Google Ads Policies Update For Government Documents and Official Services

Google has announced some changes to the Google Ads policies for government documents and official services. Google said “in March 2023, the Google Ads Government documents and official services policy will be updated to allow government authorized providers to promote government documents and services.”

I guess if you do these government documents and official services and want to advertise on Google Ads, you should read this change. To be honest, I don’t fully understand what changed but here is what Google said:

In March 2023, the Google Ads Government documents and official services policy will be updated to allow government authorized providers to promote government documents and services. We will begin enforcing the policy update in March 2023, with details of the full enforcement date and ramp up to be provided in January 2023.

In March 2023, the Government documents and official services policy will be updated to allow government authorized providers to promote government documents and official services, in addition to government providers. If you’ve been authorized by the government to provide a government document or official service, and that authorization is transparently referenced on the government website, you will be entitled to apply to Google for certification, and if certified, allowed to promote government documents and official services.

We will be deprecating the current delegated provider definition under this policy, which states that an advertiser can be considered a delegated provider if officially entrusted or assigned by the original provider (the government) to provide certain products or services on their behalf, that are either usually executed or had previously been done by the government itself. Advertisers who are existing delegated providers under the current policy will meet the requirements of a government authorized provider and will continue to be able to run ads.

Violations of this policy will not lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning. A warning will be issued at least 7 days prior to any suspension of your account.

You can read the current policy over here which reads:

The following is not allowed:

Promotions for documents and/or services that facilitate the acquisition, renewal, replacement, or lookup of official documents or information that are available directly from a government or government delegated provider.

Promotions for assistance with applying or paying for official services that are directly available via a government or government delegated provider.

Forum discussion at Twitter.