(3)
I have really never heard complains about Google AdWords having a limit on the characters allowed in the display URL. Today, I found out that the max number of characters you can have in your AdWords display URL is 35. An advertiser ran into this issue and posted the details at Google Groups.
I suspect this wasn't much of an issue before Google began enforcing the display URL policy. Back then, I assume you can use shorter versions of a domain name and get away with it easily.
So, what do you do if you really need more characters in your display URL?
(1) Drop off the www, preceding the host name. I.e. you don't always need www.seroundtable.com/pagename/, you can drop off the www in many cases (especially for the display URL).
(2) AdWordsPro suggests that if those three extra characters don't help, then you should contact an AdWords representative. It seems that maybe Google can either aid you with your issue or bend the rules a bit.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
Comments:
Scott
07/02/2008 06:47 pm
I ran into this a couple of months ago. The domain (HistoricFreeportBedAndBreakfasts.com) is 36 characters long without the www. Our ads were disallowed. Tried using an alternate owned domain (FreeportBedAndBreakfasts.com with 301 redirect to the primary domain) as the display URL - disallowed - not the same domain. An AdWords rep obtained approval for us to use HistoricFreeportBed&Breakfasts.com as the display URL (despite the illegal character), but before long that was disallowed (incorrectly, but still a problem). A second effort by an AdWords rep obtained approval to use FreeportBedAndBreakfasts.com as the display URL and point to the correct domain for the link. So far, so good. If you encounter this problem, getting help from an AdWords representative is a good thing (I used their live chat feature), but be prepared for it to take more than one attempt to resolve, as it seems things take a while to stabilize. Also, keep the log of your chat session (or at least the incident number), as the next AdWords rep will be able to look up the prior resolution and more quickly help to resolve things.
anon
07/03/2008 01:20 pm
* 4 characters. "www."
Patrick
12/10/2009 07:09 pm
I just tried to do the same, and spoke to an adwords rep through the online chat. She advised me that there is no longer any exceptions to this rule. I quizzed and quizzed, even trying to escalate this, but she said I had to accept it or buy a new domain. just fyi.