If you do any Pay per Click(PPC) bidding, you are no doubt using Google AdWords.

Please note an important change in Google’s policy as from April 1st, 2008.

Here are some examples given by Google to illustrate the rule they will now be strictly guarding regardless of whether your campaign is active and currently approved .

Unacceptable display URL’s if your landing page was www.mysite.com

* www.yoursite.co.uk – because this URL leads to a different site
* www.yoursite – even though this URL simply redirects to www.mysite.com it is still not acceptable
* www.yoursite.com – because this URL leads to a page showing content identical to www.mysite.com

When it comes to using tracking URL or affiliate link , the following examples show what will be allowed.

Display URL: www.myaffiliatessite.com/adwords
Destination URL: affiliates.youraffiliateprovider.com/z/1233456/abcde

–> Landing page URL: www.myaffiliatessite.com would be acceptable

There are more examples and explanations regarding sub-domains and top level domains in Google’s policy document.

Summary

The domain in the display URL must be the same as the domain in the landing page URL.
This will be strictly enforced by Google as from April 1st, 2008, for real!