As with all policies, these are subject to change over time.
Unless explicitly mentioned below, Things to do products used for advertisements are also subject to Google Ads Policy.
Content Policies
Products
- Things to do products can include tours, activities, and tickets to local attractions or points of interest that might appeal to travelers or locals.
- Partner-provided data for a product should match what’s available on the landing page for that product and must accurately reflect the experience that travelers or locals will have when participating in the activity.
- Each product may have only one listing in the feed.
- Avoid near-duplicate products as these could cause user confusion and impact the ranking of your products on the page.
- Google may apply additional processing to products such as language translations and categorization.
Titles & Images
- The title and photo(s) of a product must match the experience offered by the product. For example, a product with a title mentioning the Eiffel Tower and images featuring the Eiffel Tower should offer users an Eiffel Tower experience.
- Titles should be concise and only describe the experience being offered.
- Titles should not include promotional language or discounts (for example, "flash sale", "50% off").
- Images should represent the attraction or activity and shouldn’t include promotional text, watermarks, or logos.
- Images that are animated or that are made up of multiple images (for example, image collages) aren't permitted.
- The size of the images should be at least 300 x 300 px and no larger than 4000 x 4000 px.
- Partners must be authorized to use the image submitted in the context in which it appears.
- Each product should have its own unique image. For example, a one-hour group tour of the Eiffel Tower should have a different photo or image than a 2-hour tour.
Duration
- Duration should be set for all products where the tour or activity takes a fixed or predicted amount of time. For example, a 25-minute helicopter tour. The duration set should match the duration displayed on the landing page. In cases where the tour or activity duration is an estimate and variable, pick the lower end of the estimate. For example, a walking tour that takes between 2–3 hours should be set to 2 hours.
- Admission tickets where there is no fixed or predicted duration should not set the duration field.
Ratings
- The ratings count passed in the feed should match the total ratings count shown on your product page, as well as the count of individual ratings that are available for the user to view on your product page.
- All customer ratings, regardless of whether positive or negative, should be included on the product page and in the rating you send to Google. Ratings shouldn't be based on a small number of customer ratings that have been selected to support a particular viewpoint.
Referral Experience Policies
Landing Pages
- The partner must provide a landing page that goes directly to the product details of the specific experience. A listview with product details is also acceptable if the below criteria are met.
- The product the user clicked on Google should be easy to identify when the user lands on a partner’s site. As such, it must be prominently displayed on the landing page.
- The price of the product should be easy to identify and adhere to the price policies.
- A user should land on a page where it’s straightforward to navigate to book the selected product. Google requires that partners maintain a consistent presentation of the product and pricing the user selected, and a clear path to booking the product found on Google.
- Vouchers redeemable for specific tickets or activities are allowed, provided they are clearly marked as vouchers, and the voucher can be redeemed for an activity that has availability in the next 120 days. Gift cards that aren’t for specific tickets or activities are not allowed.
- For products appearing directly on the Google business listing of attractions and tour and activity operators, the name of the attraction or operator must match the name appearing on Google and must be easily discoverable on the landing page without requiring any additional clicks or interactions by the user.
- Each partner site is designed differently. To help describe the requirements for prominent placement, here are examples of what’s likely to be considered prominent placement:
- The product is larger than other products and in the highest position on the page.
- The product is highlighted on the page, either in size or differentiating colors.
- The product is pinned to the right or left side of the page, distinct from other products on the page.
- Avoid layouts that hide key elements of the landing page. For example, a pop-up or download banner shouldn’t cover or distract from essential information for customers.
Examples of acceptable landing page designs:
Example of a landing page design that violates policy:
Price
Learn more about Things to do price policies.
Restricted businesses
- Inventory must adhere to existing Google policies, such as the dangerous products or services guidelines and the inappropriate content policy. For example, activities involving explosives, guns, weapons, recreational drugs, or tobacco, or promoting hatred, intolerance, discrimination, or violence aren’t permitted.
- The following activities may be allowable for Things to do even if typically not allowed per Google Ads policy:
- Activities that include alcohol (for example, wine or beer tasting), where permitted.
- Archery, axe throwing, laser tag, and paintball.
- Culturally relevant activities that include restricted products. For example, cigar factory tour or visiting a tobacco farm.
- Transit-specific businesses (such as airport pickups, car services, and rental cars) aren’t permitted. Tours that include transport can be offered, such as a bus tour or boat tour. Transportation services that specifically serve a touristic or local recreational purpose, like bike, boat, e-scooter, or kayak rentals used to experience a city (and not for commuting), are allowed.
- Movie tickets are not allowed. To learn more about integrating Movies, read Movie carousel (Movie) structured data.
- Tickets for one-time events like Comic Con, concerts, festivals, or UFC matches are disallowed. To learn more about integrating Events, read Events Overview and Eligibility.
- Recurring activities in the same venue such as artist residencies, broadway shows, museum exhibits, holiday markets, haunted houses, and recreational sports leagues are permitted. Recurring activities that have an end date must be removed from the feed once the activity is no longer valid.
- Virtual experiences that have no real world component aren’t supported at this time. Inventory must take place in a physical location. VR/AR experiences taking place at the POI are allowed.
- Overnight hotel stays and multi-day cruises aren’t eligible. This includes local vacation or “staycation” packages. Day uses of hotel facilities, such as for a spa visit, are permitted, as well as overnight activities where the lodgings aren't the focus, such as a multi-day wine tour.
- Restaurant coupons for individual meals aren’t permitted. Tours based on local cuisine or food-related events are permitted. This includes neighborhood tours with stops at multiple shops and restaurants. Meals are permitted as part of a performance or other experience.
- Listings related to elections or political events aren't allowed. Advertisers should also refer to Google Ads policies regarding political content.
Learn more about our policy for Other restricted businesses.
About our policies
Things to do enables businesses of all sizes, from around the world, to promote a wide variety of products and websites on Google and across our network. We want to help you reach existing and potential customers and audiences. However, to help create a safe and positive experience for users, we listen to their feedback and concerns about the types of listings they see. We also regularly review changes in online trends and practices, industry norms, and regulations. And finally, in crafting our policies, we also think about our values and culture as a company, as well as operational, technical, and business considerations. As a result, we have created a set of policies that apply to all listings on the Google Network.
Google requires that partners comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including the ones described above and any other applicable Google policies. It's important that you familiarize yourself with and keep up to date on these requirements for the places where your business operates, as well as any other places your listings are showing. When we find content that violates these requirements, we may block it from appearing, and in cases of repeated or egregious violations, we may stop you from listing with us.
Policy enforcement and appeals
Things to do policies are enforced through a mixture of automated checks and manual checks by human raters. Depending on the severity of the violation, enforcement action can range from disallowing a listing to surface on specific modules to the listing being entirely deactivated.
You can find the list of issues flagged by Google in the Things to Do Center, and in the case where you disagree with the actions taken or the offending issue has been resolved, you can request the product to be reviewed directly on Things to Do Center by selecting the products and clicking the “Request review” button next to the issue in question.
Reviews are completed by our support team within 3 business days and the result of the appeal will be made available directly within the Things to Do Center. If the appeal is unsuccessful and you would like to further escalate the issue, you can reach out to [email protected] where our team can help.
In the cases where an account may need to be suspended due to repeated violations or systematic product quality problems, a manual review is performed by the Things to do team and the partner will be contacted directly by email to be notified of the situation.
Google reserves the right to suspend your account if you repeatedly submit unfounded product appeals or unfounded product takedown requests.
Applicable only to users in the EU
If you’re a business user based in the EU, additional redress options including an alternative dispute resolution may be available.
Learn more about resolution options.