How does keyword blocking affect news publishers?
Part of Fair publisher planning
The short answer
Keyword blocking stops ads from serving on pages whose URL or text contains a listed word. News is exposed because ordinary reporting uses the words these lists contain. Studies from the IAB and news industry bodies find that many blocked articles are suitable, while some unsuitable pages slip through, so keyword lists should stay short and narrow.
Key takeaways
- Keyword blocking matches words, not meaning, so it produces false positives on safe news and false negatives on unsafe pages whose words it misses.
- The IAB's December 2020 guide puts the industry false positive rate for keyword URL tools at generally around 20 percent.
- A 2026 audit of 1,200 Australian news articles found 57 percent contained at least one term that could trigger an exclusion rule.
- On Google Ads, excluded content keywords are exact match only and do not apply to YouTube Shorts or feeds, so a list covers fewer surfaces than its name suggests.
- Keep keyword lists for narrow, brand specific concerns and judge everything else by page meaning and category tolerance.
What is news keyword blocking?
Definition
- Keyword blocking
- A brand safety control that prevents an ad from serving on a page when a word or phrase on the advertiser's exclusion list appears in the page's URL, headline or body text, whatever the page is actually about.
The IAB's brand safety and suitability guide (opens in a new tab), published in December 2020, describes keyword lists as one part of a brand's verification toolkit, "most effective when used to control for specific content that the brand is hypersensitive to avoiding." It says they should be used together with other tools, such as contextual analysis, rather than on their own.
Where the match happens matters. Some tools read only the URL, others read the body text. The IAB guide shows that a URL only check misses a page about a fatal crash if the listed word is not in the address, while a body text check can block a page because one sentence mentions a listed word. Both errors land hardest on news, because news pages use the vocabulary of events, including the events brands fear.
What do studies find about keyword blocking and news?
Public evidence comes mostly from industry bodies and from vendors with a commercial interest, so each study below is listed with who produced it. None of them measures every market, and none should be read as a single industry rate. Together they point the same way: lists built from sensitive words remove a large share of ordinary news.
| Study | Finding | Caveat |
|---|---|---|
| IAB, Brand Safety and Suitability Guide, December 2020 | Industry wide false positive rate for keyword URL tools generally around 20 percent; in its example, flag rates rose about tenfold during socially sensitive events | A best practice guide; the figures are given within an illustrative example |
| ThinkNewsBrands, Beyond Brand Safety, 2026 | Of 1,200 articles from ten Australian publishers, 57 percent held at least one exclusion trigger term, and 38 percent of lower sensitivity articles were incorrectly excluded | Australian market; produced by a news industry body |
| Keyword blacklist study published on the WFA knowledge site, January 2020 | 73 percent of neutral or positive LGBTQ+ online news was flagged incorrectly by exclusion lists | Produced by a brand safety company with a commercial interest |
| Reynolds Journalism Institute, November 2024 | Reviews published research and concludes blocklists disproportionately affect minority media, including Black and LGBTQ+ publishers | A synthesis of other studies, not new measurement |
Why does keyword blocking hit news harder during breaking events?
Breaking news puts the same few words on thousands of pages at once. Advertisers react by adding those words to their lists, and every article that mentions the event, including explainers, community responses and service journalism, drops out of reach together. The IAB guide (opens in a new tab) recommends against this reflex, warning that leaning on blocklists in the face of breaking news "can be a missed opportunity and can actually have negative brand implications."
The guide's own example is the summer of 2020, when some brands excluded terms tied to racial justice protests. It says those actions potentially limited scale and affected CPMs for the brands and caused short term revenue losses across publishing. The same pattern applies to elections, storms and public health news: the coverage readers look for during those events is the coverage keyword lists can remove.
Where do Google Ads keyword exclusions apply on news inventory?
Google's content suitability help page (opens in a new tab), checked in October 2026, lists which controls apply on each surface. Excluded content keywords are exact match only, with up to 1,000 at account level. Sensitive content exclusions, including tragedy and conflict, apply to the Display Network and Google video partners but not to YouTube ads.
| Control | Display Network | Google video partners | YouTube in-stream and watch next | YouTube Shorts and feeds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excluded content keywords (exact match only, up to 1,000 at account level) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Excluded sensitive content (tragedy and conflict, sensitive social issues and others) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Excluded placements | Yes | Yes | Yes | Shorts yes, except Video action and Performance Max; Home and Subscriptions feeds no |
Two consequences follow for news. An exact match list blocks only the listed words, so it cannot tell a recovery story from a disaster report. And because Google states that it "can't guarantee that all related content will be excluded," a long keyword list buys less protection than its length suggests, while still removing news pages on the surfaces where it applies.
How do you audit a keyword blocklist for its effect on news?
A seven step audit for any keyword exclusion list
- Export every list in use. Collect the lists in the buying platform, the verification settings and any agency defaults, and note who added each term and when.
- Sort terms into three groups. Brand specific concerns, generic sensitive words and words left over from past events. Only the first group is what the IAB guide calls content the brand is hypersensitive to avoiding.
- Test generic words on real news. For each generic term, open recent articles from the plan's news publishers that contain it and record whether the page would actually concern the brand.
- Count blocked sections. Note which sections lose most pages, such as business, sports, local news or health, and share the result with the client.
- Move generic words to category tolerance. Replace them with a tolerance per category judged by page meaning, as described in the brand suitability guide.
- Monitor before blocking new terms. Watch where a term appears for a period before adding it, rather than blocking on the day of an event.
- Set an expiry for event terms. Give each event driven term a review date, and remove it when the coverage it targeted has passed.
Signs a keyword list is overblocking news
- The list holds more generic sensitive words than brand specific terms.
- Terms from events more than a few months old are still active.
- Nobody on the account can say why some terms were added.
- Whole news sections of approved publishers rarely receive impressions.
- The same list is applied to every campaign, whatever the product or message.
How does PlacementGraph judge news pages without keyword lists?
What does a blocklist audit change for a real brief?
Fictional example
A fictional storm shutter and backup generator installer in Florida
A fictional installer of storm shutters and home backup generators, serving Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville, wants display ads beside hurricane preparedness and home protection coverage on Florida news sites. Its agency applies a default keyword list carried over from other clients, which includes hurricane, flood, evacuation, storm surge and death.
The planner audits the list. Most preparedness guides and storm tracking articles on the approved Florida publishers contain at least one listed word, so the campaign's most relevant pages are blocked. The word death, by contrast, mainly appears in casualty reports the client does want to avoid.
The team removes the weather words, sets a low tolerance for tragedy and for death and injury judged by page meaning, and keeps a short brand specific list naming a past product recall. Preparedness and recovery coverage returns to reach, while casualty reporting stays excluded by category rather than by word.
Frequently asked questions
Should a brand pause news advertising when a major story breaks?
Not by default. The IAB guide warns that reflexive blocking during breaking news can be a missed opportunity. A brand with a specific concern, such as an event involving its own products, can pause narrowly. Otherwise, judge pages by meaning and tolerance, and review the decision once the first days of coverage pass.
Is a keyword list ever the right tool?
Yes, for narrow concerns. The IAB guide says keyword lists work best for specific content a brand is hypersensitive to avoiding, such as its own product recall or a named controversy. Keep those lists short, give each term an owner and a review date, and handle broad topics through category tolerance instead.
What is a page level exception list?
It is a list of specific pages or site sections, such as a publisher's home page, that a brand allows even when its keyword settings would block them. The IAB guide describes adding home pages and site sections to an exceptions list to recover high traffic news pages while keeping other protections in place.
Do Google Ads keyword exclusions cover YouTube Shorts?
No. Google's coverage table, checked in October 2026, shows excluded content keywords apply to the Display Network, Google video partners and YouTube in-stream and watch next placements, but not to YouTube Shorts or the Home and Subscriptions feeds. Use placement exclusions and content themes where Google lists them instead.
Sources
- Understanding Brand Safety and Brand Suitability in a Contemporary Media Landscape (opens in a new tab)IAB, December 2020
- Beyond Brand Safety: The Trust Advantage (opens in a new tab)ThinkNewsBrands, 2026
- The Economic Costs of Keyword Blacklists for Online Publishers (opens in a new tab)World Federation of Advertisers knowledge site, January 20, 2020
- How advertising blocklists undermine online journalism (opens in a new tab)Reynolds Journalism Institute, University of Missouri, November 25, 2024
- About content suitability (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.