AdWords Extensions are a great way to increase the impact of your ad without having to pay any extra fees. In fact, your ad might even be cheaper if you use ad extensions. To utilize a review extension, all you have to do is submit your review and comply the listed policies. Seems simple enough, right?
Stage 1 Disapproval – Denial
My first attempt was to submit a review extension from The U.S. News & World Report for a 2015 Best Lawyers client. This extension was disapproved due to “Review Extension Accuracy.” I used a paraphrase for my review extension, but it was absolutely representative of the review on the site. So I reached out to the AdWords team to see what I was doing wrong.
This would be my first encounter with the AdWords Team member that we will call Radword. Radword responded to inform me that the review could not be approved because it was paraphrased and review extensions must be an exact quote. When submitting a review extension, you have the option of selecting a radio button that indicates whether your review is a paraphrase or an exact quote, so I don’t think Radword was correct, but I’ll submit an exact quote just in case I’m wrong.
Stage 2 Disapproval – Bargaining
Exact quote review submitted and…disapproved! This was again listed as a disapproval due to “Review Extension Accuracy.” Let’s reach out to Radword and see what he has to say this time. His response is that the listing on the site I am using says “Copyright 2014.” AdWords policy dictates that the review should not be more than 12 months old. This review extension is for the Best Lawyers 2015, so I reach out to the webmasters at U.S. News, hoping that they just forgot to change the copyright on the webpage to 2015. The webmasters informed me that the copyright is correct and that the 2015 report was released in November 2014. November 2014? That’s within 12 months! Let’s see what Radword has to say about this. 
It does not sound like there is going to be any way I can get the review from U.S. News to show until I wait until the next review comes out in November and I have a 2 month period to submit the extension with the appropriate copyright year on the website. However, that does me no good right now, so let’s try something else.
Stage 3 Disapproval – Anger
I checked out some competitors to see the source of their review extensions. There are a couple different clients using a lawyer ranking site known as Martindale-Hubbell. I’ll just find my client and submit the same exact review extension. This should be a slam dunk for approval…
Accuracy and source?! There are multiple accounts using this exact source. How could the source possibly be an issue? Is there not a list of approved sources that the Google AdWords team uses? Let’s shoot a message to Radword to see what the excuse is this time.
The other reviews were approved incorrectly and now I’m being told to report them? I don’t even know how to respond to that.
Final Words
Quality assurance is key, especially when you have a list of subjective rules and requirements. I spoke with multiple team members during my frustrating review extension experience and there were a few AdWords support team members who thought my review extensions were not a violation of policy. Nothing would be this frustrating or confusing if there were appropriate quality assurance measures in place. Unfortunately, the current system for review extension approval feels more like a science experiment than a policy.
