Google provides translated versions of the Advertising Policies Help Center, though they're not meant to change the content of the policies. The English version is the official language used to enforce Google Ads policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.
Google prioritizes user experience across all its products, and a key part of this is fostering a safe and trustworthy environment within the Google ad network. The Destination Requirements policy strives to ensure that when users click on an ad and are sent to a landing page, that website is functional, useful, and easy to navigate. This also creates an ads ecosystem that’s supportive to advertisers and the people who interact with their ads.
Learn more about the Destination requirements policy.
In this article
- About Chrome DevTools
- About Google AdsBot web crawlers and user agents
- About the policy
- Override the user agent using Chrome DevTools
About Chrome DevTools
Chrome DevTools is a set of web developer tools built directly into the Google Chrome browser. DevTools can help you quickly diagnose problems and edit pages on your website. You can access DevTools from the Chrome menu or with keyboard shortcuts that open Elements, Console, or the last panel you used. Learn more about Chrome DevTools .
About Google AdsBot web crawlers and user agents
A "crawler" is any program used to automatically discover and scan websites by following links from one webpage to another. It’s sometimes called a "robot" or a "spider".
The “user agent” is a string provided by the browser or crawler requesting information from a web server. Google's main type of user agent for checking web page ad quality is called AdsBot. A description of the Google web crawlers and a full list of User Agent strings is available in the Overview of Google crawlers and fetchers .
The “full user agent string” is a full description of the crawler. It appears in the request and in your web logs. This string identifies the purpose of the request and the capabilities of the device. A web developer or a web server host can use the User Agent to configure and test the crawl rules for their site.
The following would lead to disapproval of your destination:
The destination returns a destination error when crawled by any of the following Google AdsBot user agent strings:
AdsBot Mobile Webchecks mobile web page ad quality.
- User agent token: AdsBot-Google-Mobile
- Full user agent string: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; AdsBot-Google-Mobile; +http://www.google.com/mobile/adsbot.html)
AdsBotchecks desktop web page ad quality.
- User agent token: AdsBot-Google
- Full user agent string: AdsBot-Google (+http://www.google.com/adsbot.html)
Override the user agent using Chrome DevTools
Overriding the user agent string changes how the browser identifies itself to web servers. This means the browser can simulate earlier versions or different browsers entirely, which is useful for testing responsive design, compatibility, and feature detection. When you override the user agent string, the content that Chrome is served from your website is changed so that you can mimic the Google AdsBot web crawler used to review destination URLs. Learn more about how to Override the user agent string .
- Open Chrome DevTools
by clicking the 3-doticon
in the top right of your Chrome window, then selecting More tools.
- Click Developer tools.
- Click Network conditions.
- In the “Caching” section, select Disable cache.
- In the "User agent" section, uncheck Use browser default.
- In the "Enter a custom user agent" field, enter the full user agent string of one of the Google AdsBot web crawlers .
- Enter the destination URL in the browser to access the site with the chosen user agent and make sure the page loads exactly like it would with your browser's default user agent.
