Ads and links are being blocked by the search engines

Last Updated: 9 july 2025

Google has already blocked 3.1 billion ads

In 2020, Google blocked 3.1 billion ads that violated the company’s rules. The number of remote ads increased by almost 15%, and the company deleted 2.7 billion ads last year. The company annually issues the advertising security report to prevent malicious use of its advertising platforms, including Google Ads, and to ensure transparency in their fight against fraudulent activity. In 2020, Google partially restricted access to 6.4 billion ads that were supposed to be hidden due to the legal requirements in certain countries or for their “cultural sensitivity”. According to the legal requirements, in particular, 550 million banners were partially hidden: 80 million alcohol advertisements, 68 million — gambling ads. Another 354 ads were categorised as “other prohibited business activities”. Google also took action against 1.3 billion pages and 1.6 billion domains that violated publishing rights. 981 million of them contained erotic content, 168 million – dangerous or offensive content, and 114 million – weapons advertising. In 2020, Google blocked 3.1 billion ads that violated the company’s rules. The number of remote ads increased by almost 15%, and the company removed 2.7 billion placements last year.

In 2020, Google blocked 3.1 billion ads that violated the company’s rules. The number of remote ads increased by almost 15%, and the company deleted 2.7 billion ads last year.

Yandex has deleted about 6 million illegal audio and video content links

In March 2021, the total number of links banned by Yandex exceeded 15 million. 6 million disappeared from the search results in less than three months this year. Pirated content had been posted on more than 150,000 sites. Yandex states that copyright holders are the key influencers in this fight against illegal content films, TV series, songs, sports content owners are struggling against that. They regularly check the search results and record those links and sites that violate their copyrights. Then, these links are withdrawn from the Yandex search results within a few hours. Thus, more than two years ago, Yandex and the largest copyright holders signed a Memorandum to confirm the foundation of the protective mechanism serving the audiovisual content copyright holders. The partners agreed to search, check and remove illegal audio and video content from the search results immediately.