Google has removed over half of the "bad ads" plaguing the search engine's website following an upgrade in detection technology. Around 800,000 advertisers have been blacklisted which has resulted in 130 million ads no longer appearing on the website.

The monitoring of sensitive keywords, enhanced scanning methods and a faster response rate to flagged adverts have been detrimental in removing the majority of spam.

Engineering chief Sridhar Ramaswamy stated:

"In 2011, advertisers submitted billions of ads to Google, and of those, we disabled more than 130 million ads. And our systems continue to improve – in fact, in 2011 we reduced the percentage of bad ads by more than 50% compared with 2010."

"We're also catching the vast majority of these scam ads before they ever appear on Google or on any of our partner networks. For example, in 2011, we shut down approximately 150,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, and more than 95% of these accounts were discovered through our own detection efforts and risk models."

Google will continue their crackdown on these "bad ads" through further development of their screening process. The internet giant currently relies on software to detect malware and Google users to report suspicious advertisements.

"We must remain vigilant because scammers will always try to find new ways to abuse our systems," commented Ramaswamy. "Given the number of searches on Google and the number of legitimate businesses who rely on this system to reach users, our work to remove bad ads must be precise and at scale."
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