Start by understanding exactly what was flagged and what Google's policy requires from call directory and forwarding services.
Check the inbox of the email address connected to your Google account. Google sends a notification naming the exact policy violated — in this case, "Call Directory and Forwarding Services." The message often lists the specific ads or campaigns involved. Keep it open throughout this process as you will need details from it when writing your appeal.
Log in to your Google Ads account. Click the tools icon (the wrench symbol at the top right), then select "Policy Manager." Find the specific disapproval or account action. Read it fully, take a screenshot, and write down every ad, campaign name, and landing page URL listed. Each item must be fixed individually — missing even one will cause your appeal to fail.
This policy targets services that: charge callers to be connected to businesses whose phone numbers are freely available elsewhere, pose as official company or government directories without being affiliated, use premium-rate numbers to connect people to standard-rate lines without clearly disclosing the cost upfront, advertise misleading phone numbers that look like official lines for banks, utilities, or public services, or charge for directory information that is publicly and freely accessible. If your service falls into any of these categories, substantial changes are required before you can advertise on Google.
Make a written list of every item mentioned in the violation notice. You must fix all of them. Google's review team checks each flagged item separately, and leaving even one unresolved will result in your appeal being rejected. You will then need to wait another 3 to 14 business days before you can try again, during which time your campaigns remain offline.
Visit support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6008942 and locate the "Call directory and forwarding services" section. Read it in full. This page lists every behaviour that is prohibited, every disclosure that is required, and whether any exceptions or approved variations exist for your type of service. Understanding the full policy helps you spot issues your own audit may have missed that could still cause your appeal to fail.
Before fixing anything externally, you must honestly review whether your service model itself is compliant with Google's requirements.
Google prohibits advertising services where callers are charged more than a standard local or national call rate simply for being connected through your service. If your numbers are premium-rate (such as 0900, 0870, 090x, 118x, or similar prefix numbers in your country), callers are paying a higher-than-standard rate. Identify every phone number in your service and confirm whether each one charges callers at an above-standard rate. If any does, this is a primary reason for your violation and must be addressed directly.
If your service charges a fee to connect a caller to a business, government department, or utility company whose direct phone number is publicly listed and freely callable at no extra charge, this is the core of what Google's policy prohibits. For example: charging a caller to connect them to their bank's customer service line, when that bank's number is freely listed on the bank's own website. Review every number or business your service connects callers to and assess whether those numbers are already publicly available for free.
Review your website, ads, and phone number listings to see if anything implies you are the official contact number, official helpline, or official directory for a company or government body you are not affiliated with. This includes: using a company's name or logo without permission, using domain names that contain another company's brand name, using phrases like "official helpline," "national helpline," or "authorised contact centre" for organisations you have no connection to, or designing your website to look like the official site of a well-known company.
Charging callers to be connected to emergency services — police, fire, ambulance, coastguard, or any emergency line — is both illegal in virtually every country and a permanent violation of Google's policy. Charging callers to connect to government information lines, NHS lines, crisis lines, or similar public welfare services is also prohibited. If your service forwards any calls to emergency or public welfare numbers, these must be provided at zero cost to the caller. Any advertising of such services that implies a charge will never be permitted on Google.
Beyond Google's policy, your call service must comply with the telecommunications regulations in every country it operates in. In the UK this means compliance with Ofcom's rules and the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) Code of Practice. In the US it means FTC and FCC rules on premium rate services. In the EU it means the Electronic Communications Code. Review whether your service currently holds all required registrations and follows the applicable code of practice for premium or connection services in your market.
After completing the checks above, make an honest assessment: is your current service fundamentally prohibited (such as charging to connect callers to freely available numbers while posing as an official service), or is it a legitimately value-added service with compliance issues that can be fixed (such as missing disclosures or misleading ad copy)? If the core service model is prohibited, no amount of cosmetic fixes to your website or ads will resolve the violation. In that case, the service itself must be fundamentally restructured before advertising on Google is possible.
If your service can be made compliant, your website must be completely transparent about what you charge, who you are, and what you provide.
Every page of your website that displays or promotes a chargeable phone number must clearly state the cost of calling that number before the visitor dials it. "Above the fold" means visible without scrolling — the cost disclosure must be one of the first things a visitor sees. The disclosure must state the exact cost per minute or per call in the currency of your market, or at minimum a clear statement such as "Calls cost X pence per minute from a BT landline. Calls from mobile phones and other networks may vary." Burying this information in small print, in a footer, or in a separate terms page does not satisfy this requirement.
Every page on your website must clearly state that your service is an independent directory or connection service and has no affiliation with the companies, businesses, or organisations it connects callers to. Use plain language: "This is an independent call connection service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to [company name or category]. [Company name]'s direct contact number may be available at no extra charge on their official website." This statement must be prominent — not hidden — on every relevant page.
Go through your website carefully and remove: any logos, brand names, or visual styling that is copied from or closely imitates the official websites of companies or government bodies, any wording that implies official status ("Official helpline," "Authorised contact," "National service," etc.), any use of a company's trademarked name or branding without a licence, and any design choices that make your page look like the official website of a bank, utility, telecoms company, government department, or other organisation. Replace with clearly branded content that identifies your own business.
Your company's full legal name, company registration number, registered office address, and any telecommunications or directory service registration numbers must be clearly displayed on your website — at minimum in the footer of every page and on your About or Contact page. This demonstrates that you are a legitimate, identifiable business and not a fraudulent operation. Google's review team and regulatory bodies both check for this, and its absence is treated as a significant red flag that can prevent your appeal from succeeding.
For your service to be considered legitimate, it must provide a genuine benefit to callers beyond simply connecting them to a number they could find themselves. This added value could include: 24/7 automated connection when a business is otherwise closed, faster routing through complex phone menu systems, guaranteed connection to a live agent, multi-lingual operator support, appointment scheduling before connection, or other meaningful services. Document this clearly on your website. If you cannot articulate genuine added value that justifies the charge, your service model may not be compliant under Google's policy.
Your website must have a clear Terms of Service that: explains exactly what service you provide, states all charges including per-minute call rates and any connection fees, explains that you are an independent service not affiliated with the businesses you connect to, states whether calls are recorded and why, explains what happens if a caller is connected to an incorrect number, and provides your refund or complaints procedure. Link this document clearly from every page of your website, ideally in the header or footer, and ensure it is written in plain, clear language — not dense legal text.
Callers must be able to complain and request a refund if they were charged for a poor connection, an incorrect number, or a service that did not deliver as advertised. Your complaints procedure must be easy to find (not buried in a footer link nobody reads), explain how to make a complaint, what your response timeframe is, and how callers can escalate to the relevant regulator or ombudsman if their complaint is unresolved. In the UK this means the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA). Include this information clearly on a dedicated page or section of your website.
How your numbers are presented and what callers hear when they dial are both subject to Google's policy and telecommunications regulations.
Every phone number displayed on your website or in your ads must be accompanied by an immediately visible cost disclosure. The disclosure must be in the same visual area as the number — directly next to it, above it, or immediately below it — so a visitor cannot see the number without also seeing the cost. The format should be clear and human-readable: "Calls cost 13p/min from a BT landline + your access charge." If your website lists multiple numbers for different businesses or services, each number must have its own cost disclosure displayed alongside it.
In many countries — including the UK, where the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) enforces this — any premium-rate or above-standard-rate connection service must play an automated announcement to the caller before the chargeable call begins. This announcement must state the cost of the call and give the caller an opportunity to hang up before charges start. Implement this for every chargeable number in your service. In the UK, the PSA requires this announcement for all services charging above a specific threshold. Check the specific requirement for your market and implement it for every applicable number.
Most countries require premium-rate and paid connection service numbers to be registered with the appropriate regulatory authority before they can be used commercially. In the UK, this is the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA). In the US, premium services are regulated by the FCC and must comply with specific disclosure requirements. In Australia, it is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Register every chargeable number in your service with the relevant body, obtain your registration or compliance number, and display this on your website.
Deliberately introducing delays, hold music, extended introductions, or unnecessary steps before connecting a caller to the intended destination — specifically to increase the duration of the call and therefore the charge — is both illegal under most telecommunications regulations and a direct violation of Google's policy. Review your call flow to ensure callers are connected promptly and efficiently. Any hold time must serve a genuine functional purpose (such as identifying the destination service) and must not be designed to extend call duration or increase revenue at the caller's expense.
Domain names or URL paths that contain the names, brands, or trademarks of companies or government bodies you are not affiliated with — for example, bankname-helpline.co.uk, official-hmrc-number.com, or similar — are a form of impersonation and are prohibited under both Google's policy and in many cases under trademark law. Review every domain name and URL associated with your service. If any implies an official connection to another organisation, you must either cease using those domains or obtain written permission from the trademark owner before continuing.
Test every phone number in your directory or forwarding service by dialling it from an external phone not connected to your system. Confirm that: the call is answered at the correct destination, the pre-call charge announcement is playing where required, the connection quality is acceptable, there are no misleading messages during the call, and the caller is not subjected to any unnecessary delay or upselling before reaching their intended destination. Document your testing results as evidence of due diligence for your appeal to Google.
Every element of your ads — copy, keywords, extensions, and landing pages — must comply with Google's policy before any ad can be resubmitted.
Go through every active, paused, and recently ended campaign. Identify and pause or delete every ad that: promotes a number that charges callers to connect to a freely available number, implies official affiliation with a company or government body, uses another company's name or brand without permission, lacks the required cost disclosure, links to a non-compliant landing page, or contains misleading claims about the nature of the service. Keeping policy-violating ads in your account, even paused, negatively affects your appeal outcome and can prolong your account's suspension.
For every ad you intend to keep running, include the call cost in the ad copy itself. This can be included in a description line: for example, "Calls from 13p/min from BT landlines. Calls from mobiles cost more." Google's character limits may require abbreviation, but the cost must be present and clear. An ad that does not disclose the call cost — even if the landing page does — will continue to be disapproved. The cost disclosure in the ad is separate from and in addition to the disclosure on the landing page.
Bidding on keywords that are another company's name, brand, or trademarked terms — specifically to intercept people searching for that company's direct contact number — is a form of misleading advertising and violates both Google's trademark policy and the Call Directory and Forwarding Services policy. Go through every keyword list in every campaign. Remove all keywords that are another organisation's brand name, trademarked term, or official phone number. You may advertise your general call connection or directory services using generic descriptive keywords.
Visit every landing page URL used in your campaigns from an incognito browser window, exactly as a visitor from an ad would see it. Confirm on each page: the call cost is clearly visible above the fold, the independence statement is present, no official affiliation is implied, no other company's branding or trademark is used without permission, the complaints procedure is accessible, and the value-added service description is clear. An ad with compliant copy linking to a non-compliant landing page will be disapproved every time regardless of what else you have fixed.
Ad extensions — sitelink extensions, callout extensions, call extensions, location extensions, and structured snippets — are subject to the same Call Directory and Forwarding Services policy as your main ad copy. Audit every extension at account, campaign, and ad group level. Remove any that: imply official status, use another organisation's brand name, display a chargeable number without a cost disclosure, or link to a non-compliant landing page. Call extensions in particular must display the actual cost of calling if a chargeable number is used.
Review every headline and description line in every ad. Remove: company names used without permission, phrases like "Official helpline," "Direct line to [company]," "Authorised connection service," or any other language that implies your service is the official or direct contact method for a company or organisation you are not affiliated with. Replace with honest descriptions of your own service: "Independent Call Connection Service — Fast, 24/7 Connection to [Category of Services]. Calls from 13p/min." Accuracy and honesty in the ad copy is the fundamental requirement.
Confirm every fix is working, document your evidence thoroughly, submit a single well-prepared appeal, and build processes to prevent this recurring.
Open an incognito or private browsing window (Chrome: Ctrl+Shift+N / Mac: Cmd+Shift+N) and visit every page that was flagged or that you have changed. Confirm: the call cost is visible immediately without scrolling, the independence statement is present, no official affiliation is implied, no other company's branding is used, your company details are displayed, the complaints procedure is accessible, and the Terms of Service link is visible. Then repeat on a mobile phone to check the mobile version. Most of Google's automated checks simulate a mobile visit, so the mobile view must be fully compliant.
Before submitting your appeal, document every fix in a specific, numbered format. Example: "1. Added call cost disclosure (13p/min from BT landlines) next to every phone number on all 6 landing pages on [date]. 2. Added independence statement to all pages: 'This is an independent call connection service, not affiliated with [company].' 3. Removed [company name] logo and branding from website on [date]. 4. Registered service with PSA — registration number: XXXX. 5. Implemented pre-call charge announcement on all numbers on [date]. 6. Removed all branded keywords from campaign [name]." Specific, dated evidence is significantly more convincing than vague statements.
Log in to Google Ads → tools icon (wrench) → Policy Manager → find the disapproved item or account action → click "Appeal" → paste your numbered evidence list. Submit once and wait. Submitting the same appeal multiple times does not speed things up — it can trigger additional scrutiny and delay the review. If rejected, read Google's response carefully, address any remaining issues they identify, then submit again. Google typically responds within 3 to 14 business days. Monitor your email and dashboard daily.
Set calendar reminders 90 days before the expiry of every registration, licence, or code of practice membership related to your call services — PSA registration, Ofcom compliance status, or equivalent in your market. If any registration lapses, your Google Ads will be suspended again even if you were previously compliant. Google periodically rechecks advertiser credentials in regulated sectors, and an expired registration will trigger a new disapproval without further warning. The cost of renewal is always less than the revenue lost from even a short campaign suspension.
Call directory and forwarding service compliance is complex, combining Google's advertising policy with telecommunications regulations that vary significantly by country. If you receive repeated violations despite making changes, operate in multiple countries, or are uncertain whether your current setup fully complies with both Google's requirements and applicable telecommunications law in your markets, engage a specialist in advertising compliance for telecoms and connection services. Professional guidance typically costs far less than the revenue lost during repeated campaign downtime and protects you from regulatory fines as well as advertising suspensions.
Get This Resolved the Right Way
Call directory and forwarding service compliance involves both Google's advertising rules and telecommunications regulations. Our team at UmairConsult helps businesses navigate both, fix violations at their root, and keep campaigns running.
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