains. We were off for fifteen days!

Needless to say, it was embarassing for us. We were late doing our weekly analytics review due to vacations, so only caught it now.

They then told me that if I were to make any further changes to the ad group, ad text, or keywords that it would be flagged again and taken off line. Doesn't Google usually put some kind of note up about rejected ads?

Guess you have to be careful when you're selling anything related to children.

[vayapues]

Ouch!! That is a long time to be down, and not know it.

Though I am happy to hear that the word 'Kids' triggered a review. My sites are all targeted towards children, and this is always one of my biggest worries.

However, they should have notified you that you were down.