What do you need to know about filters?
You have the ability to dictate what types of ads appear on your web property through the use of filters. Read on to learn about filters, types of filters, setting up filters and filter limitations. Before you get set up your filter, make sure you understand how channels and filters work. To learn about channels, be sure to check out the channels article.

Filters
A filter is a list of URLs and keywords you want to block--it lists the things you do not want to see in ad units on your web property. Using filters is a good way to improve the relevancy of ads you receive. If your competitors advertise online and you do not want their ads to appear on your site, you can enter their URLs and/or keywords associated to their products and services, into a filter and apply that filter to a channel.

You can filter content for more than just competitive reasons. For example, you might want to block content that you find frivolous, unprofessional, or personally offensive. Keep in mind, pubCenter provides both a manual and automated review of the ad content it serves to help prevent inappropriate content from appearing.

There are two types of filters to select from and each filter has a different purpose: global filter and standard filter.

When to use a global filter
Use a global filter to block URLs and/or keywords you do not want appearing anywhere on your web property. This filter will be applied to every ad unit on every page where you display ads. Here’s an example. All pages within your web site (e.g., contoso.com/sports, contoso.com/news, contoso.com/weather) can be blocked from receiving ads of your choice by applying a global filter.

When to use a standard filter?
Use a standard filter to block URLs and/or keywords you do not want appearing in specified ad units on your web property. This filter gives you the most flexibility in determining what content to block from ad units on certain parts of your site. Here’s an example. Your don’t want basketball shoe ads to appear on contoso.com/news. Therefore, you would add any basketball shoe URLs and associated keywords to a custom filter and associate that filter to a channel containing the ad units on contoso.com/news.

Standard filters require two steps to activate:

1. List the content you want to block (Filter)
2. List where you want that block to occur (Channel)

How to set up a global filter
Navigate to Setup. Click Competitive ad filters --Create a new global filter.

Name your global filter and enter the URLs and keywords you want to block from appearing on your web property. Click Save. You can now have blocked the specified URLs and keywords from appearing on your web property. Remember global filters need not be associated with a channel to work.

How to set up a standard filter
Navigate to Setup. Click Competitive ad filters --Create a new filter. Filters are associated with accounts, so make sure you are operating in the right account.

Name your standard filter and attach the filters you want associated with the filter by moving them from Available to Selected. Enter the URLs and keywords you want to block. Click Save. You have now blocked the specified URLs and keywords from appearing on the ad units in the channels associated with this filter.

Filter limits
pubCenter limits publishers to 10 filters per account (1 global + 9 standard) and 50 URLs and keywords per filter.

If you wish to filter more than 50 URLs and keywords to an ad unit, simply create another filter and associate it to the same channel. This will give you two filters pointing to the same ad unit. Here is an example.

Ad unit abc – create filter xyz – 50 URLs + 50 keywords
Ad unit abc – create filter zzz – 50 URLs + 50 keywords

Be aware that the more URLs and keywords you filter will reduce the amount of available ads to show on your web property, limiting your earning potential.

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