A WebmasterWorld thread has several AdWords advertisers complaining about the site exclusion feature in AdWords. With the new user interface to manage campaigns, advertisers are confused how the exclusions work.
Does the exclusion block domains in the search network or content network, or maybe both? I personally tried it myself and it is not clear if you can block your ads from showing up on specific sites by search or content network. It would appear that you can block sites globally from both search and content network, but I am not sure if that is true.
No wonder 56% of AdWords users dislike the new interface.
Try it yourself, go to AdWords, click on a campaign and then click on the "network" tab. You should then see an "Exclusions" plus sign, click it and it will show you the campaigns you can apply the exclusions to. But it doesn't seem to specify content versus search networks:
AdWordsAdvisor chimed in on the thread, saying:
I am 99.8% sure that this is simply a new UI on top of the exact same functionality as before.I have pinged a colleague on the new UI team to confirm this (since I do hate to be wrong in public) but discover that she is traveling and not reachable.
I'll post again after I've had the chance to speak with her.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.