Just a heads up, that a small setting within Google AdSense under the vignette ads may trigger your site to get a Google search penalty - specifically for the new back button hijacking search spam rule.
The setting is hidden deep within the vignette ads configuration, under advanced setting and then at the bottom. It is named, "Allow additional triggers for vignette ads." If that is enabled, that can cause several additional triggers to load the vingentte ads and take other actions.
One such action, as Glenn Gabe noted on X is "Navigates backward using their browser's back button on supported browsers (currently Chrome, Edge, and Opera)."
Here is a screenshot of that help document page:
As Glenn wrote, "Vignette Ads, which most people hate with a passion, include additional triggers that a site owner can activate. One trigger is to launch a vignette ad when a user clicks the back button in their browser. Well, that goes against Google's new spam policy for "back button hijacking". So if that functionality doesn't change, then site owners could get a manual action from Google based on Google functionality."
Again, to find that setting, go to Ads, then in the table of all your sites, click Edit. next to your site, then Under "Ad settings", turn on Auto ads, Under "Overlay formats", make sure the Vignette ads option is selected, then scroll to the bottom of the settings and you will see this:
I asked Google's Search team for a statement on this and a spokesperson told me, "Our back button hijacking policy applies to all publishers who interfere with a user's ability to navigate their browser history." "The Search Spam team operates independently of the Google Ads team," they added.
I then followed up to ask the Google AdSense team for a statement, but they had nothing to share right now, but promised to share any updates ahead of when this goes into effect.
Make sure that is not on and you should be okay.
So, I've had some people ping me about an interesting 'back button hijacking' situation wondering how Google will treat it. Vignette Ads, which most people hate with a passion, include additional triggers that a site owner can activate. One trigger is to launch a vignette ad when… https://t.co/G2mJIsZpUg pic.twitter.com/mvduzmC1yH
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 28, 2026
Forum discussion at X.
