Google's AFS and RSOC rules, in plain English

When you show Google's search ads on your own site, you are borrowing Google's advertisers. Each click you produce is billed to a business that trusted Google to send it a real, interested customer. Google's rules for AdSense for Search and Related Search on Content all come back to one question: did this person genuinely choose this search, knowing what they would get?

Think of a franchise. You may run a shop under a famous brand's sign and sell its products, but only if you follow the brand's manual: how the shop looks, what you may promise customers, how you bring people through the door. Break the manual and the brand takes its sign back, because your shop puts its name at risk with its own customers.

Three layers of rules

1. Google Publisher PoliciesThe base layer for all Google publisher products: what content may carry ads at all (no illegal, dangerous, deceptive or adult content, and so on).
2. Search ads policies (AFS program policies)Rules for any page that shows Google search ads: where queries may come from, how ads may be placed, what you may not ask users to do.
3. Product-Integrated Feature policies (RSOC policies)Extra rules for related search units. Since 15 November 2024, Google's policy change log has classed related search for content pages as an AFS Product-Integrated Feature with its own section.

1. One ad pool, three doors: A search feed lends a search engine’s advertisers to another website. Google has offered it in three main shapes. They differ in one thing: how the visitor’s interest (the search intent) is established before ads appear.
2. Door 1: the visitor types a query: With AdSense for Search, a site has its own search box. The visitor types what they want and the results page carries search ads, drawn by Custom Search Ads code. Like a shop assistant answering the question you asked.
3. One step from query to ad: Because the visitor wrote the query themselves, intent is clear and one ad click pays. Rules are strict about where the query came from: a query the visitor never typed or chose is not a real search.
4. Door 2: the visitor reads first: With Related Search on Content, the visitor lands on an article. A labelled block suggests searches related to what the page is about. The page must have real content; the block is an add-on, not the whole page.
5. Two clicks: topic, then ad: Tapping a suggested term opens a results page with ads for it; clicking an ad is what pays. This two-click flow is the format most paid-traffic arbitrage uses today, because the visitor’s own tap confirms the interest.
6. Door 3: a domain with nothing on it: A parked domain is a web address with no real site. With AdSense for Domains, someone who mistyped an address or followed an old link saw a page of keyword links and ads guessed from the domain name alone.
7. The door Google closed: Intent here was weakest: the visitor never asked for anything. Google Ads opted advertisers out of parked domains by default during 2025 (flipping the usual advertiser opt-out) and removed them from its search partner network on 10 February 2026.
8. The clearer the intent, the safer the feed: Typed query, chosen topic, guessed topic: advertisers pay for intent, and the formats that prove it survive. That is why policy keeps pushing arbitrage toward real content and a genuine choice by the visitor.

The core AFS rules

• Queries must come from the user. A search must be typed and submitted by a person, or come through an approved feature such as related search. Publishers may not pre-fill search boxes or create links that carry a ready-made query, outside those approved features.
• No paying for searches or clicks. You may not reward users for searching or for viewing ads. Any nudge to click, whether a prize, points or wording such as 'click the ads to continue', is an incentivised click.
• Ads supplement results; they are not the product. A results page should offer the user something besides adverts, and ads must be recognisable as ads (ad disclosure).
• No disguise. A search unit must not be dressed up as a menu, a download button, a video player or site navigation. That is implied functionality.
• Web only. From 22 April 2025 Google removed the mobile app section of the policy: AFS no longer supports mobile apps.

The RSOC rules

On an RSOC page the visitor reads an article, sees suggested searches and clicks one. Google's policy sets conditions on each part of that journey.

What referrerAdCreative means in practice

Before this rule, Google could see your article and the search terms but not the Facebook or Taboola ad that sent the visitor. Now the publisher must hand over the precise and complete text of that ad with each ad request. Trade coverage of Google's notice, sent to publishers on 7 October 2025, describes it as a literal transcription: headline, description, button text, words shown in images, speech in video, even handles. If the ad said 'Seniors can get a free phone today' and the page is a general article about phone plans, Google can now see the mismatch for itself.

Restricted Access Features and strikes

From 25 August 2025 Google tied the most useful RSOC features to an account's record. These Restricted Access Features (RAFs) are available only to accounts Google calls Qualified.

The same page says an account earning under $10,000 a month in three of the past four months loses RAF status while keeping standard AFS, and that an appeal succeeds only if the violation is shown not to have happened: fixing the problem afterwards does not remove the strike. Beyond RAFs, Google keeps its ordinary powers to require changes, limit ad serving, withhold revenue for invalid activity or end the account (feed suspension).

1. A feed comes with a rulebook: A search feed is lent, not owned. The engine’s AFS and RSOC policies, plus the provider’s contract, say what the ads, pages and traffic must look like. Compliance is the price of keeping the tap open.
2. Something breaks a rule: Typical causes: a misleading ad that promises what the page does not deliver, search terms unrelated to the article, an unapproved traffic source, or wording that pushes people to click ads. Each is a policy violation.
3. It gets noticed: Automated checks, manual reviewers and advertiser complaints all feed a review. The provider is watching too, because the engine holds it responsible for its publishers.
4. First rung: a warning: For a first or minor problem the usual result is a notice naming the issue and a deadline. Fixing the ad or page, and showing it, normally ends the matter. This is the cheap exit.
5. Second rung: limits: If issues repeat or quality looks weak, the feed may be throttled: a feed cap on daily volume, fewer ads per page, or a ban on one traffic source. Revenue falls immediately while ad spend may still be running.
6. Third rung: revenue taken back: Earnings tied to the violating traffic can be withheld or deducted, sometimes for weeks already reported. If $28,000 was estimated and $8,000 of it is judged non-compliant, that Clawback (revenue deduction) alone wipes out the month’s profit in our example.
7. Last rung: termination: Serious or repeated breaches end in the feed being switched off, often without a second chance, and unpaid balances may be kept (feed suspension). Severe cases can skip every earlier rung. This is platform risk at its plainest.
8. The damage travels: A terminated publisher rarely gets another feed quickly: providers share the same few engines and ask about history. And a provider with too many bad publishers risks its own contract, which is why approval is slow and monitoring constant.