Why aren’t my extensions being approved?

First, a quick terminology check: “extensions” are now “assets,” and “not approved” isn’t the same as “not showing”

Assets can fail for two very different reasons

In Google Ads, what most advertisers still call extensions (sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, price, promotion, call, business name/logo, lead forms, images, etc.) are collectively called assets. When an asset “isn’t being approved,” it usually means it’s disapproved (policy violation) or not eligible (missing a requirement). But there’s a second common scenario: the asset is approved and still doesn’t show because the system predicts low performance, your ad rank/position doesn’t support it, you don’t have enough eligible assets, or the format simply isn’t eligible for that campaign/ad type.

Before you rewrite anything, confirm which problem you actually have. “Approved but not serving” is an optimization issue; “Disapproved/Not eligible” is an approval and compliance issue.

Where to find the real reason (and not guess)

In the Google Ads interface, the fastest path is to review the asset’s Status and then add/expand the Policy details view for deeper context. The Policy details language is often very specific (for example, destination mismatch, punctuation/symbols, repetition, irrelevant business name, unacceptable phone number) and it determines your next step: edit and resubmit versus fix the destination versus complete verification versus appeal.

If you’ve already fixed the issue and the asset is still disapproved, don’t keep making tiny edits hoping it “unsticks.” For many policy-driven disapprovals, the correct move is to submit an appeal/request a review from within the account after the underlying issue is resolved.

The most common reasons assets don’t get approved (and how to fix each)

1) Editorial issues: punctuation, capitalization, repetition, spacing, and “salesy” formatting

Editorial disapprovals are the most frequent and the easiest to overlook because the text “looks fine” to humans, but not to the review system. The biggest triggers are attention-grabbing punctuation, gimmicky symbols, repeated characters, inconsistent capitalization, and awkward spacing. Another classic issue is duplicating the same phrase across multiple assets (or repeating what’s already in the ad text), which can be considered unnecessary repetition and get assets rejected or prevented from serving together.

Also watch for policy conflicts between what you think is an “asset” field versus what the system considers “ad text.” For example, inserting a phone number into ad text (instead of using the correct phone/call format) can trigger editorial/policy problems.

2) Destination problems: “destination not working,” “not crawlable,” or “mismatch”

A huge percentage of asset disapprovals are really landing page problems wearing a different label. If the review crawler can’t reliably access your final URL, you’ll see variations of destination not working or destination not crawlable. Common culprits include intermittent server errors, blocked crawlers, slow responses, broken mobile experiences, malformed redirects, and pages that behave differently by device or location.

Destination mismatch is another big one, especially when tracking and redirects are involved. If your visible or submitted URL ultimately lands on a different domain than expected, you can trigger mismatch disapprovals. This matters a lot for assets that contain their own URLs (sitelinks, price, promotions) because they’re expected to align with the advertiser/domain experience.

3) Sitelink assets: duplicate link text, off-domain URLs, or “decorative” punctuation

Sitelinks get rejected more often than they should because advertisers reuse link text (even if the URLs are different). Each sitelink needs distinct, meaningful link text. Another common issue is using URLs that don’t align with the ad’s domain. Limited exceptions exist for third-party destinations, but the safer operational rule is: keep sitelink URLs on the same domain as your final URL unless you have a strong, compliant reason and extremely clear labeling.

Finally, sitelink text and descriptions can’t rely on decorative symbols or punctuation just to draw the eye. If the character doesn’t add meaning, remove it.

4) Callout assets and structured snippets: “extra flair” and repeated claims

Callouts and structured snippets are meant to add clarity, not hype. They’re frequently disapproved for punctuation/symbols used as attention devices, or for repeating the same claim across multiple assets (or repeating ad copy). Structured snippets also get flagged when advertisers turn them into mini-ads (promotional wording) instead of factual categories, features, or lists.

A simple fix that works surprisingly well is to rewrite callouts and snippet values as plain, literal facts a customer could verify on the landing page.

5) Price assets: putting price/promos in the wrong fields, or sending users off-domain

Price assets are structured, and the fields matter. A common mistake is squeezing “$X” or promo language into the wrong place (like a header or description), which can cause disapproval. Another frequent trigger is using a price asset URL that doesn’t match the domain of the text ad it’s attached to.

One operational detail many teams miss: after you edit and save a corrected asset, it typically goes back into review quickly (often within about one business day), but some assets take longer if they require a more complex review. Plan your launch timelines accordingly, especially around promotions.

6) Promotion assets: invalid promo code content and “offer doesn’t match destination”

Promotion assets often fail approval because the promo code field contains something that is not actually a promo code (for example, descriptive copy, phone text, or a marketing statement). The second big issue is “unavailable offers” and “unclear relevance”: the promotion must be easy to find, accurate, and consistent with what users see after the click.

If you’re running short-term offers, make sure the landing page is updated before you submit the asset. Submitting first and “we’ll update the site later today” is one of the fastest ways to get stuck in disapproval cycles.

7) Business name & logo assets: verification mismatch, name prominence, and logo quality

Business name/logo assets can be deceptively strict. The most common failure is the business name not exactly matching either the verified legal name or the verified domain identity. Even small differences (spacing, abbreviations, punctuation) can cause rejection. Another frequent issue is name prominence: the business name must be clearly present on the landing page experience, not buried in a footer image or only on a separate “About” page.

Logos can also be rejected for quality reasons (blurry, poorly cropped, too small to be legible) or because the content is not appropriate. And even when business information assets are approved, they are not guaranteed to serve in all auctions; eligibility can be automatically evaluated over time.

8) Image assets: overlays, whitespace, collages, blur, and restricted vertical eligibility

Image assets have both technical specs and content rules. Disapprovals commonly come from text/graphic overlays (including logo-style overlays used as the “image”), excessive blank space, collaged images, distorted or poorly cropped images, and blurry/unrecognizable visuals. There are also account and vertical eligibility requirements; for example, some sensitive categories are not eligible for image assets, and certain account history requirements may apply.

If you’re trying to “force branding” into images, do it through clean creative, not by turning the asset into a banner graphic. Keep at least one version per aspect ratio that is clean, clear, and without overlay-style text.

9) Lead form assets: privacy policy, spend/standing requirements, and restricted categories

Lead form assets come with additional gates beyond typical asset review. At minimum, you need a compliant privacy policy, and you must provide it during setup so it appears at the end of the form. Eligibility can also depend on account standing, vertical/sub-vertical, and (for certain campaign types and experiences) spend thresholds and verification. Lead forms are also more restrictive on content categories than many advertisers expect, so the same business that can run standard ads might still be blocked from using lead forms for certain topics.

10) Call assets and phone-based formats: unacceptable, unverified, or non-local phone numbers

Phone-based assets commonly fail because the number is inactive, irrelevant to the business, routes incorrectly, lacks expected services (like working voicemail in some contexts), or is not appropriate for the targeted location. Certain number types (for example, premium-rate or other problematic formats) can trigger disapproval. If your organization uses tracking numbers, confirm they’re implemented in a way that doesn’t break the review requirements.

A repeatable approval workflow (the one my team uses to fix this fast)

Use this checklist before you rewrite anything

• Confirm the status type: Is the asset disapproved/not eligible, or approved but not serving?
• Read Policy details for the exact trigger (don’t rely on the short status label alone).
• Classify the failure: editorial (text), destination (landing page), eligibility (verification/spend/vertical), or format-specific rules (sitelink repetition, price field misuse, promo code format, phone requirements).
• Fix the underlying root cause (especially landing page or verification issues) before making more copy edits.
• Edit once, cleanly, then resubmit and wait for review rather than “micro-editing” multiple times.
• Appeal/request review if you’re confident it’s compliant and the disapproval persists after the fix.

How to prevent future disapprovals (without slowing your launch process)

Most approval problems come from inconsistent operating standards across teams: one person writes sitelinks like navigation labels, another writes them like ad copy, someone else adds symbols, and suddenly you have repetition and editorial violations everywhere. The fix is to standardize how assets are written and validated.

Practically, that means keeping asset text literal and non-hypey, ensuring every URL resolves cleanly on common devices without suspicious redirects, making sure your business identity is consistent across verification, ads, and landing pages, and building assets in sets that are unique from each other (especially sitelinks, callouts, and snippets). If you do those things, approvals become routine—and you spend your time on performance instead of resubmissions.

In Google Ads, “extensions” are now called assets, and when something isn’t getting approved it usually comes down to either a true policy/requirements issue (shown as Disapproved or Not eligible) or a “serving” issue where the asset is technically approved but rarely shows because of ad rank, predicted performance, or campaign format limitations; the fastest way to diagnose it is to open each asset’s Status and Policy details, then fix the root cause (often editorial formatting like excessive punctuation/capitalization or repetition, or destination problems like broken/slow pages, redirects, or domain mismatches) before resubmitting or appealing. If you want a more repeatable way to spot these issues early and keep assets consistent across accounts, Blobr connects to your Google Ads and runs specialized AI agents that continuously review things like ad copy and landing page alignment, surfacing clear, prioritized fixes you can apply when you’re ready.