URL exclusions allow you to exclude specific web pages from serving when you use Final URL expansion in AI Max for Search campaigns. To use URL exclusions, you must enable both Text customization and Final URL expansion.
You can exclude pages in 3 ways:
- Provide exact URLs
- Use custom labels from page feeds
- Create custom URL Contains rules
This article explains how to use custom labels, how "URL Contains" matches text, and how to upgrade from Dynamic Search Ads.
On this page
- Use custom labels (page feeds)
- How "URL Contains" matches text
- Upgrade from Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)
Use custom labels (page feeds)
If you use page feeds to upload a curated list of URLs for your campaign, you can prevent specific pages from that feed from serving by adding their custom labels as URL exclusions.
How "URL Contains" matches text
When creating custom "URL Contains" rules, understand how the system reads your input text.
- Token-based matches: "URL contains" relies on consecutive tokens rather than partial substring matching. For example, setting an exclusion rule for "
auto" won’t exclude a URL that contains “automation”. To successfully block that page, your rule must explicitly state "URL contains automation". - Separators: The system splits URLs into tokens by common separators like hyphens “-“, periods “.“, and slashes “/“. However, underscores “_“ are an exception and aren't considered separators. For example, a string like
promo_pageis treated as a single, unbroken token. - Using Spaces: Spaces in your rule text parse the criteria into multiple phrases, acting as an "AND" operator that matches tokens anywhere in the URL in any order. It is highly recommended not to use spaces in your criteria text to avoid confusion.
Upgrade from Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)
If you upgraded an existing DSA campaign to AI Max, you may find legacy rules in your account:
- Legacy rule types for URL inclusion and exclusions such as “page title contains” or “page content contains” will become “read-only”.
- You can remove legacy rules, but you can't add new rules or edit existing rules after the upgrade.
